KKR & Co plans to buy Singapore’s Goodpack Ltd, the world’s largest maker of intermediate bulk containers, in a deal that values the company at S$1.39 billion ($1.11 billion), the two companies said on Tuesday. KKR is offering $$2.50 per share, a 6.8 percent premium over Goodpack’s last traded price of S$2.34, before the company went on trading halt on May 26. KKR will delist Goodpack on completion of the acquisition. Goodpack founder David Lam is pledging his 32 percent of the company as part of the takeover, the two firms said. The deal is the first takeover of a listed company from KKR’s $6 billion Asia fund, the largest private equity fund ever raised for Asia, and comes amid a flurry of dealmaking as private equity looks to invest the estimated $138 billion in dry powder that has accumulated in the region. Private equity backed M&A deals are off to their fastest ever start in Asia, with $26.7 billion in deals announced so far, 21.6 percent more than the whole of 2013, according to Thomson Reuters data. Private equity firms have invested nearly three times as much in Asia year to date as they did in the same period last year, the same data shows. Last week, KKR offered to buy Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates for A$3.1 billion ($2.9 billion), a bid which was rejected by the wine maker. The Goodpack buyout is backed with $600-650 million of underwritten debt from Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Thomson Reuters publication Basis Point reported on Tuesday.