Ping An seeking to sell US$1 billion software-focused PE assets: sources
The insurer is said to have tapped Campbell Lutyens to offload the stakes
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[HONG KONG] China’s biggest insurer Ping An Insurance is seeking to reduce software-focused private equity (PE) exposure by selling its stakes in some funds, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The insurer has tapped Campbell Lutyens to offload stakes worth about US$1 billion, the sources said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
The sale process started in March, they added.
The majority of the portfolio consists of two software-focused funds managed by Vista Equity Partners from the late 2010s that invested primarily in North America, the sources added.
There is also another North America-focused fund managed by KKR, the sources revealed.
Recently other private credit funds have turned away software borrowers as they seek to shrink their exposure to the sector, and a number of software company sales planned by private equity have stalled.
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Private market managers allocated hundreds of billions of US dollars to software over the last 15 years, betting that software-as-a-service business models would generate high growth and reliable cash flows.
That focus became increasingly concentrated during the period, with software and technology services accounting for about half of all private equity deals in recent years, far surpassing any other industry.
Ping An earlier tapped the secondaries market in 2024 via its overseas arm. In this transaction, the insurer offloaded some of the fund stakes from the balance sheet but continued to manage the assets for the new investors.
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Through such a transaction, it helped Ping An obtain liquidity and grow its asset management businesses, the sources familiar said. The current deal is being structured in a similar way, they pointed out.
Representatives from Vista, KKR, Campbell Lutyens and Ping An Insurance Overseas (Holdings), which holds the PE assets on behalf of its parent, declined to comment.
China insurers’ offshore private investments are bound by quota limits, including those in programmes such as Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor.
Ping An, which holds the largest such quota among China insurers, recently received an additional US$80 million limit in March, according to calculations by Bloomberg based on State Administration of Foreign Exchange disclosures.
Ping An’s total investment assets stood at 6.5 trillion yuan (S$952 billion) as at the end of 2025. Its investment income for the year fell 4 per cent to 154.5 billion yuan. The overseas arm manages around US$60 billion. BLOOMBERG
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