As the countdown begins for DealStreetAsia’s Asia PE-VC Summit 2026, we explore what the next cycle means for private markets across Greater China, Southeast Asia, developed Asia, and India.
Separately, we examine why more Asian institutional investors are looking at private credit opportunities in their home market.
Asia’s PE market adapts to a new cycle
Asia’s private markets are entering a new era of capital discipline.
The pressure runs deeper than fundraising and exits. Managers are rethinking where returns will come from while allocators are assessing where they want exposure. A market once built on traditional exits is scrambling toward new routes to liquidity and new sources of capital. This year’s Asia PE-VC Summit isn’t asking whether private markets will recover, but what the next cycle looks like.
Start with the GPs. Leverage, multiple expansion, and clean exits used to do most of the work; none offer much room now. Managers are turning pickier about what they back and are more hands-on about value creation. Longer holds aren’t necessarily the failure they’re often taken for. In many cases, managers are sitting on cash-generative businesses and letting returns compound.
LPs are working through the same problem from the other side as distributions thin, fundraising turns competitive, and conviction in Asia comes under review.
Where that discipline shows up also depends on markets. In developed markets of Asia, the case rests on control, governance reform in Japan, conglomerate restructuring in Korea, and a mature Australian market, and whether that adds up to a durable buyout engine or a run of one-off situations. At the other end in Southeast Asia, the post-reset question is whether platform building and mid-market deals can do what the old growth playbook no longer does.
Liquidity is where both sides meet. Secondaries have stopped being a niche corner and have become a tool LPs use to rebalance, and GPs use the same when a normal exit isn’t available. Continuation vehicles are central to that. They no longer look like a stopgap but a permanent feature of the market. Whether Asia’s secondaries market can widen beyond its marquee assets is a question that remains open.
Recovery would mean the return of the old market. What is seemingly taking shape is different – capital is pickier, liquidity matters more, and the money is coming from new places.
Hong Kong’s first Five-Year Plan: What it means for private markets
Hong Kong unveiled its first-ever Five-Year Plan alongside Chief Executive John Lee’s fifth annual Policy Address on Wednesday. For private market investors, four core takeaways stand out:
Tighter IPO scrutiny hits deep tech: While HKEX plans an H1 2027 consultation to review Chapter 18C’s market cap thresholds for Specialist Tech issuers, regulators are cracking down on listing quality. The SFC suspended Cloudbreak Pharma’s trading over suspected IPO rigging, and regulators are tightening approvals for humanoid robotics startups following volatile debuts. With over 500 applications in the pipeline, the message is clear: quality over quantity. Exits now require proven commercial revenue, forcing embodied AI and robotics portfolios to look beyond lab prototypes.
Binding green targets: The Five-Year Plan mandates cutting GDP carbon intensity by 32.5% and raising zero-carbon energy to 30% by 2030 (scaling to 60–70% by 2035) en route to carbon neutrality by 2050. Expect sustained momentum in green infrastructure and transition finance.
The “AI+” push: A new Commissioner for AI in Hong Kong will oversee risk governance next year, while the Sandy Ridge Data Facility Cluster, operational by 2029, will anchor local supercomputing. Primary investment tailwinds will centre on life/health tech and embodied intelligence.
The strategic dilemma: Deeper mainland integration remains both Hong Kong’s core strength and central challenge. For global allocators operating a “hub-and-spoke” model, Hong Kong offers unmatched access to Chinese supply chains and domestic liquidity, provided they can navigate the evolving ideological and geopolitical landscape.
We will tackle these themes across three China-focused sessions at the Summit, exploring how global asset allocators and fund managers can capitalise on regulatory tailwinds, navigate RMB capital shifts, and turn deep tech breakthroughs into commercial reality.
Can India’s PE market return capital?
Over the past two decades, India established itself as one of Asia’s most important private-capital markets, attracting global and domestic investors to build substantial portfolios across sectors.
The question facing its continued growth lies on the other end of the investment cycle: How effectively can India return capital to investors?
Data suggests that the exit story is gaining momentum. India-focused PE-VC firms have so far encashed $13.52 billion this year. In 2025 and 2024, the figures stood at $21.41 billion and $26.31 billion, respectively, per Venture Intelligence data.
But the headline numbers tell only part of the story. For PE investors, there is a difference between an investment becoming more valuable on paper and actually returning cash. As funds mature, that distinction brings metrics such as NAV and DPI into sharper focus.
That raises the question for India’s next phase of private-capital growth: Are exits available at attractive returns, at sufficient scale and within a timeframe that works for LPs?
Fund managers also face a balancing act. A GP may own a high-quality business that still has significant room to grow, while facing pressure to return capital as a fund approaches the end of its life. Does the manager sell, or hold on for more value creation?
The exit landscape itself is also changing. India’s public markets have opened up a significant route through IPOs, while strategic sales and sponsor-to-sponsor transactions remain important. At the same time, secondaries and continuation vehicles are creating more options for investors and fund managers to manage mature assets.
Can these routes develop into a deeper and more predictable ecosystem – one that allows investors to realise returns without necessarily forcing good businesses into premature exits?
The India-focused session at the summit will attempt to seek answers to what the next decade of private capital in the country could look like.
Asian allocators tap private credit opportunities at home
Asian allocators have long had an appetite for income-generating assets. Private credit adds the potential to capture a risk premium in markets where complexity can create opportunities for investors with the right expertise.
Put the two together, and it is not difficult to see why more Asian institutional investors are looking at private credit in their home market.
The trend is beginning to show up in the deal structure. Partners Group, for example, formed a $1-billion private credit mandate with a major Asian institutional investor, reportedly Danantara.
Meanwhile, the Indonesia Investment Authority has backed Granite Asia’s pan-Asia hybrid fund alongside Temasek, Khazanah, and most recently, an undisclosed Asian insurer.
For Granite Asia, these investors matter for more than their ability to write cheques. They are already familiar with private credit and, importantly, understand the region’s complexity and the opportunities that can emerge from it.
Yet, Asia private credit is not as standardised as markets in the US or Europe, and a single playbook cannot be applied. This creates opportunities for GPs to serve Asian LPs through bespoke mandates rather than relying solely on the conventional drawdown structure.
Equally, Asia needs private credit capital to grow. Private equity activity, M&A, corporate expansion, and refinancing all require other forms of capital outside the traditional senior bank loans.
Private credit is not necessarily to displace banks, but to broaden the capital stack available to Asian companies. That makes the participation of local institutional investors more consequential.
Japan offers an early illustration of how an ecosystem could develop, where banks, insurers, global asset managers and other institutional investors can share different parts of the private credit value chain.
MUFG has recently announced partnerships with Morgan Stanley Investment Management and BlackRock in private credit open platforms for the Japanese market, allowing external institutions to participate in evaluation, origination, and investment.
Separately, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Nippon Life Insurance are reportedly in talks to launch a private credit fund with initial capital of at least 500 billion yen ($3.3 billion).
Once the model is proven, long-term institutional capital is expected to flow across Asia. This region has already demonstrated its strong, secular growth.
Local LPs may be particularly well placed to underwrite Asia private credit, and can become a source of anchor capital for global investors.
Top PE Developments
IPO buzz
The National Stock Exchange’s massive Rs 22,569 crore ($2.3 billion) IPO marks a significant moment for India’s capital markets after years of its efforts to reach the public market.
The issue was subscribed 42% on its first day of bidding on Thursday, which experts said was a rather lukewarm response given its sheer size. However, NSE is not just another financial services company; it is part of the plumbing of India’s capital markets. So, with the offer closing on September 21, there is still time to gauge whether investor interest gathers momentum.
Fundraising
Goldman Sachs asset arm raised $11.7 billion in PE funds and related vehicles. The fundraising included $9.6 billion for flagship fund West Street Capital Partners IX, $1.6 billion for its Asia-focused strategy West Street Asia Equity Partners I, and $500 million for related co-investment vehicles.
India’s Tata Capital Healthcare Fund is currently raising about $261 million for its third fund, with a final close targeted by the middle of next year.
Deals
KKR, through its investment vehicle Valorous Asia Holdings, sold its entire stake in Philippine power producer First Gen for about 25.77 billion pesos ($410.48 million).
In China, Novo Holdings acquired a minority stake in medical-device manufacturer ForYou Medical.
Trustar Capital completed the sale of Hong Kong-based food manufacturer Amoy Food to Foshan Haitian Flavouring and Food, marking the PE firm’s exit seven years after its acquisition.
