News and developments in Asia private equity from Reuters News for the week ending April 20.

APRIL 20

CHINA IS poised to boost quotas on outbound investment schemes to $100 billion and cut barriers to moving foreign currency in and out of the country in a series of swift but small steps to crank open its tightly controlled capital account.

CARLYLE GROUP is among private equity funds bidding for a stake in unlisted South Korean group Kyobo Life Insurance Co Ltd worth about $1.8 billion, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

JAPANESE CONGLOMERATE Marubeni Corp is buying a 22 percent stake in Singapore reinsurer ACR Capital Holdings, a move that will provide ACR with new capital, the Singapore firm said.

HAITONG SECURITIES Co Ltd, China's second-biggest brokerage by assets, priced its $1.7 billion Hong Kong share offering near the bottom of an indicative range, leaving room for its shares to climb at the start of trading and draw more investors in what has been a slow market for listings in 2012.

BLACKSTONE GROUP LP, the world's largest alternative asset manager, reported higher first-quarter earnings as demand for its real estate and credit funds pushed assets under management to a record and yielded more management fees.

APRIL 19

KOHLBERG KRAVIS Roberts & Co and Goldman Sachs Group Inc will invest 2.69 billion rupees ($52 million) in India's TVS Logistics Services to help it expand, the three companies said.

A SONY CORP-led consortium won European Union approval to buy EMI's music publishing business for $2.2 billion on condition that it sell the worldwide publishing rights of artists including Robbie Williams and Lenny Krativz.

APRIL 18

PRIVATE EQUITY funds Affinity Equity Partners, MBK Partners and a listed retail unit of Lotte Group are among prospective bidders for an about $744 million stake in Korean water purifier company Woongjin Coway Co Ltd, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

APRIL 17

PRIVATE EQUITY firm CVC, facing heavy potential losses on its Australian TV network Nine Entertainment, plans to kick off the sale of the group's ticketing agency and send information to suitors, a source said.

CHINA'S NOAH Holdings Ltd, a distributor of wealth management products to high-net-worth individuals, plans a real estate fund worth as much as 18 billion yuan ($2.85 billion) as cash-strapped developers seek alternatives to bank lending, the Shanghai Securities News reported.

APRIL 16

CVC HAS hired UBS AG and Goldman Sachs to lead an expected $2 billion initial public offering of motor racing business Formula One in Singapore, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

SOUTH KOREA'S stock exchange suspended trading in electronics retailer Hi-Mart Co Ltd and said it may review the company for possible delisting over an embezzlement scandal less than a year after it went public.

CARLYLE GROUP is seeking to raise between $701.5 million and $762.5 million as it presses on with an initial public offering that is expected in early May, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday.