EQT’s Asia heritage and ample deal flow enabled it to become the first sponsor to launch an evergreen product that taps into its own PE funds, said Sueann Yeo, the firm’s head of Asia Pacific global wealth solutions.

“A single-country strategy would be too narrow; you can’t scale the product in a meaningful way. For the larger GPs that have pan-Asia platforms, it is about having the willingness and track record to do it,” she observed.

“Our EQT Asia platform is one of the only scaled platforms that was born in Asia and has the IC [investment committee] in Asia. And we felt confident we had enough business lines and deal flow to do it.”

EQT Nexus Asia, which launched last week, will offer investors exposure to funds and direct co-investments from the firm’s Asia platform. The vehicle targets a 13%-16% net annual return and offers quarterly liquidity, with redemptions capped at 5% of net asset value (NAV) per quarter, according to a marketing document. The minimum ticket size is USD 25,000.

Hamilton Lane debuted an Asia evergreen product in July 2025, offering exposure to co-investment and secondaries sourced through its network of GP relationships. As of July 2026, assets under management totalled USD 160.7m and 29 investments had been made in conjunction with 22 managers. More than half the portfolio was in LP-led secondaries.

EQT’s evergreen vehicle will have a 55%-75% allocation to the firm’s flagship Asia buyout strategy, which began 30 years ago under the Baring Private Equity Asia brand. Fund IX closed earlier this year on USD 15.6bn. It is the largest pool of capital ever raised for an Asia private equity mandate.

Another 10%-40% will go to the Asia mid-cap strategy, which is currently in the market seeking approximately USD 2bn for Fund II. There is also a zero to 10% allocation to growth investments. EQT has yet to launch an Asia fund under that strategy, but it already has such funds in other regions.

The expected geographic split is relatively broad. China is the only market in which a zero allocation is contemplated – a zero to 10% range is given – while Japan and India are each expected to receive 15%-40%. India is divided into domestic and cross-border allocations.

EQT already has evergreen products for global private equity and real estate. Following the merger with Coller Capital, it now has private equity and private credit secondaries as well. EQT Nexus Asia is the firm’s first geography-specific evergreen anywhere in the world.

“When we think about what is available in the market today and when we talk to distributors, many of them are starting to look for differentiated ideas,” Yeo added. “From an asset allocation perspective, they have many options across private equity, infrastructure, and private credit. Having a specific building block for Asia was something we heard about from some of our partners.”

At present, the evergreen product is only available in EMEA and APAC. Yeo flagged rising interest from EMEA investors keen on diversification, while on the distribution side, there was strong demand from private banks with an Asian nexus. This is seen as reflecting Asian client appetite for Asian solutions.

The global EQT Nexus private equity evergreen had AUM of EUR 2.07bn as of July 2026. It has exposure to funds and direct co-investments across eight vintages, with two-thirds of the assets based in Europe compared to 27% in North America and 8% in APAC.

Yeo does not envisage the Asia evergreen achieving this size. “This will be a capacity constrained strategy, because this is different scale-wise compared to US and European buyout,” she said. “We want to grow it properly and in a meaningful manner.”