PETALING JAYA: Private equity or PE and venture capital or VC industries chalked up total combined funds of RM16.08bil in 2022 from RM14.83bil in 2021, the Securities Commission (SC) says.
At the end of 2022, private equity and venture capital industries had chalked up a total committed funds under management of RM10.71bil and RM5.37bil, respectively, the SC said in its 2022 annual report.
Meanwhile, in 2021, private equity recorded a committed fund of RM9.65bil.
Venture capital, on its part, registered a fund of RM5.18bil.
“For private equity, commitments are sourced largely from corporate investors (33.40%), individuals and family offices (16.97%) and followed by financial institutions (12.78%).
“For venture capital, government agencies and investment companies (36.01%), sovereign wealth funds (27.27%) and corporate investors (22.68%) made up the top three sources of funding,” the SC said.
It further elaborated that the top three registered corporations by the number of investor commitments as at end 2022 were Creador, Xeraya Capital Sdn Bhd and Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd or Mavcap.
Venture capital investments in 2022 concentrated on growth (48.18%), followed by early stage (36.53%) and seed opportunities (10.54%).
Private equity investments were primarily channelled into growth plays (64.87%).
Some investments made to early-stage opportunities (28.20%).
This was followed by bridge, mezzanine and pre-initial public offering (IPO) investments (6.85%).
“In total, 34 venture capital and 38 private equity deals were recorded in 2022,” it said.
In terms of target industries, medical and biotechnology (34.83%) saw the highest share of venture capital investment in 2022.
This was followed by information and communications (16.45%) and financial and insurance/takaful activities (12.70%).
As for private equity, investments were largely channelled to the wholesale and retail trade (53.66%) in 2022.
This was followed by healthcare (13.45%) and manufacturing (13.41%).
Commenting about divestment in the private equity portfolio, the SC said the divestment activity in private equity portfolios during 2022 were mainly exits in the growth stage.
Further, the majority of divestments in venture capital were early-stage positions, followed by growth.
While trade sales and secondary sales remained common routes for liquidity, 2022 saw several exits via IPOs.
On the industry participants, the total number of registered corporations stood at 129 as at Dec 31, 2022. — Bernama
