HONG KONG, Nov 10 (Reuters) - David Bonderman, one of the founders of TPG Capital, laid out a series of investment ideas on Thursday, among them cloud computing and media fragmentation.
Bonderman, a colourful character and one of the private equity industry's early pioneers, also said energy and power were on his radar. He is among the top decision-makers at one of the world's largest private equity funds.
The lanky, wry American is known for his humorous and insightful speeches about the private equity industry. In addition to flipping through slides and charts, he showed YouTube clips of a human projectile launch into a kiddie pool, and a new-toothed baby biting the finger of a nearby toddler.
The point of the clips, Bonderman said, was pointing out how there were roughly the same amount of viewers for those videos as there were for major television network programmes and studio movies -- highlighting the fragmentation of media.
Bonderman stressed that money was made in industries in which there were dislocations, where the key was fixing issues at companies rather than just throwing capital at them, and taking advantage of openings in sectors that had yet to be explored.
Of all the ideas that Bonderman has laid out over the years, cloud computing is among the newest.
That industry is going through 'huge dislocations', Bonderman said at the annual AVCJ conference in Hong Kong.
Cloud computing refers to technology that allows users to access data, software and services over the Internet and corporate networks, and has been touted as the next big trend in the technology sector.
ASIA
While TPG has had some major investment successes, it's had some high profile failures as well, such as the cash it put into Washington Mutual shortly before shares of the bank collapsed.
He was critical of financial services reforms, from U.S. regulation to Basel III. He described the mood around the U.S. reform as 'somewhere between mild and excited derision'.
TPG is among the early private equity firms to go global, with major presences in Europe and Asia, as well as its home base in the United States.
Bonderman said TPG opened an office in Shanghai in 1994. It has since invested in many deals across Asia, its deal with Shenzhen Development Bank Co Ltd among the most well known.
TPG unit Newbridge acquired 299.1 million Ping An Insurance (Group) Co of China Ltd shares in May in exchange for giving a stake in Shenzhen Development Bank to the Chinese insurer. TPG got a 4 percent stake in Ping An, the world's second largest insurer. TPG bought a 17 percent stake in the Shenzhen bank in 2004 for $150 million.
Newbridge has since sold nearly $2.5 billion worth of Ping An shares, making the deal among the largest private equity exits ever in Asia.
Morgan Stanley's planned sale of a roughly $1 billion stake in Chinese investment bank China International Capital Corp (CICC) was expected to be finalised soon, with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts&Co and TPG set to buy the stake, sources said previously.
Bonderman would not comment on any deals the firm is currently involved in, or said to be involved with, which includes Russia's VTB and U.S. hard drive maker Seagate Technology Plc.
He described Australia, Indonesia and Brazil as 'versions of the China play,' given China's consumption of natural resources. In September, an Indonesian government official said TPG was considering investing in the country's air transport sector.
Bonderman even had views on gold, in relation to the shift of money to high-growth markets.
He said he was recently in the Gulf, when he stumbled upon a gold vending machine, right next to a soft drink machine. Put in money, and a gold nugget comes out the chute.
'When that's happening, there's something going on. I'm not clear what that is, but there is something going on,' he quipped.
www.finanznachrichten.de/...loud-computing-as-top-idea-020.htm