This year, redemption requests and gating at several US evergreen private credit funds have dominated industry headlines, raising questions about liquidity management and the resilience of evergreen structures. Against this backdrop, Novantigo's database of more than 460 Europe domiciled evergreen funds and ELTIFs provides an opportunity to separate headlines from underlying market trends. The latest data suggests that, despite heightened scrutiny, investor demand for evergreen vehicles in Europe has remained resilient.
Assets under management across European evergreen funds increased from €145 billion at the end of 2025 to €180 billion by May 2026, representing almost 24% growth in just five months. Rather than slowing, investor demand has remained strong across all major private market asset classes, although the pattern of growth has become more balanced than during the rapid expansion witnessed throughout 2024 and 2025.
Private equity remains the largest evergreen asset class, with assets rising from €55.5 billion to €65.4 billion during the period. Infrastructure has been one of the strongest performers, expanding by approximately 31% to €29.2 billion, while multi-asset strategies recorded similar growth, reaching €22.7 billion.
Exhibit 1: Europe-domiciled evergreen funds AUM by asset class, 2024 - May 2026 (in billion EUR)
Source: Novantigo Evergreen Funds Navigator Analyst note: Closed-end ELTIFs excluded
Private debt continued to attract significant investor interest, with assets increasing from €43.8 billion at the end of 2025 to €50.8 billion by May 2026. Although this represents more moderate growth than infrastructure or multi-asset strategies, private credit remains one of the largest evergreen asset classes. Moreover, despite recent headlines surrounding redemptions and gating in the US, redemption activity in European evergreen private credit funds has remained broadly in line with previous quarters. Fundraising has, however, shown signs of slowing as some private banks and wealth managers and their clients have paused new allocations to private credit or postponed the onboarding of new evergreen private credit funds until later this year.
Rather than moving away from the asset class, investors appear to be becoming increasingly selective, favouring managers with established investment platforms, broad origination capabilities, proven liquidity management frameworks and strong distribution networks.
This trend becomes particularly evident when analysing the largest evergreen private credit funds. Ares European Strategic Income Fund remained the market leader, increasing assets from €4.5 billion to €5.5 billion between the end of 2025 and May 2026. Goldman Sachs European Credit expanded from €3.8 billion to €4.6 billion, while LGT Global Private Credit reached €4.1 billion. Blackstone European Private Credit Fund, Hamilton Lane Senior Credit Opportunities Fund, Partners Group Private Loans and KKR Income Trust I also continued to report positive asset growth.
Investment performance across the leading funds has remained remarkably consistent, although returns vary depending on the share class used for comparison. Most leading funds generated annual returns of approximately 7% to 8% during 2025, while year-to-date returns to May 2026 generally ranged between 1.8% and 3.0%. For example, Hamilton Lane Senior Credit Opportunities Fund delivered a 2.4% net return year-to-date (to May 2026), while Ares European Strategic Income Fund returned 2.2% over the same period. Blackstone European Private Credit Fund generated a 1.8% year-to-date.
Exhibit 2: Top 10 largest non-ELTIF private debt evergreen funds (in million EUR)
Source: Novantigo Evergreen Funds Navigator
Secondaries recorded the fastest growth, with assets increasing by 60% since the end of 2025, albeit from a smaller base. Among the largest funds, Ares European Strategic Income Fund and Goldman Sachs European Credit both expanded by more than 20%, while KKR Income Trust I also grew by 21%. CVC European Private Credit increased assets by 25%, whereas LGT Global Private Credit, Hamilton Lane Senior Credit Opportunities Fund and Partners Group Private Loans recorded more modest growth of between 6% and 10%.
However, not all private credit funds have benefited equally from the continued expansion of the market. Of the 86 European evergreen private credit funds currently tracked on Novantigo’s evergreen fund intelligence platform, only four reported a decline in assets under management compared with the end of 2025, highlighting the overall resilience of investor demand despite increased scrutiny of the asset class.
The variation in asset growth is difficult to explain through investment performance alone. Returns among the largest funds remain relatively closely aligned, yet fundraising outcomes differ substantially. This suggests that once performance is within a competitive range, other factors become increasingly important in investors' decision-making. Manager reputation, distribution reach, origination capabilities and confidence in liquidity management appear to be playing a greater role in attracting new capital than incremental differences in historical returns. In other words, investors are increasingly differentiating between managers rather than between investment performance.
At the same time, the evergreen private credit market remains relatively young. Of the 86 European evergreen private credit funds in Novantigo's database, 74 (or 86%) have track records of less than three years. As these funds establish longer performance histories, investors will have a more meaningful basis for comparing managers across market cycles. This is likely to result in greater differentiation between funds and could lead to increased rotation of assets within the private credit sector over the next 12 to 24 months, as manager selection becomes increasingly driven by long-term performance alongside operational strength and investor confidence.
ABOUT THE ARTICLE
The data and insights in this article are drawn from Novantigo's proprietary research on private assets in wealth management across Europe and Asia-Pacific, and from the Evergreen Funds Navigator – Novantigo’s continuously updated evergreen fund intelligence platform tracking over 460 Europe-domiciled evergreen funds and ELTIFs on over 50 datapoints and fund features.
To access the full dataset, request a demo, or learn more about our coverage, reach out to Justina (justia.deveikyte@novantigo.com) or André (andre.schnurrenberger@novantigo.com).
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