The year 2007 saw a record number of private equity (PE) deals in Asia.

With it, came a heightened awareness for the need for better public relations to educate wary Asian businesses on the long-term value that PE investors bring.

We were curious about how the PE industry within Asia has been viewed in the local newspapers and conducted a sample media scan over the past three years.

What’s the latest

Overall, most coverage in Asia’s main newspapers such as Business Times in Singapore, South China Morning Post, China Daily, Economic Times India or the Wall Street Journal Asia have focused on news announcements from target companies and specific private equity players or on successful mega deals.

Views in the news

Press articles on the industry as a whole have been neutral and in a handful of cases, have even been positive. Any coverage that could be deemed to be less than flattering has been from countries such as India, where the rise of the PE industry has met with some resistance or perhaps seen to be slightly out of control.

Spread out 

When major global PE heavyweights such as KKR and Blackstone started arriving on the scene and the size of existing funds started to explode three to four years ago, newspapers in Asia’s top two financial centres, Hong Kong and Singapore, featured the most news articles.

Since then, newspapers in other Asian countries, predominantly those that witnessed mega deals at home, started writing more about PE investments and investors.

India has seen the greatest increase in such coverage, with 2007 being a bumper year of Indian news articles.

So does the PE industry require more proactive steps in managing how it is perceived in the public arena? Yes probably, but not without a country-by-country strategy.

About the desk research:  1. Covers 2005, 2006 and 2007 results on Factiva for the combined search terms “private equity Asia” in Business Times (SG), Hong Kong Economic Journal, SCMP and The Standard (HK) and Asian editions of International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Asia Wall Street Journal (regional).  2. Other includes English newspapers in Taiwan, China, India and Malaysia.  3. Excludes industry/trade media, magazines, websites, and newswires or news agencies. Also excludes duplicates of the same story in the same media title.  4. Excludes company profiles, financial reports, and the appointments sections.