First of all, may I wish you and your loved ones a prosperous New Year ahead !

Q4 2023 saw inflation moderating in many parts of the world.  The Fed during Dec 2023 FOMC meeting indicated that interest rates may start to fall in 2024, providing positive sentiment to capital markets.   While it is too early to tell whether interest rates will start going down this year, it is likely that interest rates may have plateaued, and hopefully there will be more demand coming back to the private equity and venture capital asset class.

Strategic Year team have experienced so many business cycles before, and we are committed to the private equity and venture capital industry for the long term.  At times like these (as we had in prior downturns), we are spending a lot of time with our portfolio companies to ensure they are well prepared for the next up cycle.  As we have experienced before, any surviving companies in their respective verticals will emerge as market leaders when the markets recover, because many of their competitors will have disappeared by the end of down cycles.   When customers/users come back out to look for products and services, they are only able to find those survivors who will have become de facto market leaders.  It is not because how great these surviving companies are (in fact by the end of down cycles they would have lot of scars on their bodies already), but because THEY HAVE SURVIVED!

One bright spot to share with you is that, Strategic Year portfolio companies in aggregate raised significant amounts of fresh capital in 2023.  This is a remarkable achievement given the difficult fund raising and operating environment in 2023.  We are pleased to be involved in some of the fund raising exercises; and we would like to thank our portfolio companies’ management and colleagues for their hardwork and dedication.   We are confident that many of our portfolio companies will become survivors themselves.

TEAM BUILDING

Any business needs a great team of colleagues to succeed.  This is universally true.  At Strategic Year we spend tremendous efforts developing and nurturing our team, and by now I am pleased to see the strong and diverse experience, skills, and wisdom amongst our team members.  A big hats-off to our Strategic Year team members!

COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS

At Strategic Year, while we focus on making the best investment and divestment decisions, we are always thinking how to give back to the community we grow up.

Let’s all hope 2024 will be a better year for all of us !

We cordially invite you to follow us on Linkedin  https://www.linkedin.com/company/strategic-year-holdings/

Best regards

Conrad Tsang

Founder and Chairman

Strategic Year Holdings Limited

conrad.tsang@strategic-year.com

www.strategic-year.com