Standard Chartered PE buys Singapore food company

The investment in Phoon Huat comes a year after SCPE ploughed $52m into restaurant chain Crystal Jade Group Holdings.

Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE), the private equity arm of Standard Chartered bank, has bought a “significant stake” in Singapore-based food business Phoon Huat, it said in a statement.

No financial terms were disclosed.

Phoon Huat has been selling baking ingredients since 1947. The company has since grown into an integrated food company with a distribution network in Asia, Middle East and Africa.

SCPE intends to steer the business through its next phase of growth and to provide “strategic input into Phoon Huat’s business planning as well as support management in its development plans”, the investment unit said.

Wong Chen Liong, managing director of Phoon Huat, commented that SCPE’s stake bodes well for its succession planning which the company had been planning for the last five years.

SCPE provides companies with expansion capital and acquisition finance. It has invested over $7 billion in over 100 companies across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Among its investments are Singapore restaurant chain Crystal Jade,  Vietnam-based mobile company M_Service,  Chinese property developer Longfor and Dubai-based e-commerce company Souq.com.

It has also committed capital to Temasek Holdings’ Merlion India Fund and FTV Capital’s Financial Technology Ventures II, according to PEI Research & Analytics.