This edition looks at early revival signs in the Singapore stock market, offering a ray of hope for VC and PE-backed IPO hopefuls; the rise of private wealth and its impact on the alternative assets landscape; and opportunities in data centre adjacents.
GPs view SGX outings with cautious optimism
After years of subdued activity, Singapore’s stock exchange (SGX) is showing green shoots. For fund managers in the region, a buoyant capital market means more opportunities for liquidity that would help them return lock-up capital and raise new funds.
The revival kicked off with data centre operator NTT DC REIT’s $773-million debut in July and was followed by Centurion Accommodation REIT, a spinoff from Centurion Corp, which raised almost $600 million in its initial public offering last week.
LHN’s co-living brand Coliwoo was the latest real estate firm to file a preliminary prospectus to list on the mainboard of the Singapore Exchange. Avanda Investment Management is among its cornerstone investors for the potential IPO after it was chosen among managers that MAS will set aside S$1.1 billion as part of a programme to stimulate the equity markets.
Tech-related offerings are also catching attention. In a major public liquidity event for Temasek-backed sponsor 65 Equity Partners, AvePoint raised about S$260 million in its secondary listing on SGX on Sept 19; the SaaS company made its public debut on Nasdaq in 2021.
But, after an initial bump on its first day on SGX – with the stock ending the day at about 1% higher from its offer price – Avepoint’s shares are currently trading under the IPO price of S$19.50. Still, with a market cap of over $3 billion, the company is one of the largest publicly traded SaaS businesses in the Asia Pacific.
Conversations with several industry participants in Southeast Asia over the past few weeks reveal a shared sense of cautious optimism. Many expect a wave of follow-on filings in the coming months as companies complete regulatory steps. And, even if 2025 does not yield a large volume of listings, the IPO pipeline itself indicates that issuers are willing to test the market, a major boost for private investors waiting on the sidelines.
Singapore Exchange itself said in its latest earnings in August that there are over 30 companies that have already hired advisers and started preparatory listing work, albeit only six new listings in the financial year 2025 so far.
Among potential candidates are Seatown-backed Foundation Healthcare, which was reported to be raising new capital at a S$1 billion valuation as part of its plan to do a listing. UltraGreeen.ai, another portfolio of 65, is said to be considering a Singapore IPO that could raise up to S$400 million, Bloomberg reported. Another homegrown company mulling an IPO is Carro, which has engaged advisors in recent months, but its listing destination is still unclear.
While the so-called ‘renaissance’ of Singapore’s stock market remains a work in progress, investors continue to find attractive privatisation candidates on the exchange.
A PrimeMovers-led consortium is the latest to find a target in Spindex in a potential deal worth about S$165 million ($127 million). Novo Tellus’ portfolio Grand Venture is also set to be acquired by a strategic investor in a potential liquidity event that would value the firm at about S$319 million. 65-backed Talkmed stopped trading last month, while ShawKwei-backed PEC and TPG-backed Econ Healthcare did so earlier this year.
The recent activity in the city-state could portend a slow but meaningful return to form that could give venture capitalists a second thought before flipping portfolio companies’ headquarters to IPO in India or Hong Kong.
Private wealth is not for everyone
With trillions of US dollars in Asian wealth, this pool of capital is becoming strategic to PE shops. Alternatives have consistently outperformed public markets, making products such as private credit, infrastructure, and private equity highly attractive to wealthy individuals seeking yield and diversification.
Yet, not everyone can distribute or deploy effectively.
Asia remains a difficult market to distribute in, with high barriers to entry. For example, it took EQT two years to be able to distribute in Malaysia.
Scale and sophistication also matter. For a manager like Partners Group, which executes up to 200 investments per year across various strategies, that breadth of deal flow enables quick deployment of the capital from wealth clients. It also supports diversification for investors, because it is always riskier to concentrate on only a few vintages.
There is even a misconception that managing semi-liquid funds is the same as traditional closed-end programmes. In fact, managers need to provide the institutional-quality experience for individual investors, but with simplified processes and a single layer of fees.
Pro-rata allocation adds another layer of complexity. “A lot of managers are actually constrained from their LPAs that the best investments need to go into the close-ended funds first, before the other vehicles,” said Henry Chui, Partners Group’s co-head of Asia & head of private wealth for Asia Pacific, at our Asia PE-VC Summit 2025.
Finally, pricing is important. While PE firms want to educate retail investors to be more patient with private markets, these investors still want redemption flexibility. “Make sure your valuation is current,” prompted Chui, contrasting with the closed-end structure where valuations can be stale.
Meanwhile, LPs are worried by the influx of retail capital into private markets. Geeta Kapadia, CIO of Fordham University, spoke at Milken Institute’s Asia Summit this week that while the private wealth space has not had an impact yet on the private capital industry, it “could have an impact going forward”, given the mismatch in investment objectives between individuals and institutional investors, and how managers structure to accommodate those needs.
After all, aren’t private markets meant to be private?
Beyond data centres
The digital economy’s backbone is shifting, and it is becoming vivid in the Asia Pacific’s surging demand for data centres. US giants BlackRock and Warburg Pincus recently expressed interest in developing hyperscale data centres in South Korea and Vietnam, respectively.
The APAC data centre market was valued at about $102.5 billion in 2024, with expectations to soar to $174.8 billion by 2030 at a 9.3% CAGR, according to a recent research by Arizton. China remains the heavyweight in this sector, but Southeast Asia is fast emerging as the growth engine with a projected CAGR of 14.23%, outpacing the regional average.
Selected data centre investments in Asia, 2025
“Data centres are great customers who can pay. That’s an opportunity set you can chase after,” said Khan Yow, managing partner of Seraya Partners. But more than data centres, opportunities spread across everything around them, from power sources, water, cooling, to interconnectivity.
Adding AI to the mix, investors are changing the way they think about infrastructure. That leads to the nuances around how the large demand for power generation and peripheral services is addressed, as well as how the different business models are adapted in different geographies.
Seraya’s Khan Yow picked Malaysia’s Johor as an example, where drinking water sources are already competing with data centre cooling needs. “That’s a politically sensitive and uncomfortable issue, but also an interesting problem for investors to solve,” he noted.
As such, governments are urged to align energy policies and data centre growth to ensure sustainability. One way to look at it is to assess the core advantages. Currently, advanced markets in the region have strong regulatory frameworks and reliable grids, while emerging countries like India, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines can bank on the edge of being cost-effective.
“Cost competitiveness will become incredibly important. Having a low-cost, high-growing power environment translates into efficient and meaningful operations of various areas [including data centres],” said Niels Holst, Partner at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
“From a strategic standpoint, it will be a key differentiator for various countries in the region,” he added.
Top PE developments
Fundraising
The Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS) has injected $75 million into I Squared Capital’s second emerging market fund and $40 million into KKR’s third Asia infrastructure fund.
CapitaLand and SC Capital Partners have launched a fund to develop industrial real estate in the United Arab Emirates.
Aura Group is undertaking a capital raising, ahead of an initial public offering in Australia, seeking to raise $30 million.
Brookfield Asset Management has raised over $4 billion for the first close of its global infrastructure debt vehicle.
Hamilton Lane has launched an evergreen investment vehicle focused on venture and growth opportunities in private markets.
Sriwijaya Capital has debuted its inaugural fund with about $200 million in commitments.
Deals
GL Capital has brought in ADIA as lead investor in a single-asset continuation vehicle for SciClone Pharmaceuticals, a China-focused specialist pharmaceutical company.
