Keppel Capital Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keppel Capital Holdings (Keppel Capital), has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with MindChamps PreSchool to cooperate and establish a new private fund, which will have an initial target fund size of $200 million.

Keppel Capital is the asset management arm of Keppel Corp.

Both parties intend to manage the proposed fund - Keppel MindChamps Education Real Estate Fund - through a joint venture in which Keppel Capital and pre-school operator MindChamps will each hold a 50 per cent stake.

With Keppel Capital and MindChamps as sponsors, "the proposed fund will seek to invest in pre-school and early learning real estate assets in the Asia-Pacific region", they said.

These real estate assets will be leased to MindChamps or its related fund entities, franchisees or licensees under long-term leases. MindChamps has 15 company-owned-company-operated centres in Singapore and Australia, as well as 46 franchisee-owned-franchisee-operated centres in Singapore, Australia, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Ms Christina Tan, chief executive of Keppel Capital, said: "We are excited to expand into investing in education real estate assets, to create a new alternative asset class that generates stable cash flow for our investors."