Singapore-based private equity fund manager Emerging Markets Investment Advisers (EMIA) has backed Cambodia-based transportation firm FWF Full Well and Nisshin Logistics Co. Ltd (FWF).
The company plans to use the investment to expand its current cold-chain facilities and establish a dry port in the Kampong Speu province of Cambodia to improve customs clearance capacity and reduce congestion at the seaport, according to a release.
“We believe that core logistics infrastructure such as cold storage and dry port facilities in Cambodia offers huge opportunity for growth, thanks to growing import and export industries such as agricultural products, foods and pharmaceutical products and Cambodia’s ambition to transform and modernize industrial structure from labor-intensive to a skill-based industry.” said Mao Savin, CIO of EMIA.
The investment is EMIA’s second from its third vehicle, the ASEAN Frontier Markets Fund (AFMF), which secured a first close of $50 million in February this year, as reported by DealStreetAsia. The fund targets to achieve a final close of $90 million by end-2023, with a hard cap of $120 million, EMIA chief executive officer Joshua Morris had said at the time.
EMIA’s investment in Cambodia’s largest organic rice producer and exporter, Amru Rice, in March this year was the first investment from the AFMF fund.
AFMF is targeting investments in Cambodia and Laos, with options to look at allocation in other ASEAN markets. However, unlike its predecessor vehicles, the AFMF will not invest in Myanmar following the military coup there. The predecessor vehicle — Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar Development Fund II — was focused on all three countries.
The second fund had raised $64.5 million and was fully deployed across 13 investments. EMIA’s first fund — Cambodia-Laos Development Fund — closed at $19.65 million.
From its first and second funds, EMIA has backed companies such as Myanmar’s online travel platform Oway; bakery and coffee chain Joma in Vietnam and Cambodia; Phnom Penh-based housing financing company First Finance; Cambodia’s largest general insurer Forte Insurance; and Laotian internet service provider Planet Online, among others.
EMIA’s investors include European development financial institutions such as Norway’s Norfund, Finland’s Finnfund, Netherland’s DGGF and the IFC.
