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Mark Chiba quits UBS Japan to launch private equity fund

UBS Japan's chief executive, Mark Chiba, has quit investment banking to set up his own private equity fund. Chiba's new firm is to be called Longreach.

Longreach will be an Asian regional fund with an initial focus on Japan and Hong Kong. Chiba declined to comment on the size of the fund and was unwilling to identify the other founding partners of the new company, according to the Financial Times.

Japan's economy has been in severe crisis since the end of the 1980s and in marked contrast to Europe and the US, its private equity industry has been in steady decline ever since.

Despite Chiba's obvious endorsement, international private equity firms remain divided as to whether Japanese private equity's protracted down turn could finally be at an end.

Major global firms including Ripplewood, Cerberus, Moore Strategic, and Lonestar are currently operating in the Japanese private equity industry, and Japanese Nomura recently set up a Y10bn venture fund to take advantage of the country's low valuations. But, in contrast, 3i Group pulled out of the Japanese market, citing lack of deal flow, earlier this year.

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