SHANGHAI: China’s biggest insurer Ping An Insurance Group is seeking to reduce software-focused private equity exposure by selling its stakes in some funds, according to people familiar with the matter.
The insurer has tapped Campbell Lutyens to offload stakes worth about US$1bil, the people 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 people said.
There’s also another North America-focused fund managed by KKR & Co, the people added.
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.
Private market managers allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to software over the last 15 years, betting that software-as-a-service business models would generate high growth and reliable cashflows.
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.
Through such a transaction, it helped Ping An obtain liquidity and grow its asset management businesses, the people familiar said. The current deal is being structured in a similar way, they added.
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 programs such as Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor. — Bloomberg
