Squadron Capital hires a head of investor relations

Fund-of-private-equity-funds (FOPEF) firm Squadron Capital has hired Chau Ly in a newly created role as director of investor relations and business development.

She will be based in Hong Kong and report to Squadron Capital CEO David Pierce. Chau used to work in New York for a global private equity fund of funds named Siguler Guff.

Squadron has also announced that Anand Ramachandran Prasanna and Pratima Divgi have both been promoted from associates to investment directors. Both joined in 2008, Divgi from Indian fund-of-funds manager Capvent India.

They are involved in managing Squadron Capital’s series of private equity funds of funds. Squadron Asia Pacific Fund, which is just over $300 million in size, is now in the final stages of being committed. "Rising valuations are one result of capital inflows," said Pierce. "It is a mixed blessing for the industry, of course, and many of the smartest general partners are focused on growing and realising existing investments.”

Squadron Asia Pacific Fund II, is just over $400 million in size, and it seems likely that Squadron will be raising a new fund this year.

FOPEF is a product helpful for investors who might not be big enough to justify their own private equity allocation team.

“If you’re not committing a huge amount of capital into Asia, say less than $50 million per year, it makes sense to use a FOPEF,” said their colleague, Wen Tan to AsianInvestor recently. “If you’re planning to invest more than that into the region, then building your own team starts becoming viable.”

Squadron Capital is the private equity wing of Robert Miller’s Hong Kong-based Search Group. On the other wing is the fund-of-hedge-funds operation, Sail Advisors, which has witnessed a little more staff turnover than their brethren in Squadron, including the loss earlier this year of its CEO Vincent Duhamel.