Aetos Capital Asia, the Asian private equity real estate firm led by Scott Kelley, has re-hired one of its former executives in a push to land more deals in Japan.
The firm has hired Minoru Machida as managing director and have tasked him with supporting the Aetos Capital Real Estate funds by sourcing and executing investment opportunities in Japan.
Machida previously worked for Aetos between 2001 and 2005, also as a managing director. Kelley accredited him with playing a central role in the establishment of the firm in the country and stated he still had a strong reputation in the marketplace.
Kelley said: “The Japanese real estate market offers potential for significant returns and, over recent months, has shown positive signs of growth. Machida-san is a highly respected member of the Japanese real estate community. As we seek to take advantage of the positive market trends, he brings extraordinary deal experience to further strengthen our already robust Japan team.”
Machida previously also worked for private equity giants Warburg Pincus and Lone Star Funds.
In Aetos, he returns to a company in markedly different to shape to the company he left nine years ago. A PERE revealed, last October the firm split from its US-based hedge fund sister business via a transaction that resulted in them being financially independent for the first time since founder Jim Allwin launched Aetos Capital as what was intended to be a multi-asset class alternatives business in 1999.
Today, the real estate firm carries the names Aetos Capital Asia and Aetos Capital Real Estate and in Japan, Aetos Japan.
Machida joins something of a new-look Japan real estate team too. He joins months after previous Japan acquisitions head Daisuke Hayasji left to pursue other opportunities. His departure saw Hiroyuki Tanaka promoted to take on some of his responsibilities. Meanwhile, Shinichiro No joined from JP Morgan, the investment bank, as director for asset management. Jon Awong, the firm’s head of asset management and valuations also is no concentrating his efforts in Japan as China takes more of a backseat in the firm’s investment strategy. In all, Aetos employs about 60 staff.
Kelley said to PERE late last year: “We’ve been adding serious resources to Japan. We’ve been fortunate not to have had much turnover. The overall message is we’ve been investing in people.”
Aetos’ new-look team will be hoping to deploy capital from its fifth opportunistic fund, Aetos Capital Asia V, for which the firm is currently fundraising with a target of $1 billion.
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