Hamilton Lane exclusively unpacked its Asia wealth expansion strategy to Asian Private Banker, including how the firm is pushing into Taiwan. And how the firm is mitigating redemption-gating risks in its flagship evergreen funds, key to its Asia strategy.

Launching its Asia Private Assets Fund in July 2025 and the Global Venture Capital and Growth Fund in October 2025, alongside recent partnerships with private banks UOB Private Bank and DBS Private Bank, as well as wealth platform StashAway in Hong Kong and Singapore, Hamilton Lane has been pushing deeper into the private wealth channel in Asia this year.

Collwyn Tan, co-head of Asia Investments at Hamilton Lane, vividly recalls the launch of the firm’s first evergreen fund back in 2019. Starting with Australia, the global private investment giant has since seen its evergreen platform expand rapidly to US$13 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of July 2025.

The firm’s rapid Asia expansion comes as other major private investment firms — from EQT Group to KKR and The Carlyle Group — ride the new wave of Asian private wealth investors, seeking diversification and sources of yield in the sometimes opaque world of alternatives.

Tan explained that while the firm does not have an AUM target for the Asia market, success is measured by addressing specific market pain points with the right product, which naturally drives AUM growth.

Tan said the firm’s strategy was proven by early success in Australia, attracting billions in inflows. He cited the Asia Private Assets Fund as a case study: while investors want exposure to Asia private markets, a fragmented manager landscape often forces difficult, single-market calls. Hamilton Lane addresses this by offering a pan-regional fund.

“Many of the regional banks now are realising that they are missing products on their shelf, since we are the only one able to come to the market with this product,” Tan said.

Redemption gating risks

A core challenge for evergreen funds is the mismatch between the demand for periodic liquidity and the inherently illiquid nature of private assets, leading to the risk that redemption requests could exceed the fund’s liquidity limit, as in the case of Blackstone’s B-REIT in 2022.

To address these concerns, Mingchen Xia, managing director and co-head of Asia investments, explained that the core risk management strategy avoids common pitfalls such as portfolio concentration and the reliance on a few large distribution channels.

“Some [distribution] channels even provide some aggressive finance terms to the investors, and we don’t do that,” Xia said.

The product itself is designed with strict redemption limits to manage large-scale liquidity risk effectively, a strategy Xia noted has successfully protected the firm over the past six to seven years.

Tan added that “not all evergreens are equal”, emphasising that scale is crucial for diversifying the client base, extending beyond private wealth to include pensions and insurance, and enabling the solution-oriented design.

The firm’s differentiation lies in its strategic position as a limited partner (LP) or fund sponsor, which provides access to diverse direct investments and, most importantly, the secondary market, he said.

Australia leads APAC in maturity

Despite the decades-long track record for semi-liquid structures and established platforms in the US and Europe, Tan observed that gaps remain in Asia Pacific in terms of product depth and maturity.

“In terms of financial products, Australia is one of the more advanced ones, because of the whole financial adviser dynamic. Australia is definitely more towards the maturation profile of the US, as opposed to the rest of the markets in Asia Pacific,” he said, adding that Australia is ahead in the region thanks to the underlying structure of its financial adviser sector and its economic development.

This allows for a stage where individuals are affluent long enough that they are willing to outsource financial decisions to professional advisers, while Hong Kong and Singapore are still primarily catering to established family offices and working to expand the awareness and convert individual clients to private wealth platforms, Tan explained.

Taiwan expansion

Most recently, Hamilton Lane announced its expansion into the Taiwan market with plans to launch evergreen investment vehicles in late October.

“Taiwan has been very starved for alternative investment in general, which is why the regulation came out. Because many private banks or just general investors in Taiwan are probably overexposed to the US and semiconductors, they’re really looking for alternatives,” said Tan.

When asked if Hamilton Lane seeks to take a similar launch in local markets, especially in Southeast Asia, Tan said that the firm does not have any plans to expand its existing footprint in the region.

With 60 full-time employees across six offices in Asia, Tan said the firm will continue to ramp up its headcount in Asia. Tan said that although its peers have gone “all-in” into private wealth by building up dedicated private wealth units, the bread and butter of Hamilton Lane will remain managing assets of institutional investors from the likes of pension funds, endowments, insurance firms and more.