Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia & Singapore, 17 March, 2022 – Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform Carsome Group Pte Ltd (Carsome), today announced the acquisition of 51% stake in CarTimes Automobile Pte Ltd (CarTimes).

Established in 2001, CarTimes is one of the largest and trusted, award-winning auto companies in Singapore, which offers a full suite of auto solutions ranging from new and used car retail, rental, financing, insurance to repair, maintenance and workshops. In alignment with Carsome’s mission of prioritizing customers’ values, CarTimes built its business to ensure every customer can enjoy ultimate peace of mind at every step of the car transaction and ownership journey.

Carsome Co-founder and Group CEO Eric Cheng mentioned that CarTimes has built a strong brand in Singapore, trusted by local customers and partners since 2001, through a seamless car transaction process supported through a broad range of ancillary services such as financing and insurance. “We are thrilled to announce the partnership with CarTimes, the team of which has over twenty years of experience in the auto industry. This partnership will enable us to deepen our footprint in the Singapore auto market, and augment our ability in bringing trust, choice and transparency to customers together,” Cheng said.

CarTimes Founder and Managing Director Eddie Loo mentioned that the partnership with Carsome is crucial in assisting them to better serve customers and to provide them with the resources to digitize and improve the two-decade-old relationship that they have with their customers. “We are extremely excited to be able to find a partner who is fully aligned with our core values and is bringing innovation, technology, and regional experience to our team. Having built an automotive ecosystem of services for our customers here in Singapore, we believe that we have managed to convey our vision of providing a peace-of-mind buying experience to our customers,” Loo added.

The acquisition is an important move that further strengthens Carsome’s market leadership in the region, and reinforces Carsome’s commitment to drive ecosystem expansion. It comes after the company’s recent announcement of completing its acquisition of iCar Asia, a leading listing and content automotive platform in Southeast Asia, and the appointment of Digbijoy Shukla as Head of Merger and Acquisition and Ecosystem Strategy.

Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform Carsome Group (Carsome), today announced the acquisition of the remaining 80.1 percent stake in iCar Asia from the Catcha Group and other shareholders of iCar Asia, a leading listings and content automotive platform in Southeast Asia.

Upon the completion of the acquisition, Carsome became the sole shareholder of iCar Asia. Carsome is the market leader in the online used car buying and selling platform across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, while iCar Asia is the leading listings and content automotive platform across the same markets. Carsome and iCar Asia, combined, offer an integrated automotive ecosystem – for dealers to source, advertise and sell cars and for consumers to research, sell and buy cars – in a region that trades over US$55 billion1 worth of automobiles annually.

Carsome Co-founder and Group CEO Eric Cheng mentioned that the company has been collaborating with iCar Asia since July 2021. “We are pleased with the smooth completion of this acquisition. This partnership will enable us to further augment our offerings across discovery, consideration, purchase and fulfillment, covering the entire auto ecosystem anchored on our core values of trust, transparency and technology,” Cheng said.

The acquisition is expected to allow Carsome to provide more diversified solutions and experience across the buying and selling value chain to more dealers and consumers in the key markets. The expanded suite of solutions will offer consumers an end-to-end, one-stop experience that covers the entire car ownership journey – from search, transaction, finance and insurance to after-sales services. 

Source: Momentum Works Southeast Asia Used Cars Report 2020

SINGAPORE, 10 JAN 2022 – Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform Carsome Group (Carsome), today announced the completion of its US$290 million Series E round, increasing the company’s valuation to approximately US$1.7 billion. This new financing further solidifies Carsome’s position as the leading integrated e-commerce auto platform in Southeast Asia.

The latest financing round was jointly led by Qatar Investment Authority (“QIA”), 65 Equity Partners (“65EP”) and Seatown Private Capital Master Fund (“Seatown”). The round also saw strong participation from investors such as Mediatek, Sunway, Gokongwei Group, YTL Group, and Taiwan Mobile.

Carsome plans to use the proceeds raised in this round of financing to accelerate investment in people, product, technology, data capability, infrastructure, and regional expansion of its retail brand, Carsome Certified, across key markets in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

About Qatar Investment Authority

Qatar Investment Authority (“QIA”) is the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar. QIA was founded in 2005 to invest and manage the state reserve funds. QIA is among the largest and most active sovereign wealth funds globally. QIA invests across a wide range of asset classes and regions as well as in partnership with leading institutions around the world to build a global and diversified investment portfolio with a long-term perspective that can deliver sustainable returns and contribute to the prosperity of the State of Qatar.

For more information, please visit https://www.qia.qa

About 65 Equity Partners

65 Equity Partners is an independently managed wholly-owned investment platform of Temasek which focuses on providing equity and structured capital solutions to established companies with regional or global aspirations, in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. In Singapore, the strategy of 65 Equity Partners is to provide capital solutions to local enterprises with fundamentally sound businesses and help them expand regionally or transform strategically. 65 Equity Partners will also invest in leading companies and new economy businesses in Singapore and the region, ahead of their eventual listing in Singapore.

For more information, please visit www.65equitypartners.com.

About Seatown Private Capital Master Fund

SeaTown Private Capital Master Fund is a close-end fund focused on private equity investments managed by SeaTown Holdings International.

SeaTown Holdings International is a Singapore-based investment manager focused on alternative, absolute return strategies. With over US$6bn of assets under management,

SeaTown Holdings International manages multi-asset and public credit strategies through open-end funds as well as private investments strategies in closed-end funds.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of Seviora Holdings and indirectly owned by Temasek Holdings.

For more information, please visit https://www.seatowninternational.com/.

SINGAPORE – Temasek has officially announced the establishment of its wholly owned subsidiary 65 Equity Partners, which supports family businesses and entrepreneurs with regional or global ambitions.

The platform will have about $4.5 billion in funds under management and will target deal sizes of between US$100 million (S$135 million) and US$200 million.

About 36 per cent of the funds come from the Singapore Government, while the remaining $2.9 billion will come from 65 Equity Partners or Temasek, the platform’s chief executive Tan Chong Lee told The Straits Times.

It expects to have a total headcount of more than 40 by the middle of next year, he added, noting that some staff will be moving from Temasek.

It is expanding its international footprint through offices in Europe and the United States, in addition to its Singapore headquarters, which launches today.

65 Equity Partners aims to provide capital solutions to address situations such as growth funding and mergers and acquisitions financing, as well as privatisation.

Temasek said that 65 Equity Partners will invest across industries with strong structural tailwinds, such as consumer, industrial and business services, logistics, healthcare and technology.

The platform currently manages Anchor Fund @65 and the Local Enterprises Fund @ 65.

Anchor Fund @ 65, a co-investment fund which was announced last month, invests in late-stage private funding and initial public offerings of high-growth companies. It is starting with $1.5 billion in its first tranche.

Local Enterprises Fund @ 65 is a joint $1 billion fund which was announced in this year’s Budget to help large local enterprises transform and scale up.

Aside from the $2.5 billion pegged to these two government-linked funds, 65 Equity Partners has earmarked $2 billion for its international strategy.

Elaborating on the platform’s objectives, Mr Tan spoke about the global funding gap for mid-sized, family-owned businesses.

This space tends to be supported by family offices and local funds, he said, adding that 65 Equity Partners looks to be a global platform that invests in this mid-market space in Europe, the US and Singapore.

Its strong presence in Asia and understanding of the region, as well as its global perspective, differentiates it from other funds, added Mr Tan, who is also president of Temasek’s commercial arm Temasek International.

The platform plans to work closely with other Singapore-focused funds such as Temasek unit Heliconia Capital Management and private equity firms Tower Capital Asia and Novo Tellus Capital Partners.

It announced its first investment with Tower Capital – a majority stake in corporate services provider BoardRoom – in August.

Mr Tan also noted the natural synergies with Heliconia, given that Heliconia’s investments are in small and medium-sized enterprises and their cheque sizes tend to be smaller.

“When Heliconia companies… mature and need more fund raising, we are the natural port of call in terms of us investing in the Heliconia companies,” he said.

Temasek International chairman Lee Theng Kiat said that 65 Equity Partners complements Temasek’s broader investment strategy.

“The platform will also have flexibility to deploy funds into opportunities that may sit outside the core focus areas of Temasek, such as (privatisation) situations or family business restructurings, thereby increasing the breadth of solutions offered by our wider ecosystem.”