Just days prior to the G20 summit this weekend, top executives at some of the world’s largest private equity firms that met in Hong Kong, Asia’s commercial capital agreed that Asia has surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s most attractive place for investment.

TPG Capital’s David Bonderman and Carlyle Group’s co-founder David Rubenstein, both told Reuters that while getting hit by the financial crisis, Asia was well suited to withstand it, thanks in part to banks’ relative lack of exposure to risky sub prime mortgage securities which sparked the global financial crisis.

Edgerley, Bain’s Managing Director was optimistic too, saying the region was in a better position to weather the financial storm, based on the growth of its consumer market and burgeoning middle class. Bain’s Asia focus is on China, Japan and India he told Reuters.

“Private equity all has long term lock ups. So you may like our performance, you may not like our performance, but you’re my partner for the next 12 years. At a hedge fund, you’re my partner for the next 45 days until you can give me notice and get the hell out. So you have a situation where a trillion dollars have come out of hedge funds, which is a third of all the capital they had, and virtually no money coming out of private equity,” Bonderman told Reuters.

Rubenstein added that he expected a recession in the United States to last longer than the historical average of around 9 months. “The recession this time will be far deeper than what we’ve seen for quite some time,” he told Reuters.

“Unemployment is up, retail sales are down. I suspect the recession will last at least a year, and I suspect quarter over quarter to have negative growth of 2 to 4 percent,” he added. The U.S. unemployment rate was likely to go up to 10 percent, from a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October, Rubenstein said. Furthering the difficult economic period was a U.S. government administration in transition, he told Reuters, with President-elect Barack Obama not taking office until January 20.

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