SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
By ELLEN SHENG
The Wall Street Journal
In the private equity world, Cambodia just isn't what it used to be.
At one point in early 2008, fund managers were expecting to raise as much as $500 million for investment in the country. Instead, interest from investors evaporated with the financial crisis, forcing several funds to shut down or scale back.
Frontier Investment and Development Partners, which once hoped to launch a $250 million Cambodia fund, is struggling to find seed investors. Another, Cambodia Emerald postponed fundraising for their planned $100 million fund last year.
In total, Cambodia funds raised only $23 million in 2008, the Centre for Asia Private Equity Research, or APER, says. So far this year they've raised $5.6 million.
In neighboring Vietnam, once one of Asia's hottest investments, investors have also lost interest. Last month Indochina Capital Vietnam Holdings -- a prominent fund that invested in both listed and private companies -- was liquidated.
More broadly, Vietnam focused managers have raised no funds this year, according to APER data, a stark drop from the $1.6 billion raised in 2007. Naturally, deal making has declined. Dealogic tallies $20 million worth of private-equity investments in the two markets so far this year -- less than a third of the investments made the first nine months of 2008.
For those still in the game, the fundraising drought presents an opportunity. With fewer competitors sniffing around for investments, terms are better for buyers.
Managers say being smaller has its benefits, since most opportunities are in startups anyway. The majority of businesses in Vietnam are less than 8 years old.
Expectations for deal sizes have certainly changed. Leopard Cambodia, which has raised $28.6 million out of a planned $100 million, is now targeting investments between $1 million and $2 million. It once expected deals to be between $5 million and $15 million.
Leopard is among those that's resumed fundraising efforts. Another, Mekong Capital, a Vietnam-focused private equity firm, is raising a $150 million fund, its fourth.
But they're certainly not getting the reception they once might have. Investors are showing an increased appetite for risk, but few are willing to extend themselves as far as Cambodia just yet.
Write to Ellen Sheng at ellen.sheng@dowjones.com
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Food association says rice venture with Cambodia necessary
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Source: Thanh Nien (Hanoi)
Cambodia is expected to export around 1 million tons of rice to Vietnam this year
A rice venture with Cambodia will help save Vietnam from tough competition against the neighboring country in future rice exports, an official of the Vietnam Food Association said.
The rice area in Cambodia is as large as Vietnam, but Cambodia’s rice production figures are low due to the lack of modern technology, Vietnam Food Association Deputy Chairman Nguyen Tho Tri told the Saigon Economic Times Tuesday.
Still, the country has a surplus of rice for export to Thailand and Vietnam, Tri said. Cambodia is expected to export around 1 million tons of rice to Vietnam this year.
“If the huge potential is tapped, Cambodia will become a rice exporter as large as Vietnam.”
Vietnamese and Cambodian officials met in August to discuss setting up a rice joint venture project to boost shipments of Cambodian rice. The Southern Food Corporation, one of Vietnam’s two biggest state-owned agriculture food companies, and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam would represent a 70 percent stake in the Cambodia-based joint venture, Tri said.
The joint venture plan has faced criticism from Vietnamese farmers, who said the government should focus only on exporting locally-produced rice products.
But Tri said the project is the right move.
“If other countries invest in the Cambodian rice sector first, Vietnamese rice will face fierce competition against Cambodian rice on the global market in the future.”
He noted that both Thailand and China also wanted to work with Cambodia in rice exports.
Source: Thanh Nien (Hanoi)
Cambodia is expected to export around 1 million tons of rice to Vietnam this year
A rice venture with Cambodia will help save Vietnam from tough competition against the neighboring country in future rice exports, an official of the Vietnam Food Association said.
The rice area in Cambodia is as large as Vietnam, but Cambodia’s rice production figures are low due to the lack of modern technology, Vietnam Food Association Deputy Chairman Nguyen Tho Tri told the Saigon Economic Times Tuesday.
Still, the country has a surplus of rice for export to Thailand and Vietnam, Tri said. Cambodia is expected to export around 1 million tons of rice to Vietnam this year.
“If the huge potential is tapped, Cambodia will become a rice exporter as large as Vietnam.”
Vietnamese and Cambodian officials met in August to discuss setting up a rice joint venture project to boost shipments of Cambodian rice. The Southern Food Corporation, one of Vietnam’s two biggest state-owned agriculture food companies, and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam would represent a 70 percent stake in the Cambodia-based joint venture, Tri said.
The joint venture plan has faced criticism from Vietnamese farmers, who said the government should focus only on exporting locally-produced rice products.
But Tri said the project is the right move.
“If other countries invest in the Cambodian rice sector first, Vietnamese rice will face fierce competition against Cambodian rice on the global market in the future.”
He noted that both Thailand and China also wanted to work with Cambodia in rice exports.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
American arrested in Japan for kidnapping own kids
By SHINO YUASA, Associated Press Writer
TOKYO – An American father on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan was arrested over their alleged abduction while they were walking to school with his ex-wife, officials said Wednesday.
Christopher John Savoie snatched his two children — an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl — by force Monday in the southern city of Fukuoka, shoved them into a car and drove away, said Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the city.
He was arrested by Japanese police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with the children, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.
The number of such cases is growing in Japan — mostly with Japanese mothers bringing their children back to the country and refusing to let their foreign ex-husbands visit them. The United States, Canada, Britain and France issued a joint statement in May urging Japan to address the problem.
Savoie, a 38-year-old from Franklin, Tennessee, was arrested after his ex-wife, Noriko, alerted the police. The children were returned to her, Taylor said. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.
Local police said they received permission from the court to keep Savoie in custody for 10 days.
The divorced couple and the two children were living in Tennessee, but Noriko Savoie came to Japan with the two children in August without telling her ex-husband, Taylor said.
In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent often gets sole custody of their children — almost always the mother. Divorced fathers typically don't get much access to their children.
Japan has yet to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which seeks to standardize laws among participating countries to ensure that custody decisions can be made by appropriate courts and protect the rights of access of both parents. Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention helped shield Japanese women and their children fleeing from abusive foreign husbands.
The United States, Canada, Britain and France in May urged Japan to sign the Hague Convention. At least 70 dispute cases exist between Japan and the U.S., but Tokyo does not have the exact number.
Japanese tend to prioritize the mother's role over the rights of the father or children, said Hideki Tani, a lawyer who is an expert on the issue.
"In Japan, it's not considered a serious problem if a mother takes her children with her without telling her ex-husband when they get separated or divorced," Tani said. "But for many people outside Japan, that's outrageous."
Japan and the U.S. have very different approaches to divorce and raising children, said David Marks, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tokyo. "Japanese privacy laws can create frustrations for 'left-behind' parents."
Japan is aware of the need to address the issue and that it is seriously considering joining the Hague convention, said Kosei Nomura, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of international law.
"The problem is growing, and it has become a diplomatic issue," Nomura said. "The question is if we should insist on the Japanese traditional standard to resolve disputes over children as a result of broken international marriages."
The couple was divorced in January and the mother was given primary custody of the children, according to records from the Chancery Court for Williamson County in Tennessee that were posted on the Web site of Nashville television station WTVF.
Savoie has since remarried. His wife, Amy, told CBS that Noriko was not letting the children talk to him on the telephone after she took them to Japan. Amy said she doesn't know if she and her husband will ever see the children again.
"We hope if she is granted custody over there, that they will come and find us when they are in their 20s maybe and come see that we still love them," she said.
American Consulate officials have twice visited Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers, Taylor said.
A lawyer for Savoie, Jeremy Morley, told NBC he had about 100 clients with difficulty seeing their children after ex-spouses took them to Japan.
"This is an untold story," he said.
U.S. Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told The Associated Press he has introduced a bill called the International Child Abduction Prevention Act of 2009, which would penalize countries that show a pattern of not cooperating to resolve such cases. Penalties could include being denied military aid and certain loans, he said.
"It is abominable what has happened here," Smith said early Wednesday.
He also said he had "guarded hope" that Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, would use the situation as a chance to take another look at the country's policy.
___
Associated Press Writers Mari Yamaguchi and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo and Bernard McGhee in Atlanta contributed to this report.
TOKYO – An American father on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan was arrested over their alleged abduction while they were walking to school with his ex-wife, officials said Wednesday.
Christopher John Savoie snatched his two children — an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl — by force Monday in the southern city of Fukuoka, shoved them into a car and drove away, said Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the city.
He was arrested by Japanese police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with the children, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.
The number of such cases is growing in Japan — mostly with Japanese mothers bringing their children back to the country and refusing to let their foreign ex-husbands visit them. The United States, Canada, Britain and France issued a joint statement in May urging Japan to address the problem.
Savoie, a 38-year-old from Franklin, Tennessee, was arrested after his ex-wife, Noriko, alerted the police. The children were returned to her, Taylor said. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.
Local police said they received permission from the court to keep Savoie in custody for 10 days.
The divorced couple and the two children were living in Tennessee, but Noriko Savoie came to Japan with the two children in August without telling her ex-husband, Taylor said.
In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent often gets sole custody of their children — almost always the mother. Divorced fathers typically don't get much access to their children.
Japan has yet to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which seeks to standardize laws among participating countries to ensure that custody decisions can be made by appropriate courts and protect the rights of access of both parents. Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention helped shield Japanese women and their children fleeing from abusive foreign husbands.
The United States, Canada, Britain and France in May urged Japan to sign the Hague Convention. At least 70 dispute cases exist between Japan and the U.S., but Tokyo does not have the exact number.
Japanese tend to prioritize the mother's role over the rights of the father or children, said Hideki Tani, a lawyer who is an expert on the issue.
"In Japan, it's not considered a serious problem if a mother takes her children with her without telling her ex-husband when they get separated or divorced," Tani said. "But for many people outside Japan, that's outrageous."
Japan and the U.S. have very different approaches to divorce and raising children, said David Marks, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tokyo. "Japanese privacy laws can create frustrations for 'left-behind' parents."
Japan is aware of the need to address the issue and that it is seriously considering joining the Hague convention, said Kosei Nomura, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of international law.
"The problem is growing, and it has become a diplomatic issue," Nomura said. "The question is if we should insist on the Japanese traditional standard to resolve disputes over children as a result of broken international marriages."
The couple was divorced in January and the mother was given primary custody of the children, according to records from the Chancery Court for Williamson County in Tennessee that were posted on the Web site of Nashville television station WTVF.
Savoie has since remarried. His wife, Amy, told CBS that Noriko was not letting the children talk to him on the telephone after she took them to Japan. Amy said she doesn't know if she and her husband will ever see the children again.
"We hope if she is granted custody over there, that they will come and find us when they are in their 20s maybe and come see that we still love them," she said.
American Consulate officials have twice visited Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers, Taylor said.
A lawyer for Savoie, Jeremy Morley, told NBC he had about 100 clients with difficulty seeing their children after ex-spouses took them to Japan.
"This is an untold story," he said.
U.S. Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told The Associated Press he has introduced a bill called the International Child Abduction Prevention Act of 2009, which would penalize countries that show a pattern of not cooperating to resolve such cases. Penalties could include being denied military aid and certain loans, he said.
"It is abominable what has happened here," Smith said early Wednesday.
He also said he had "guarded hope" that Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, would use the situation as a chance to take another look at the country's policy.
___
Associated Press Writers Mari Yamaguchi and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo and Bernard McGhee in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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