Active global investment manager Ninety One has published a new analysis highlighting the rapid development of emerging market private credit.
The asset class attracted a record US$22.3 billion in deployment across FY2025, nearly 40% above the previous record of US$16 billion set in 2022, as institutional investors broaden allocations beyond developed markets in search of stronger lender protections, attractive risk-adjusted returns and greater portfolio diversification.
Ninety One has seen this shift first-hand. Between January 2025 and June 2026, the firm completed more than 90 transactions across 28 countries, deploying over US$2 billion across renewable energy, digital infrastructure, logistics, transportation, industrial projects and corporates.
The company has identified five structural shifts driving the next phase of emerging market private credit:
- Structural financing demand continues to outpace available capital
- Rapid urbanisation, energy transition, digitalisation and infrastructure investment continue to drive substantial financing requirements across emerging markets.
- Regulatory capital requirements continue to constrain traditional bank lending, creating significant opportunities for specialist private lenders to provide long-term financing solutions.
- The relative risks of emerging market private credit are better understood by investors
- Greater data, transaction history and investor experience are enabling a more nuanced assessment of relative risk.
- Emerging market private credit transactions often benefit from more conservative lending characteristics than comparable developed market deals.
- Borrowers typically operate with lower leverage, loans are predominantly senior secured, covenant protections remain robust and transactions are frequently governed by English or US law.
- Capital in EMs is financing an increasingly sophisticated real economy
- Unlike many developed market private credit portfolios, where lending has become concentrated in sponsor-backed software and services businesses, emerging market private credit continues to finance the infrastructure and essential assets underpinning long-term economic growth.
- Of Ninety One’s 90+ completed transactions, a third supported infrastructure and real assets, including renewable energy, digital infrastructure and telecommunications.
- The opportunity set is expanding, but access remains a constraint
- As institutional demand grows and transaction sizes increase, access to emerging market private credit opportunities remains highly dependent on specialist origination networks and local expertise.
- Unlike more established private credit markets in Europe and the US, emerging markets require specialist local knowledge and relationships built over many years, creating significant barriers to entry.
- Investors are broadening beyond developed markets
- As competition has intensified in developed markets, institutional investors are broadening private credit portfolios beyond North America and Europe.
- Emerging markets offer genuine geographic diversification and an expanding opportunity set, supported by structural financing demand, stronger lender protections and lower competition among private lenders.
Nazmeera Moola, chief commercial officer, private markets, said: “Emerging market private credit is at an inflection point. Investors are no longer viewing it as a niche allocation, but as a strategic part of global private markets portfolios. The next phase will be about moving from recognition of the opportunity to greater institutional allocation.”
