Terrace boy Doug Tynan gets the good sauce on Asia as VGI Partners launches fund

He’s the Gregory Terrace old boy who has amassed a $150m fortune, now VGI Partner’s executive director Doug Tynan is making a $1 billion bet on Asia, and a world-beating condiment served to royalty in particular.

VGI Partners, where former Terrace boy Doug Tynan has amassed a small fortune, is now making a $1 billion bet on Asia including the popularity of a soy sauce served to the Japanese emperor.

Mr Tynan, whose personal stake in Sydney-based VGI Partners where he is an executive director is now worth a whopping $150 million, was in Brisbane this week along with the firm’s executive chairman Robert Luciano talking to potential investors for a new listed fund focused on the developed Asian region.

Mr Tynan said that the fund, officially known as VGI Partners Asian Investments, would raise up to $1 billion when it opens to the public on Monday, 23 September. It plans to list on the ASX on November 13.

He said the fund would invest in market-leading businesses, including Japanese soy sauce manufacturer Kikkoman, which counts the Japanese emperor among its customers.

“Kikkoman has been America’s favourite soy sauce since the 1950s and most of the company’s profits and growth are outside of Japan,” said Mr Tynan. “With Japanese food gaining in popularity in the west, Kikkoman will reward patient investors for decades.

VGI Partners executive director Doug Tynan.

“You might think of soy sauce as a supermarket staple, but there’s one Kikkoman product that’s made exclusively for the Japanese Emperor and occasionally available to visitors to the Imperial Palace.” VGI has a track record of investing in popular consumer brands, with one of it best holdings being the manufacturer of lubricant WD-40.

Mr Tynan said that VGI Partners was seeing seismic changes in the investing landscape in Asia with corporate governance standards improving and the best companies increasingly focused on delivering for investors.

He said Asia also was the only region to have strong economic growth without also having high inflation. “Companies are getting much more investor-friendly in Japan and South Korea,” he said. “Governance is improving, shareholder activism is holding boards to account and they are more focused on buybacks and dividends than ever before.”

Kikkoman is the most popular brand of soy sauce in Japan and the United States

He said a unique part of the offering would include free shares in VGI Partners to everyone who invests in the float. Up to around $7,500 in free VGI Partners shares will be given for every $100,000 they put into the new Asian listed investment company.

VGI, where Tynan has served as a director since 2008, has seen its shares almost triple from an offer price of $5.50 since listing on the ASX earlier this year.

Mr Tynan as an existing shareholder of VGI holds 10.7 million shares, with fellow directors Robert Luciano holding 40.9 million and (fellow Terrace old boy) Robert Poiner owning 1.8 million.