The Carlyle Group said on Monday that Tomofumi Matsuyama has joined the Carlyle Japan buyout advisory team as a managing director from Morgan Stanley.
Carlyle is expanding in Japan as the companies’ management gradually warms to private equity investment. Matsuyama is an additional headcount for the Washington-headquartered private equity firm in Japan.
Based in Tokyo, Matsuyama will advise on Carlyle’s investment activities in Japan, with a focus on large spin-offs mainly in the technology and industrials sectors.
Matsuyama joins Carlyle after 14 years with Morgan Stanley, where he was most recently a managing director and head of technology and industrials banking for Japan. His clients at Morgan Stanley included Hitachi, Panasonic, NEC and Recruit.
During his tenure at the New York-headquartered investment bank, he advised on KKR’s acquisition of Hitachi Koki in 2016, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice's sale of Hussmann to Panasonic in 2015 and Sharp’s third-party allotment to Hon Hai Group also in 2015.
Matsuyama, 48 years' old, started his career at the Sumitomo Bank (now Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation), where he served for more than six years before joining Daiwa Securities SMBC as a seconded employee from the Sumitomo Bank.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Business from Sophia University.
“As part of our strategy to further expand our Japan operations, especially capturing large corporate carve-out opportunities, we are delighted to have Tomofumi join our team,” said Kazuhiro Yamada, head of the Carlyle Japan buyout advisory team.
Having first established an office in Tokyo in 2000, Carlyle has a long track record of investing in the Japanese market and creating long-term value for Japanese companies, including several carve-outs from large Japanese conglomerates.
Private equity firms such as KKR, Carlyle and Bain Capital have made some headway in convincing Japanese conglomerates to spin off assets, but the private equity market remains a case of two steps forward and one step back. Last year was a bumper year with 75 deals inked worth $26 billion, according to figures from Dealogic. This year so far has been more subdued with only 49 deals worth $921.75 million.
Carlyle has established dedicated Japan buyout funds denominated in Japanese yen to invest in mid-cap as well as large-cap deals. As of September 30, Carlyle had invested more than ¥250 billion (more than $2 billion) of equity in more than 20 transactions in Japan.
