Partners Group today has secured a $1 billion mandate targeting private credit opportunities in Asia, the largest of its kind this year.
The mandate, raised from a single unnamed Asian institutional investor, includes a discretionary tranche to be managed by the Switzerland-headquartered firm, as well as co-investment capital, and will invest in both senior and junior direct-lending opportunities.
Partners said it has closed more than five mandates with major institutional investors in Asia over the last year, including an €800 million mandate to support a regional sovereign wealth fund in building direct exposure to private equity and infrastructure across markets in Asia and Europe.
Partners Group has been active in Asian private credit for 15 years and now manages more than $40 billion in private credit assets globally. In a statement, Partners' Chairman of Asia, Kevin Lu, noted that sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies, particularly in Southeast Asia and Japan, have been increasingly expanding their private credit exposure.
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This latest mandate is two-thirds the size of all fundraising for Asian private credit funds this year, according to PitchBook data. So far this year, $1.5 billion has been raised across nine vehicles following a similar strategy, compared with $9.8 billion raised across 30 fund closes last year.
One of last year's largest funds was KKR 's $1.8 billion Asia Credit Opportunities Fund II, which closed in December.
Overall fundraising for the strategy has dropped markedly from the previous peak in 2022, when $17.5 billion was raised across 46 funds.
More broadly, there have been other notable private-market fund announcements by European managers this year targeting opportunities in Asia. In April, EQT closed its record-breaking BPEA Fund IX , reaching its $15.6 billion hard cap. In May, London-based investor Lightrock launched Accelerate7, a $500 million fund backing growth-stage companies across South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa.
This article originally appeared on PitchBook News
