Axiom hires secondary private-equity specialist

Alex Lee Sao-Wei has been appointed investment director at Axiom Asia Private Capital, a Singapore-based manager of funds of private-equity funds.

Lee is a specialist in secondary private equity, having spent six years at UK-based secondaries boutique Coller Capital as one of its principals in Singapore. Axiom declined to comment on the hire.

The firm has one fund of PE funds and is marketing a new fund of funds. The new product is not believed to be focused on secondary opportunities; rather, Lee's hire is meant to improve its work with underlying managers that may have secondary situations.

Axiom officials would not comment on any marketing or product-development activity. The firm's existing fund of funds already has a remit to invest in secondary fund positions as well as co-invest on direct deals and invest in buyout, venture capital and growth PE funds across Asia-Pacific.

At Coller, Lee served as an investment principal with a focus on originating, executing and monitoring investments in Asia. He managed PE secondary transactions, both LP positions and direct investments, globally.

His training is as a chemical engineer and he had worked at Temasek-linked companies, first as an engineer with Sembcorp Industries, then as an investment manager with the venture capital firm Vertex Management.

Axiom closed its first fund of funds, the Axiom Asia Private Capital Fund I, with $440 million in 2007, with most investors coming from endowments, foundations and family offices based in the US. Its three founding partners are all former executives from Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Government Investment Corporation: Goh Yew-Hong, Lam Chih-Tsung and Edmond Ng Chi-Man.