About Legacy Partners
Based in Los Angeles, Legacy Partners is an Asia-focused private equity firm founded in 2010. Legacy primarily focuses on fund investments and direct investments supported by increasing consumption and privatizations of state-owned enterprises. This growth has been driven by expansion of the middle class and increasing urbanization. Legacy has always specifically avoided any export-focused companies that might be subject to trade disputes. Notable current and former investments include early rounds in Alibaba and Koubei, ANT Financial, and the privatization of Sinopec Marketing. Legacy is currently investing its third fund, Legacy Capital III, L.P.; the firm and its affiliates have assets under management in excess of US$3 billion.
Importantly for its strategy, Legacy has strong relationships with some of the region’s most elite private equity firms, from both personal relationships and ongoing investment activity of the investment team. These relationships allow Legacy to give its investors exposure to top-tier private equity opportunities, to which investors might not otherwise receive access.
Typical portfolio companies are either (i) state-owned enterprises that need growth capital to facilitate their transformations to private entities or (ii) select privately-owned enterprises. Generally, these investments take the form of equity or convertible debt. Unlike the United States, private equity in Asia does not typically involve leveraged buyouts and most of Legacy’s investments do not include the use of significant leverage.
Portfolio companies are expected to exhibit most of the following characteristics:
- Leadership position in its local market area
- Significant growth potential from product expansion, strong pipeline or innovation
- Strong and motivated management team
- Mandate and support from local government
- Profitable with upside from identifiable inefficiencies
- Reasonable to low entry multiple
- Clear path to a liquidity event