According to The Wall Street Journal, the private equity giant Hillhouse is planning to start raising a global merger and acquisition theme fund next year with a scale exceeding $8 billion, focusing on global market investment opportunities including Asia such as China, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, despite the complex and volatile market environment currently facing investment institutions. Hillhouse still maintains a keen market insight, actively seeks investment opportunities, and continues to focus on the layout of global investment business.

The report mentioned that Hillhouse recently hired personnel in London, Japan, and Singapore, planning to bring China's investment experience, industrial innovation, and supply chain capabilities to these regions, seeking investment projects globally, and has made multiple investments covering Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia, Australia, Japan, South Korea, mainly focusing on investment opportunities in the consumer, technology, and energy sectors in the global market.

Hillhouse has made early investments in many well-known Chinese internet and consumer companies, including search engine Baidu and e-commerce website JD.com. It also holds partial stakes in Uber and Didi, and helped Luckin Coffee open its first store in China. In recent years, with visionary investments in emerging Chinese technology and consumer companies, Hillhouse has become one of the most successful Chinese investment institutions.

An investor at Hillhouse told The Wall Street Journal that Hillhouse's founder Zhang Lei "can articulate his business in a very compelling way. One of the wisest things we have done is to invest in their funds." A person familiar with Hillhouse stated that from its founding in 2005 to the end of this year, Hillhouse's annual average investment return rate is as high as 21%.

Today, Hillhouse is increasingly focusing on investment opportunities in Asia, Europe, and other regions. In fact, Hillhouse has a long history of profitable investments in global regions including the United States, South Korea, Australia, and Europe. In 2017, Hillhouse invested in the US e-commerce company Magento Commerce, supporting Magento in strategic development, global sales expansion, marketing and customer support, new product innovation, and future acquisitions. The following year, it sold at a price of $1.8 billion to Adobe, doubling Hillhouse's investment returns. In a fiercely competitive deal in 2021, Hillhouse acquired the domestic appliance business of Philips in the Netherlands for a total of 4.4 billion euros (equivalent to 4.7 billion US dollars).

While expanding into the global market, Hillhouse also continues to increase its investment in the Chinese market. According to media reports, Hillhouse has invested in over 50 domestic projects this year, significantly higher than the market average, covering areas such as technology, new energy, and consumption, and has strategically placed investments in nearly 10 companies in key areas like intelligent industry chains.

Against the backdrop of continuously changing market conditions, investment institutions traditionally focusing on the Chinese market are seeking geographical diversification. This shift is not only a need for risk hedging but also demonstrates that Asian investment institutions are seeking new growth opportunities globally, which may reshape the global investment landscape. Apart from Hillhouse, other well-known institutions like Sequoia China and Yunfeng Fund have recently expanded overseas. According to the Financial Times, Sequoia China has established an office in London, hired former Goldman Sachs banker Taro Niggemann, responsible for seeking internet and consumer-related trades in the UK and Europe, and is reportedly considering setting up an office in Tokyo in the future.