They poured almost $50bn of fresh capital into Asian-dedicated private equity funds last year, according to the Hong Kong Centre for Asia Private Equity Research – almost a fifth more than in 2007. All this cash on the sidelines, and yet the deals still are not happening. In 2006, in spite of big commitments of manpower and capital from the big buy-out shops, financial sponsor-led deals in Asia accounted for just 6 per cent of overall mergers and acquisitions in the region, at $37bn, according to Dealogic. By 2008 that was down to 4 per cent; so far this year it is less than 1 per cent.
香港亞洲私人股本研究中心(Hong Kong Centre for Asia Private Equity Research)表示，去年，這些機構向亞洲專項私人股本基金投入了近500億美元新資本，較2007年的水準高出近五分之一。所有這些資金都已到位，但交易仍無法達成。Dealogic的數據顯示，2006年，儘管大型收購機構投入了大量人力和資本，但亞洲金融機構領頭的交易僅爲370億美元，佔當地併購交易總額的6%。到2008年，這個比例降至4%；今年迄今爲止，尚不到1%。