Simon Murray is an international financier and business leader with more than four decades of experience in Asia. He serves or previously served on the boards of, and a held advisory position of many MNCs. Mr. Murray was previously managing director of Hutchison Whampoa for as long as nine years. Now this 71-year old British native has turned his focus on mainland China.
Simon Murray appeared in Shanghai several days ago, representing SMC Capital China (SMC3), part of Simon Murray Group (SMG).SMC3 leads SMG’s China growth capital private equity investments from its Shanghai headquarters with both USD and RMB-denominated funds. It recently announced its "Vision 8|8" expansion plan. By 2015, SMC3 aims to manage over RMB8 billion with local offices, teams and strategic partners in at least 8 Chinese cities.
Simon Murray isn't worried about the recent “PE bubble” in China. From his perspective, sectors such as consumer and healthcare, IT and advanced manufacturing; and clean-tech and energy savings will benefit from the 12th Five Year Plan and still have lots of potential to grow.
Simon Murray believes that the Chinese private equity market is still under-penetrated in certain niche, particularly in second and third tier Chinese cities. "We hope to gain support from local LP government and strategic partners to further discover and assist under-served Chinese companies." explained by Mr. Murray.
SMC3 is already seeing signs of early successes, having closed a USD “Mother Fund” and three joint venture RMB funds with local partners in Wuxi and Dalian in the past ten months. The firm has partnered with the Wuxi government and Wuxi’s Guolian Group to form two funds with a local team and office. SMC3also established a Dalian fund with the local government and partners, a Dalian team and office.
Most importantly, SMC3 s approach is working with access to great deals. In past eight months, it has secured investments in six deals totalling over RMB350 million in total commitments (including expected follow on investment rounds). SMC3 was the lead investor in all but two of these six deals. One portfolio firm, SMC Synapse Partners, saw its core holding in 21Vianet Group complete its successful US IPO in April 2011 (NASDAQ: VNET).
Furthermore, SMC3 also invested in other promising companies including: ushi.cn which is China’s leading business social networking site, and Moyo, the largest direct retailer of pet foods and supplies in China and "Greenleaf" (codename), China’s leading manufacturer of environment-friendly production equipment for energy storage devices.
“SMC3 is uniquely qualified to achieve Vision 8|8,” says Mr. Murray. “By doing so, we complete our mission to help Chinese entrepreneurs succeed, generate sound returns for our investors and generate benefits for society. This is our way of contributing to China’s bright future.”
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