‘More deal flow than we can handle’: EQT Asia’s Jean Salata

IN 1997, Jean Eric Salata started an Asian private equity (PE) investment programme for UK-based Baring Private Equity Partners. Three years later, he led a management buyout to establish Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA) as an independent firm.

At the time, Asia’s private equity scene had not yet established itself as a place where one could make money. From 1997 to 2001, Euromoney magazine reported, United States PE as an asset class delivered an internal rate of return (IRR) of 16.6 per cent. Asia PE’s IRR was negative 3.3 per cent.

Salata, therefore, might have been called a brave man. It turns out he is also a farsighted one.