Baring Vostok Capital Partners

Baring Vostok Capital Partners is an independent private equity firm focused on investments in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The firm, which is the largest private equity firm in Russia, invests across a broad range of industries including oil and gas, consumer products, media and technology, telecommunications and financial services.

From it founding in 1994 through 2004, the firm was a subsidiary of Baring Private Equity International (BPEP International) which was an affiliate of Barings Bank In addition to Baring Vostok, the affiliates of BPEP International include Baring Private Equity Asia as well as Baring Private Equity Partners India, founded in 1984. BPEP International's Latin America affiliate is known as GP Investments, a leading private equity firm in Brazil. Collectively, the firms represent over $7.1 billion in capital commitments as of the end of 2011.

With offices in Moscow, the firm has raised over $2.1 billion across four investment funds. The firm’s name vostok is the Russian word for "east". Additionally, the Vostok spacecraftwas the first manned spacecraft, operated by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

Investments

Since inception, Baring Vostok has invested over $1.2 billion in more than 50 companies.

Baring Vostok is best known for its early stage investment in Russian search engine, Yandex, acquiring a 35.7% stake in the business in 2000. At the time of the Yandex IPO, Baring Vostok is estimated to have generated value of approximately $4 billion, representing a return on its original $5 million investment in excess of 800x.Among Baring Vostok's most other investments are Volga Gas,Borjomi Mineral Water, Ozon.ru, Burren Energy, CTC Media, Nezabudka and Golden Telecom.

The firm has been named Russian Private Equity Firm of the Year by Private Equity International.

History

Baring Vostok Capital Partners origins date back to 1994 with the formation of the First NIS Regional Fund. The fund was a joint venture between Baring Asset Management and Sovlink, a Russian-American merchant bank. Baring Bank’s ties to Russia traced back several centuries and Barings was the primary international bank for the Russian czars.

The First NIS Regional Fund was originally managed by a team of investment professionals from Barings and Sovlink including current Baring Vostok senior partner Michael Calvey. With $160 million of investor commitments, the fund ultimately returned $620 million to investors over the life of the fund. In 1997, Baring Vostok Capital Partners, became an affiliate of Baring’s BPEP International. Following the collapse of Barings Bank, the ownership of BPEP International was assumed by the Dutch bank ING Group.

In 2001, the firm completed fundraising for the Baring Vostok Private Equity Fund. With $205 million of investor commitments, Baring Vostok’s was the first foreign private equity fund raised in the aftermath of the 1998 Russian financial crisis.

In May 2004, BPEP International completed a management buyout from ING Group, which resulted in Baring Vostok's partners purchasing ownership of its management company. At the same time, the firm's affiliates in Asia, India and Latin America completed similar buyouts of their respective firms. These companies subsequently continued their affiliation although each firm retained full ownership of their respective businesses. Following the buyout of the management company, in 2005, the Baring Vostok Private Equity Fund III was raised with total committed capital of $413 million.

In February 2007, the firm completed fundraising for its fourth private equity fund. Baring Vostok raised $1.1 billion of investor commitments for its main fund Baring Vostok Private Equity Fund IV. Together with a parallel fund, Baring Vostok Fund IV Supplemental Fund, which raised over $300 million of capital, Baring Vostok's fourth fund was at the time the largest private equity fund in Eastern Europe.

In mid-2011, Baring Vostok announced it would begin raising capital for its fifth private equity fund, targeting a similar fund size as the firm's last fund in 2007.

Total assets  $2.1 billion