19 November 2014, Washington, DC – EMPEA, the global association for private capital in emerging markets, today releases its Q3 2014 Industry Statistics and announces the adoption of the Industry Classification Benchmark (“ICB”) created by FTSE Group (“FTSE”), a leading global index provider.

According to EMPEA, private equity and venture capital fund managers raised US$32 billion and invested US$26 billion in emerging markets through the first three quarters of 2014, corresponding to 27% and 61% increases, respectively, compared with the same period in 2013. Fundraising was led by seven vehicles, including five pan-Asia funds, one Brazil-dedicated fund and one Central and Eastern Europe-focused fund, each holding final closes with capital commitments of more than US$1 billion through Q3 2014. Capital invested in emerging markets through Q3 2014 nearly matched annual totals for the prior two years, and 2014 is on track to post a record year since EMPEA began tracking investment statistics in 2008. Through the first three quarters of 2014, the retail, industrial goods and services and technology segments attracted nearly half of the number of private equity and venture capital deals completed in emerging markets.

EMPEA is an independent, non-profit organization of over 300 member firms, comprising institutional investors, fund managers and industry advisors, who together manage more than US$1 trillion of assets and have offices in more than 100 countries across the globe. EMPEA empowers the emerging markets private capital ecosystem with reliable fundraising and transaction data and a consistent research methodology across different regions and markets. Information from FundLink, EMPEA’s proprietary database, allows industry stakeholders to do comparative analysis from a single data source and is enhanced by on-the-ground intelligence of the organization’s global membership base and emerging markets reach.

EMPEA Adopts FTSE’s Industry Classification Benchmark

EMPEA has mapped all previous sector classifications in FundLink to the four-tiered ICB structure, providing private equity practitioners with the ability to conduct detailed, sector-level analysis on firms, funds, companies, investments and exits. EMPEA’s sector taxonomy now aligns with ICB’s consistent worldwide standard, and its historical data has been reclassified accordingly.

The Industry Classification Benchmark is the definitive global classification standard adopted by the international investment community, from global index providers, to financial media, fund managers and developed and emerging market stock exchanges, which together represent over 65% of the world’s market capitalization. The transparent and comprehensive classification system enables the categorization of individual securities across levels of granularity and covers a universe of 75,000 securities across 75 countries. Adopting ICB’s standardization will help investors worldwide who rely upon EMPEA’s data to better conduct comparative analyses between public markets and private markets and examine investment opportunities.

“EMPEA members recognize that a holistic understanding of how emerging markets private equity fits within the wider global financial markets landscape is critical to their investment success,” commented EMPEA President and CEO Robert van Zwieten, “We are very pleased to incorporate FTSE’s ICB structure into the sector classification of our industry statistics in order to make our asset class and emerging markets even more accessible to global investors.”

“We are pleased that EMPEA has chosen to license the ICB. The agreement will provide the organization with a true and definitive global classification standard, that can be used across their research and benefit EMPEA member firms,” stated Sudir Raju, Managing Director, ETP Relationships, EMEA and ICB at FTSE.

Maryam Haque, Head of Research at EMPEA, said of the announcement, “Much of the investment thesis of private equity in emerging markets revolves around accessing opportunities in sectors reaching the growing middle class. Analyzing the numbers through Q3 2014, companies in the consumer services industry accounted for 275, or 32%, of the 851 companies in emerging markets receiving private equity or venture capital investments, in contrast to consumer services companies accounting for 9% of the 907 total constituents included on the FTSE Emerging Markets Index. This type of insight is valuable to private equity practitioners, and EMPEA’s data can facilitate this analysis as a result of the sector standardization with ICB.”

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About FTSE Group

FTSE Group is a global leader in indexing and analytical solutions. FTSE calculates thousands of unique indices that measure and benchmark markets and asset classes in more than 80 countries around the world. FTSE indices are used extensively by market participants worldwide for investment analysis, performance measurement, asset allocation and portfolio hedging. Many leading pension funds, asset managers, ETF providers and investment banks work with FTSE to benchmark their investment performance and use FTSE’s indices to create world-class ETFs, index tracking funds, structured products and index derivatives. FTSE also provides many exchanges around the world with their domestic indices. FTSE is wholly owned by London Stock Exchange Group.

About EMPEA

EMPEA is the global industry association for private capital in emerging markets. We are an independent non-profit organization. As EMPEA celebrates our 10th anniversary in 2014, we have over 300 member firms, comprising institutional investors, fund managers and industry advisors, who together manage more than US$1 trillion of assets and have offices in more than 100 countries across the globe. Our members share EMPEA’s belief that private capital is a highly suited investment strategy in emerging markets, delivering attractive long-term investment returns and promoting the sustainable growth of companies and economies. We support our members through global authoritative intelligence, conferences, networking, education and advocacy.