Media coverage
PEI features Doug Coulter's views on the mid-market opportunity in Asia-Pacific private equity
In a roundtable discussion with Private Equity International (PEI), Doug Coulter, Partner at LGT Capital Partners, shared his perspective on the evolving opportunity set in Asia-Pacific. He highlighted LGT Capital Partners’ diversified approach to Asia and explained why the firm prioritizes a balanced exposure across China, India, Japan and Australia rather than focusing on a single market, stage or strategy.
Doug noted that while capital is returning to the region, a significant proportion of it is flowing into a small number of pan-regional mega funds. In his view, many of these vehicles have become too large relative to the available opportunity set, making it more difficult to generate differentiated returns. As a result, large-cap managers tend to provide market exposure and scale rather than genuine alpha, and he believes this vintage of mega funds may fall short of expectations. Instead, he sees more compelling opportunities among smaller mid-market and growth managers as well as within the secondaries market.
According to Doug, China’s secondaries market represents an opportunity, as family offices and endowments increasingly seek liquidity. In his view, this is creating opportunities to acquire high-quality companies at attractive valuations. At the same time, he points to a rising number of fund managers across Asia-Pacific requesting extensions to fund life as exits continue to take longer than originally planned.
