In the past few years, the Japanese government has been liberalizing rules associated with private equity investments. Several major banks have entered this market, including our client, a joint venture between two of the largest Asian banks and a U.S. private equity investing corporation. Each participant in the JV committed $340 million in capital for a total of $1 billion of investment.

SDG assisted the CEO of the JV to develop a disciplined approach for evaluating and structuring potential investments. We also trained the investment staff, which was drawn from all three companies. In addition, after training, we continued to coach them through their initial deals. In some instances, our role transcended coaching, and we became actual members of the deal team.

This JV completed several deals in 2002 and is on pace to invest its committed funds.