Nicholas Ow

Since 1992, UOB Venture Management Private Limited ("UOBVM"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Overseas Bank Limited ("UOB"), has been providing financing to privately held companies in Southeast Asia and Greater China, through direct equity investment. UOBVM, together with UOB, has understanding of Asian markets, corporate culture, and business mindsets, which is matched by few.

Over the years, UOBVM has built a strong team — with its core team having worked together for the last 15 years, and a wider team with diversified experience in business, engineering, life science, finance and accounting, M&A, corporate advisory and audit. These diverse experiences and qualifications, coupled with local presence in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and China allows UOBVM to build a substantial network and a continual deal flow that evaluates more than 700 companies in the ASEAN-China economic growth region each year.

UOBVM has assets under management in excess of S$2.0 billion and deploys funds through different fund platforms that complement one another’s strategies and mandates:

• ASEAN China Investment Funds
• Asia Impact Investment Funds
• Renminbi Funds
• Global Investor Programme Funds
• Special Mandate Funds

We seek out companies that fall within our focus themes and evaluate them using risk-based approaches, not taking on deals that pose high risks in more than two areas:

• Management risk
• Regulatory risk
• Financing risk
• Barrier to Entry risk
• Execution risk
• Regulatory risk

We support our investee companies helping them scale and achieve commercial success through board participation where we provide inputs on business plans and strategies, debt/equity raising, recruitment of professional management staff, share regulatory knowledge, and best business practices, including those on corporate governance and brand equity, amongst others. We further catalyze their growth through the introduction of customers, suppliers, JV partners, and other investee companies that may provide synergy through collaborative efforts.

We advocate responsible investing through impact investments and integrating ESG considerations into our investment process. We are a signatory of the Operating Principles for Impact Management and the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).