Adia backs Hong Kong-based private real estate fund

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) has committed to put money into Dignari Capital Partners, a Hong Kong-based private credit investment manager focused on real estate in the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region.

The wholly owned subsidiary of the UAE sovereign fund is to back the private credit fund, which will provide tailored and structured credit to developers, construction companies, financial institutions and investors in Apac, with a particular focus on Hong Kong.

The private credit fund will target financing opportunities across the residential, office, retail, student accommodation, serviced apartment, co-living, data centre and logistics segments, Dignari said in a statement.

The fund will also target “value-add” opportunities – such as student accommodation conversions and hotel upgrades – in Hong Kong to meet market demand. 

“Private credit is becoming an increasingly important source of solutions capital in Hong Kong’s real estate market,” said Mohamed Al Qubaisi, executive director of the real estate department at Adia.

Dignari co-founder Grace Tan said Adia is anticipated to deploy “meaningful capital” into real estate opportunities across Apac’s developed markets in the near future. 

Earlier this month a unit of Adia announced plans to partner with Ardian, a French private investment company, to launch a real estate secondaries platform.

The real estate secondaries market has grown in recent years, with transaction volumes reaching a record $20 billion in 2025, Ardian said in a statement. 

The secondaries market involves buying and selling interests in private real estate funds or assets and offering new companies access to existing portfolios. 

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Adia said in 2022 that its fixed-income unit was investing more in private credit “in order to enhance returns in the low-yield environment”.

Last September, Mubadala, another Abu Dhabi-based sovereign fund, said it was joining forces with Citigroup and Apollo, the asset manager behind many private credit structures, in a $25 billion fund and “direct lending programme”.

Private credit will become the “hottest asset class” in the region, the CEO of US asset manager Monroe Capital told AGBI in 2024.