TPG NewQuest has closed its fifth Asia-focused secondaries fund on USD 981m following a protracted fundraising period, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

The vintage comprises a core co-mingled vehicle and multiple separately managed accounts. A third source put the total for a core vehicle at USD 689m, including a GP commitment of USD 20m. This was confirmed by one of the first two sources.

According to TPG’s first-quarter filing, the core vehicle had committed capital of USD 673m as of March 2025, of which USD 341m had been deployed. The net multiple and IRR were 1.6x and 43%, respectively.

NewQuest V launched in early 2022 with a target of USD 1.5bn. A first close of approximately USD 600m came in mid-2022, and the hard cap was set at USD 2bn. The fundraising period has been extended several times, reflecting an increasingly difficult fundraising environment for Asia-focused strategies.

Fund IV closed on USD 1bn in late 2019 and had a net multiple and IRR of 1.2x and 8% as of March. This compares to 3.2x and 37% for Fund I (2011 vintage, USD 390m, now fully realised), 1.8x and 19% for Fund II (2013 vintage, USD 310m) and 1.3x and 7% for Fund III (2016 vintage, USD 541m).

TPG NewQuest, which has around USD 3.5bn in assets under management, started out as a direct secondaries specialist, picking up single positions and portfolios from other managers. It later expanded into GP-led transactions, although these are typically complex restructurings.

The firm has also shifted from being emerging markets-centric to incorporating more developed Asia exposure. Roy Kim joined last year from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) as a partner responsible for building out this coverage. There have since been new hires in markets like Australia and Japan.

At the same time, there has been a leadership transition. Of the four founding partners who established what was then NewQuest Capital Partners and subsequently sold to TPG, Bonnie Lo and Min Lin retired at the end of last year, while Amit Gupta will depart in June 2026. The fourth, Darren Massara, remains managing partner of TPG NewQuest.

In the past year, Alex Shum and Desmond Lee, heads of the China and Southeast Asia teams, respectively, have been elevated to partner.

TPG NewQuest’s most recent announced transaction was a USD 230m strip sale involving Navis Capital Partners. It is the anchor investor in a vehicle that now holds a 50% stake in three Southeast Asia-based education businesses from Navis’ eighth fund. The fund retains the remaining 50%.

TPG declined to comment.