Symphony International Holdings, a London-listed company investing in Asian consumer business, has launched a $100 million rights issue that it says has attracted strong interest from family offices and high net worth individuals.

Proceeds of the rights issue will be used by Symphony to finance additional investments that the company is exploring in the healthcare, hospitality and leisure sectors in the Asia-Pacific region, it said in a statement.

The rights issue is fully underwritten and participating investors include HNWIs, UHNWs and family offices in the UK, Middle East and Asia, Anil Thadani, a director of Symphony, told this publication in later comments.

Thadani and colleagues have worked as a team in Asia since the early 1980s; for 23 years, they worked as a typical fund management business with a series of 10-year private equity funds.

“Given the high growth rates in Asia combined with market volatility, we realized that the traditional fund model, which was developed for western markets, was not necessarily the best way to invest in Asia,” he said.

“In 2004 we saw an opportunity to establish a firm that invests in high growth businesses that are benefiting from the Asian consumer boom – we had built up specific expertise in the healthcare, hospitality, lifestyle and branded real estate sectors and these were all attractive from an investment standpoint so we decided to focus on these while still looking at other businesses in the Asia Pacific region,” he said. This led to the creation of Symphony International Holdings, which made its first investment in 2005.

The middle class effect

“We focus on the particular sectors – healthcare, hospitality, lifestyle, and branded real estate – that we believe will continue to profit from the increasing disposable incomes of Asia’s growing middle class,” he said.

Asked why family offices and high net worth investors are interested, Thadani said

They are “keen to get access to the fast growing Asian consumer growth story and see our company as being a good way of getting exposure to both private and publicly listed companies that are at the centre of the region’s consumer boom”.

“Also, typically, these types of investors are looking for opportunities to build and grow capital over the long term and are not perturbed by short term market swings. This suits our investment style perfectly,” he said.  

Panmure Gordon (UK) acted as sole underwriter, financial adviser and broker to the company.