HONG KONG — During today’s Everbright Investment Conference 2017 in Hong Kong, China Everbright Limited (“CEL”, 165.HK) and globally renowned investment firm Walden International Group jointly announced the official launch of Walden CEL Global Fund I, L.P., a specially designed fund that will invest in companies operating in the semiconductor and industrial information technology sectors. Mr CHEN Shuang, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of CEL, and Mr Hing WONG, Managing Director of Walden International Group, attended the launch ceremony.
Walden CEL Global Fund I will concentrate on investing in business entities along the semiconductor and electronic information supply chain including but not limited to microchips, artificial intelligence, as well as hardware and software integration. With a target size of USD500 million, the Fund plans to leverage CEL’s strength in cross-border investment and capital market operations as well as Walden’s 30 years of accumulated semiconductor sector investment and fund operation experience. It is expected to make investments and initiate M&As in notable projects in global semiconductor area at the growth and maturity stages, realising potential returns both from the projects’ technological developments and capital market movements. In addition, the Fund will create synergistic effects by importing the high-end technology and thriving business models of its portfolio companies into the Chinese market and augmenting CEL’s project sources in mainland China. The Fund also plans to contribute to technological improvement and development in China’s semiconductor industry.
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the total market revenue of the global semiconductor industry has reached USD338.9 billion in 2016, in which China has accounted for USD150 billion. On the demand side, China represents nearly half of global consumption and has established its leadership in market demand, Although American and European companies are still dominant in the core processes of state-of-the-art chip design, the processes for heavy asset manufacturing, equipment for upstream and downstream industrial chains, and packaging testing are increasingly relocating to Asia and especially China, which has gradually developed from a significant demand-side market to a technology and product supplier for the semiconductor industry – a trend that implies strong sector investment opportunities in future. The semiconductor industry, a fundamental support sector for the booming development of cloud computing, the internet of things, artificial intelligence and 5G networks, is expected to experience considerable increase in demand, while technological development in artificial intelligence is anticipated to encourage significant upgrades among more traditional industries. One of Walden CEL Global Fund I’s key investment focuses will be innovative companies that drive technological advances with promising business applications.