Transitions: Advent International Expands Asia Team –

HONG KONG – Advent International expanded its investment team in Asia with the late-May addition of Principal Kevin Chan, who will head technology investments in the region, said Tan Keng Boon, chief executive of Advent’s Asia Pacific deal group.

Advent’s international success with venture capital in Europe attracted Chan to the firm. “Taking a major role in building an Asian franchise for a company such as Advent, a role that is not easy to find,” is the incentive he needed to join the firm, he said.

Chan’s responsibilities at Advent will include looking for technology and telecommunications investments within the Asian region – countries such as Australia, Japan, China and Korea, among others – as well as building the local Advent franchise and a team of investors.

Chan’s appointment, Boon said, signifies the firm’s interest in expanding its presence in the region, specifically focusing on the telecommunications and Internet sectors.

The new investor, who will be based in Hong Kong, comes to Advent from a one-year tenure at HSBC Investment Bank Asia, where he was an associate director and a founding member of the firm’s Asian Telecom and Technology Team. Chan has been interested in the world of venture capital investing since he graduated Columbia Business School in 1997, but entered investment banking instead, he said, because at that time, the VC market in Asia was still at a conceptual stage. Directly following graduation, Chan joined Goldman, Sachs & Co. in Asia as an associate, focusing on the telecommunications sector.

Chan will draw capital from Advent’s Digital Media & Communications III fund, targeted at $300 million. The firm will invest the fund in communications and information technology companies in the U.S., Europe, Israel and Asia, although no specific amount of capital has been allocated for any particular region, Boon said. Chan will also invest the $120 million TMT Ventures, a vehicle that is allocated toward technology, media and telecommunications investments in Australia and New Zealand.

Chan will work with the Hong Kong-based team of four associates and one principal, who was expected to join the firm at the end of June, Boon said.

Founded in 1984, Advent International is a private equity firm with offices in 15 countries and more than $3.5 billion under management. The firm manages global private equity funds, focusing on later-stage investments in Europe, North America and Asia; emerging private equity funds, backing later-stage companies in markets such as Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America; and venture capital funds targeting early-stage technology investments in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.