While Australia and Japan continue to dominate take-privates in Asia-Pacific, some of the region’s largest private capital transactions have emerged elsewhere, spanning infrastructure, datacentres, healthcare and growth investments.

The year’s two largest take-private transactions to date involved companies based in India and Singapore: the USD 9.3bn take-private of India’s ReNew Energy Global by its founder and CPP Investments, and the USD 9bn acquisition of Singapore-based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres led by a consortium involving KKR.

According to Mergermarket data, financial sponsors have announced more than 331 APAC transactions worth over USD 113.5bn through mid-September above 21% from last year’s corresponding figures of 341 deals worth a combined USD 93.6bn.

The data shows investors remain willing to deploy significant capital behind long-duration themes such as digital infrastructure and energy transition and have pursued opportunities ranging from mature Australian and Japanese public companies to Indian energy platforms and Southeast Asian digital infrastructure assets.

Top 10 buyouts

As shown in the table, Australia remains the region’s dominant market for large-scale sponsor-backed public-to-private activity, with targets spanning waste management, insurance distribution, industrial products and wealth management. The range illustrates sponsors’ willingness to pursue both infrastructure-like cash flows and more cyclical corporate assets.

Public market opportunities among some of the country’s more mature assets can be acquired relatively cheaply. The 11.9x EV/TTM EBITDA multiple paid by a consortium again involving KKR for Steadfast, a business admittedly facing headwinds, is significantly below precedent insurance sector deals. Elsewhere, I Squared Capital has expressed delight at the “low entry multiple” it paid for ASX-listed outdoor advertising business oOh!Media

Conversely, in Japan, the plethora of opportunities stemming from shareholder activism and increasing board willingness to launch auctions may be intensifying competition and placing upward pressure on valuations.

The fierce ongoing battle between a Bain Capital-backed consortium and an EQT-backed bidder for Kakaku.com echoes the six month bid war last year between KKR and Bain for Fuji Soft. This month an apparent tactical leak sent down shares in Nikkon Holdings, which is subject to an auction exclusively revealed in May by this news service.

Other notable transactions in Japan include Apollo Global Management’s completed acquisition of Nippon Sheet Glass. The deal illustrates how sponsors are exploring not only traditional leveraged buyouts but also broader corporate restructurings and strategic transformations.

Large scale financial investments

While Australia and Japan dominate buyout headlines, India may offer the clearest indication of how the region’s private capital landscape is evolving.

The buyout of ReNew Energy Global has been priced at a significant discount to a failed take-private attempt last year by a similar consortium. But the growing maturity of India’s IPO market in recent years has enabled the buyer consortium to sweeten its offer to minority shareholders by including a rollover option that could see them double their money with a subsequent India relisting. This marks a very different picture from 2021 when ReNew believed merging with a US-listed SPAC was its best option to secure growth capital.

India has also generated significant sponsor activity across healthcare, infrastructure and financial services. KKR’s acquisition of Medicover Hospitals India ranks among the region’s larger healthcare transactions, while TPG and GIC’s agreed investment in Aseem Infrastructure Finance reflects continuing investor appetite for long-duration infrastructure exposure.

Source: Mergermarket, data correct as at 11-Sep-2026. Data labels indicate the deal count.

Southeast Asia, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the region’s most important destinations for private capital deployment, particularly in digital infrastructure.

KKR’s acquisition of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres ranks among the largest sponsor-backed transactions globally this year, while Singapore-based DayOne raised USD 4.5bn in one of the world’s largest datacentre financing rounds, attracting investors including Coatue, Hillhouse and Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund. Rapidly growing demand for AI computing capacity, cloud services and digital connectivity is attracting increasingly large pools of capital to the region.

Source: Mergermarket, data correct as at 11-Sep-2026.