PBU has invested millions in the Southeast Asian investment fund, Sweef Capital

The Danish pension fund, Pædagogernes Pension (PBU), has invested millions in the Southeast Asian investment fund, Sweef Capital. Now the fund has made its first investment, and this bodes well for the future, the pension fund believes.

Sweet Capital is a Southeast Asian investment fund based in Singapore, which among others has PBU as investor. The fund invests exclusively in companies that are either started by women, primarily employ women or whose products are specifically aimed at women and has now embarked on its first investment in a company.

This company is Vietnamese TEKY, which is a leading multidisciplinary innovation academy that offers education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEAM educations.

The investment aims to support the expansion of TEKY’s educational services in Vietnam’s public school system and learning programs for children, which in recent years have rolled out several of their academies across Vietnam.

“From a commercial perspective, we expect a lot from this investment from Sweef Capital. The case has been well thought through, and it looks like a really good investment if everything goes as we hope. As the middle class grows significantly in Asia, the need and demands for education will also increase, and already now the investment looks better than expected,” says Johannes Bill Ladegaard, Head of Alternative Investments at PBU.

Sweet Capital has regional offices in several countries in Southeast Asia, and thus knows both the market in which TEKY will operate and expand, and also has a great knowledge of what competition there is in this particular market.

“We expect TEKY to be in most of Asia in five years, and by then they will probably not be part of Sweef anymore, but become a publicly traded company, and that could be our exit opportunity. It is clear that if TEKY becomes really big, they should no longer be owned in the way they are today,” says Johannes Bill Ladegaard.

Supporting a good development

The market in which TEKY operates is a market in very high growth. In many places in Asia, the middle class has grown significantly. In recent years, more and more people are being lifted out of poverty and increasingly need better education, not least the female part of the population.

“At PBU, our interest is first and foremost to create a good return for our members, but we believe that the focus that Sweef Capital has on female owner-managers, and in TEKY’s case, a learning academy run and founded by women, helps to support a good return,” says Rasmus Juhl Pedersen, ESG Manager at PBU.

TEKY currently operates a total of 16 STEAM Academies in five cities across Vietnam, has partnered with more than 45 schools across the country, and today delivers its courses to more than 25,000 children and youth ages 5 to 18.

This will help provide children and young people, and thus society as a whole, with better and much needed digital and technological skills in a country undergoing rapid development with high growth and improved living standards.

“There is a clear focus on health and education when Sweef Capital looks at investment opportunities in Southeast Asia. It is also well in line with the values we ourselves work with here at PBU, where we are a pension fund for educators. At the same time, it is these areas that many women work and create their businesses in in that part of the world, so it is incredibly exciting to see what more investments in companies, driven by and for women, can bring with them in the wake in general,” says Rasmus Juhl Pedersen.

View the original article here: https://marketconnect.dk/pbu-partnerskab-med-asiatisk-fond-kaster-foerste-store-investering-af-sig/