Actis raising $750-mn Asia fund to buy StanChart’s property portfolio

UK-based private equity (PE) fund Actis has started raising a $750-million (~51.3 billion) real estate fund to acquire the Asia realty portfolio of Standard Chartered’s (StanChart’s) private equity.

Actis, part of the British government’s development arm, CDC, signed an agreement with StanChart earlier this year. The latter PE’s team is set to join Actis.

Titled ‘ Actis Asia Real Estate Fund-1,’ Actis is raising the fund from institutional investors across different countries, sources said.

“It started the fund raising a couple of months back and plans to close the fund by July,” said the sources.

A public relations executive for Actis declined to comment on specific fund raising initiatives.

StanChart’s real estate portfolio is spread across India, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.

Recently, US-based Blackstone raised $7.1 billion for what it called its second regional “opportunistic” Asia real estate fund. Its first Asia-focused property fund, which closed in 2014,

raised $5.08 billion. StanChart’s Asia realty portfolio has three joint ventures in India — with Tata Realty &

Infrastructure for buying commercial assets, Mahindra LifeSpaces for residential projects. The Shapoorji Pallonji group for affordable housing.

According to sources, Actis has fairly successful investments in energy, infrastructure, general PE, real estate and so on. “They have successful investments in Africa and are now looking to do investments in Asia. They are looking at real estate as a big growth area,” said one.

In another instance, US-based PE fund manager Apollo Global Management is in final talks with global banking major JPMorgan to acquire the latter’s property fund in the country, said a source. The fund has assets of around $360 million (~24.1 billion), also likely to be the size of the deal, say sources.

Actis has invested around $7.8 billion and realised $9.3 billion from 160 full and partial exits. Funds managed by Actis have made around 200 investments across our chosen consumer good, energy, financial services, health care, industrials and real estate.

In 2016, it raised a $500-million African real estate fund. This February, it sold 79.5 per cent majority stake in Mentor Management, a Kenyan project management company, to Turner & Townsend, a global construction and management consultant.