VI Asset Management

VI Asset Management¹ (VIAM) is an established asset management group with over US$11bn in AUM across multiple asset classes and key business centres in Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea. VIAM's new fund, VI Asia Private Credit Fund LP (VIAPC), provides financing solutions to SMEs in the Asia-Pacific region.

“We provide financing in situations that a traditional bank wouldn’t typically consider. For example, a SME might need capital to reorganize its shareholding structure or for an add-on acquisition,” explained Roger Moh, Managing Director, Head of Capital Solutions at VIAM.

Taking an industry-agnostic approach, investees typically include companies that are underserved by traditional financing channels with EBITDA between US$10 and US$50mn. The fund follows a hands-on, almost private equity-like approach to investing, and their strategy is built around providing portfolio companies with what they call ‘transitional capital’.

“The reason it's ‘transitional’ is because our capital is intended to help borrowers achieve two objectives: the first is to transition them from their current state through a period of growth; and the second is to demonstrate ESG improvement within the business,” said Sam Clothier, Executive Director, Business Development at VIAM.

¹ This name includes all affiliates.

Prior to choosing Preqin, VIAM faced two main challenges: identifying potential investors and benchmarking their fund performance. Solving these challenges was therefore essential to effectively plan their fundraising strategy and achieve optimal results.

“Asset managers with large business development teams tend to have good visibility over investors and their future investment plans,” said Sam. “For asset managers with smaller teams, it’s very time-consuming speaking with hundreds, if not thousands, of prospective investors to accurately map out their upcoming investment allocations.”

Likewise, the ability to benchmark their performance against the competition was a key requirement. “We know what our investment returns are, but we needed the tools – and most importantly the data – to understand and compare our performance relative to our peers,” he continued.

VIAM chose Preqin for its comprehensive alternatives industry insights. “Access to accurate fund performance benchmarks is a challenge in our industry,” explained Roger. “As a fund manager, you need to know how you perform relative to the market in order to have informed discussions with your investors.”

With access to Preqin’s expansive database of key contacts in the alternatives industry, VIAM’s Business Development team are able to easily find investors with open requests for proposal (RFPs) and those interested in Asian private credit.

“It's incredible to think that we could miss meeting with someone who may want to invest into a strategy that we offer,” Sam added. “I recently found an investor in the building next door to us who is interested in our strategy. Without Preqin we would likely have never made that connection, not to mention connections with others around the globe.”

• From the start of their journey with Preqin, VIAM subscribed to multiple asset classes to plan their fund strategy more effectively
• Access to a database of contacts tailored to specific geographies and asset classes enabled them to accelerate networking and outreach
• Preqin’s industry-leading ESG data and solutions have been invaluable for a fund manager with a focus on rapidly growing SMEs
• Easy-to-use tools, services, and benchmarks helped to streamline their fundraising efforts

As a result of their success, Sam and other members of his team believe that Preqin is an excellent choice for managers with smaller business development teams. “You might not have the biggest budget, but Preqin offers excellent value for money in terms of overall spend.”

Going forward, VIAM is looking to improve the visibility of their evergreen fund to investors, and so they are contributing their own data and documentation to Preqin Pro. In doing so, they are able to ensure that they have a comprehensive profile, with all the key information an investor might need.

VIAM’s inaugural Asia private credit fund is structured as an evergreen fund with a periodic and controlled redemption mechanism that allows for the ability to balance investor’s liquidity needs and the manager’s ability to actively manage the fund. The evergreen structure for private debt, which doesn’t hold public securities for liquidity purposes, is more common in North America and Europe than Asia. In some regards this makes VIAPC a pioneer, and so they feel sharing information through Preqin is essential to increase investor understanding of this structure.

With their familiarity with the platform growing by the day, members of the VIAM team are happy to recommend Preqin. “Ultimately, Preqin helps you to focus your efforts and open up conversations with the audiences you need to reach. We look forward to learning how other Preqin products can benefit us such as their ESG Solutions.”

VIAM is an established asset management group with over US$11bn in AUM across multiple asset classes and key business centres in Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea. VIAM’s unique private credit offering is backed by over 20 years of investment experience, an extensive network across Asia that delivers unique proprietary sourcing capabilities, and core dedicated investment and research teams that share their ESG values.

Founded by one of Asia’s most successful technology entrepreneurs, VIAM was developed from the ground up to embrace the advantages of employing the latest and best-in-class technologies to help power efficiencies and meet the ever-increasing informational demands of its fast-growing investment management business. To learn more about VIAM or its funds, please contact ir@viamc.com.