Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co LP will pay $159 million for 10 percent of Vietnam's Masan Consumer Corp in the country's largest ever private equity investment, underscoring buyout funds' increasing appetite for Asian consumer-linked plays. The deal comes as intense competition for assets in China and India pushes buyout firms into smaller frontier markets in pursuit of assets as they seek to deploy $73 billion in capital raised for investing but not yet used, revealed by Thomson Reuters data. The deal values Masan Consumer, a unit of Masan Group and Vietnam's leading producer of fish, soya, chili sauce and branded noodles, at $1.6 billion. KKR's Masan investment follows news last week of its plans to take Taiwan's Yageo Corp private in a deal that also values that company at $1.6 billion. The Masan Consumer deal is KKR's fourth investment in Southeast Asia and its first in Vietnam.
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