Lunar Capital 2014: Progress to Date
We believe the coming decade will be marked by an emergence of individuality, a shift from savings toward consumption, and government policies that support the growth of a strong consumer-led economy. Managing these changes is a challenge for the consumer businesses that we target for investment. The recent slowing of growth, in addition to scarcity […]
Meet Our Manager – Luke Luan
Luke Luan COO, Little Star Brands Group With over 20 years of experience in operations and an affinity for building businesses, I chose to join Little Star Brands Group as COO to oversee the Company’s sales, merchandising and retail operations for all the brands including Yeehoo, Peekaboo and Soho Baby. Having served as COO in […]
Delivering Value Creation
Much of the discussion of our operational involvement in our portfolio revolves around growing top line revenues, controlling costs and streamlining decision making. These are goals that we must drive through deeper, more granular involvement in our companies. This month we highlight some of the areas for improvement within our businesses that have been particularly […]
Maximizing Value through Building Platforms
Platform-building is woven into Lunar’s DNA. The business that began as Linktone in 1999 subsequently gave birth to two further companies, Intrinsic and SmartPay. Together they formed the bulwark of Fund I and each of the three has now been fully exited, generating attractive returns. Another platform-building opportunity arose when we acquired Yeehoo in 2011. […]
Incentivizing Minority Shareholders in a Buyout Deal
Chinese private equity has been overwhelmingly characterized by pre-IPO deals and growth capital investments whereby PE returns were driven by the deployment of investment capital, not human capital or sweat equity. Most firms lacked the culture, will and expertise to take on operationally challenging investments. Meanwhile the scale of buyout opportunities has grown, driven by […]
A Solution to Stress and Succession
Stressed out sextuginarian and septuginarian entrepreneurs are saddled with succession issues, as are their quadregenriarian and quinquagenerian brethren. A 2013 survey of privately-held small- and medium-sized private enterprises conducted by Shanghai Jiaotong University found that 70% will face succession issues within the next five to ten years, and less than 20% of next-generation heirs and […]
Quantifying ESG Outcome a Challenge
By Drew Wilson Quantifying ESG outcome a challenge: An ESG policy can result in cost savings, but it’s difficult to break out the numbers. Putting a dollar figure on savings resulting from an ESG policy is a challenging exercise few firms have attempted, partly because of the difficulty in isolating financial impact. “ESG has great […]
Meet Our Managers –Feng Gao
Feng Gao CEO, Yeehoo I have been working in the fashion and apparel industry for nearly 25 years, first with domestic brands before moving on to becoming the head of China operations for multiple multinational corporations (MNCs). Over the last decade, I served as the China director of Hermes, as well as the China Head […]
Burgeoning Bourgeois
The Chinese government has delivered on its promise of creating wealth for the masses, giving consumers purchasing power unimaginable even a decade ago. A recent study by McKinsey stated that the number of upper-middle class households with income between RMB 106,000 and RMB 229,000, has grown from 6% of urban household in 2010 to 14% […]
Shopping with Billions
Chinese are going shopping with export-accumulated wealth again. This time the target is more aspirational. Rather than Louis Vuitton bags and Prada shoes, they are putting part of the USD 3.5 trillion in foreign reserves to work by acquiring billion-dollar companies. China’s appetite is growing for large, established foreign companies. Unlike Japan’s 1980s-era acquisition of […]
