20 l November 2015 Money Compass

he Private Equity (PE) as financing and investing channel is still relatively new among the SMEs and investors in Malaysia. However, the PE industry is expected to play more prominent and crucial role in our economy and financial industry, especially in tough economic times where many businesses, who facing severe financial difficulties, find themselves inaccessible to convention-al financing channel and looking for help for their struggling business. PE is more than a source of funding. Besides fund the business, PE also helps businesses to address critical problems and challenges through professional advices, as well as assist them to create more value. This provides investor a great opportunity to gain lucrative investment return

through participation in these compa-nies. Dato Sri Dr. Sherwin Chew, the founder and Managing Director of Potential Excelerate IntGroup (PE Group) said, in an exclusive interview with Money Compass that, public awareness on private equity is relative-ly low in Asia, including- Malaysia.

The Malaysian investors tend to be more conservative and prefer to invest their money in conventional banking financial and insurance products. When come to alternative investment options such as private equity fund, local investors tend to have lower acceptance level.“While Malaysian investors are generally well-educated, they are quite conservative. Investors here will put their money in only when they can see the actual result. ”

Nevertheless, Dr. Chew strongly believed that the awareness and acceptance level on PE among the Malaysian businesses and investors will gradually increase, especially in economic and financial hard times. Today, the banking sector seems reluctant to provide funding in view of economic slowdown. Hence, businesses find themselves not easy to access financing through conventional financial institutions. On the other hand, investors are also desperately seeking their “safe-haven” asset all around the world, under this circumstance. He pointed out that, many businesses were hit harder by the recent economic slowdown because they could not weather the storm. In this regards, PE operators such as PE Group can play a critical role to assist businesses to overcome their crisis. PE Group is a Hybrid PE fund that consolidates capital, human resources, capabilities and networking to help the businesses to expand their business or explore new business opportunity and create greater value for their business. In turn, this will ensure investors gain a higher return of investment.

Besides capital injection, PE Group is also assume role as professional business consultant to help the businesses to complete their goal via corporate strategy planning, financing or even prepare for future IPO. Moreover,-

PE Group: From Local to World Class PE Giant

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A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR PE INDUSTRY

Special Interview

Dato Sri Dr. Sherwin Chew, the founder and Managing Director of Potential Excelerate IntGroup (PE Group)

Money Compass 21 l November 2015

PE Group is also continuously providing professional advice to the businesses to address various critical issues or challenges.

“As PE firm, we manage the fund and invest in high potential or quality companies on behalf of our investors. Thus, we are responsible to protect our investor’s interest. We have to make sure the investee companies achieve their KPI. We will give a helping hand when necessary in order to assist the company to achieve its target. By doing so, we can ensure our investors get their expected return.” He said.

PE Group was incorporated in 2012, under the leadership of Dr. Chew. The company has successfully achieved numerous records in past two to three years. This included create 15 millionaires in one year, assist a number of Chinese companies to double their revenue in past three years, provide professional advisory and financial service to help several Chinese companies to list their business in UK and US.

While the PE Group‘s management team is relatively young by age, nevertheless, Chew emphasised that a combination of smart and talented people with different professional background and capabilities, can work together to address most challenging investment projects. This should be, in fact, considered as a comparative advantage to the company. How far a company can goes is depending on human capital. If we want to mobilise a group of talented people and fully utilise their capability to deliver the job, we need to create a company culture. This will make people work together and honour to each other. He strongly believes in trust. A key to success for any company is a trust that established between investor and partner. PE Group’s success stories in past three years or so are all about

trust. To him, trust worth more than the money you have.

The investment philosophy of PE Group is simple: diversity. The company always maintain a diversi-fied investment portfolio. “We will never confine ourselves to certain type or size of company. Even a good fresh concept will be considered if we feel that this concept is viable and workable, after conduct our profes-sional research and due diligence. For us, most important thing is still the value of the company or project. ”Basically, there are three criteria to select a PE project:

The business model. PE firm always looking at companies that has a creative business model The management team. The level of competitiveness of management team, especially for new company is crucial for PE firm to consider. This is because the management team’s capability will directly affect the market competitiveness and leader-ship of the company Liquidity. One of the major concerns among PE firm is the liquidity of investment project. The possibility of an investor to exit and cash out the investment will make a different on PE firm’s decision.

No company is perfect. There is where PE firm like PE Group come into picture. The PE firm will assist these potential companies to unleash their business value by enhancing management team competitiveness, or create exit channels such as merger and acquisition or IPO.

Being a “Made in Malaysia” PE firm, PE Group has an ambition to become a world class PE giant. “We want to become a world class player in PE industry. Malaysia is our base. Here in Malaysia have a lot of untapped business opportunities waiting for us. The local SMEs are generally lack of financial knowledge and how to leverage on PE to growth their business. This is where we can help.”

Going forward, PE Group will extend its footprint to ASEAN market, and further to Asia region. Currently, the company will focuses on populated countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam as these markets represent a huge market potential.

The ultimate goal for PE Group is to invest in 30 to 50 companies in Asia region, range from ICT, fashion, and infrastructure project. PE Group also aims to list its business in London in next few years.

Special Interview

TALENT AND TRUST THAT MATTER

PE GROUP’s INVEST-MENT PHILOSOPHY

FUTURE PLAN