Asia’s Largest 2025 PE-Led Take-Private: EQT Acquires Fujitec for US$2.7B

In late July, European private equity giant EQT announced its largest-ever buyout in Japan, acquiring an 85% stake in elevator and escalator maker Fujitec for approximately US $2.7 billion. The deal, executed via EQT's Asia‑focused Fund IX, represents the biggest PE-led take-private in Japan this year.

Why This Deal Matters in APAC

This isn't just a headline grabber, it showcases how regional PE capital is pivoting toward strategic operational investments:

1. Governance-ramped Japan is open for business - With regulatory changes and pressure on corporate value creation, listed companies are becoming prime take-private targets. Bond-like stability meets fresh agility. Reuters
   

2. Platform value over raw assets - Fujitec controls a global elevator OEM footprint across 24 markets. EQT isn’t buying units—it's acquiring a scalable platform to digitise and grow across Asia, North America, and India. Reuters
   

3. Asia-focused capital is mobilising fast - EQT has raised $11.4 billion toward a target of $14.5 billion, betting that managing operational excellence will outperform simple financial engineering. Reuters
   

Strategic Signals for Executives

For Corporate Strategy & M&A Teams: Platform-based acquisitions are emerging as the dominant value lever. Instead of product-by-product growth, look for opportunities in scalable businesses with operational moats.

For CFOs & Capital Allocators: Asia-focused investment vehicles are moving into execution, not speculation. The future lies in capital being paired with digitisation and asset integration across markets.

For Private Equity & PE-Backed Operators: Asia is rapidly becoming a testing ground for PE-led transformation. Playbooks will shift toward industrial capability and global scaling via regional turbochargers, not financial arbitrage.

What It Signals for APAC Deal Flow

Across APAC, deal volume is trending up: M&A transactions exceeded 100 deals in H1 2025 (vs. 69 in H1 2024), and deal value spiked to US $572 billion, a ~97% increase. FinanceAsialinkedin.com. Chinese buyers led the surge, tripling closed deals year-on-year, and contributing heavily to APAC’s outperformance (+3.9 pp above the regional index). insurancebusinessmag.com

These macro dynamics are fueling more cross-border and governance-driven M&A, exactly the environment that created the window for deals like EQT‑Fujitec.

TL;DR

EQT’s US $2.7 billion acquisition of Fujitec is a milestone: the largest Japan-based PE take-private of 2025 and a strong signal of how Asia is shifting from passive capital to active platform-led ownership.For strategists across APAC, it underscores two truths:

1. Execution and digitisation matter.

2. Scale is increasingly built through platform control—not just equity stakes.