In a year marked by both bold real estate maneuvers and sobering reckonings in the investment world, Vietnam’s property and private equity sectors are offering a clear snapshot of shifting fortunes and strategy. While major developers like Phat Dat Real Estate Development Joint Stock Company are doubling down on land accumulation in growth markets, private equity (PE) firms globally are facing mounting pressures from lackluster returns and investor skepticism.
On December 26, 2025, Phat Dat announced it had received two pivotal decisions from the Dong Nai Provincial People’s Committee, officially recognizing the company’s successful bids for two substantial land plots in Dong Nai province. The first, located in Tran Bien Ward, spans more than 1.9 hectares and is earmarked for a high-rise residential complex, boasting a projected total floor area exceeding 146,000 square meters. The second, in Tam Hiep Ward, covers over 2.7 hectares, with plans for over 212,000 square meters of floor space. Combined, these two parcels add nearly 4.7 hectares and more than 358,000 square meters of development potential to Phat Dat’s growing portfolio.
According to Dân trí, these acquisitions are more than just land grabs—they’re the latest moves in a company-wide strategy to concentrate efforts on two of Vietnam’s hottest real estate markets: Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai. Phat Dat has been on a land-buying spree lately, including a recent push to secure a 3,500-square-meter site in Ho Chi Minh City’s Ban Co Ward, where it plans a mixed-use complex featuring residential, commercial, and office spaces. The estimated investment for that project alone hovers around 5,500 billion VND.
Phat Dat’s approach is emblematic of a wider trend among Vietnamese developers. As land prices continue to climb, competition for prime parcels has become fierce. The company is leveraging land auctions as a core part of its expansion strategy, a tactic echoed by other major players like Nam Long, whose leadership recently highlighted the critical role of auctions in securing "clean" land for future projects. As one company representative put it, the sector is experiencing “intense competition for land accumulation” as firms vie to secure their future pipelines in an increasingly challenging environment.
But while Vietnam’s real estate giants are ramping up, the global private equity industry is facing a different kind of reckoning. Entering 2025, there was optimism in the air—Harvey Schwartz, CEO of Carlyle, one of the world’s largest PE firms, declared at a December 10, 2024 conference that, “This is one of the best business environments we’ve seen in a long time.” He predicted 2025 would be a banner year for deal-making.
Yet, as the months unfolded, it became clear that the sector’s challenges run deep. Despite an uptick in mergers and acquisitions toward the end of the year, three major hurdles have persisted: underwhelming profitability, fundraising woes, and a backlog of unsold companies clogging up balance sheets. According to data cited by Fili, private equity firms are now sitting on a record 31,000 companies valued at $3.7 trillion—a figure that’s actually higher than last year’s record of 29,000 companies worth $3.6 trillion.
Many of these assets have become millstones. Take Thoma Bravo, for instance: the firm has struggled to offload companies like J.D. Power and ConnectWise, both acquired in 2019, after failing to find buyers at the right price. In some cases, firms have simply halted sales altogether, as the market refuses to meet their valuation expectations. Roark Capital, owner of fast-food chains like Dunkin’, Arby’s, and Jimmy John’s, has postponed IPO plans for its restaurant holding company despite years of preparation, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The numbers tell a stark story. From 2022 to September 2025, U.S. private equity firms have posted annual returns of just 5.8%—a far cry from the S&P 500’s 11.6% over the same period, as reported by MSCI. This is a dramatic reversal from the decades-long trend, highlighted by University of Chicago finance professor Steven Kaplan, who noted, “This model used to outperform the stock market by a wide margin, except during the 2008 crisis.”
The root of the problem? Higher interest rates, which the U.S. Federal Reserve began hiking in 2022 to combat inflation, have made leveraged buyouts costlier and dampened deal activity. A third of all companies sold by private equity firms in the past decade went to other PE outfits, but that pipeline has slowed to a trickle as buyers balk at inflated prices. As Sunaina Sinha Haldea of Raymond James explained, “A lot of companies are stuck. Firms don’t want to sell now because they’d have to accept lower prices.”
Investors are growing restless. Institutional backers like the Yale University Endowment and New York’s pension funds have recently liquidated stakes in underperforming PE funds to free up cash, sometimes at a loss. Evercore Partners projects such secondary sales will top $100 billion in 2025, nearly double the $53 billion recorded in 2019. Meanwhile, the pace of new fundraising has slowed dramatically: by September 30, 2025, PE firms had raised just $320 billion in new capital, compared to $650 billion in 2023—a potential decade-low, according to PitchBook.
Scott Nuttall, co-CEO of KKR, summed up the mood at a recent conference: “Many large pension funds and other investors are cutting ties with underperforming private equity firms and focusing their capital on those delivering results.” He added that KKR itself was enjoying a “record fundraising year.”
There’s even a bitter joke circulating in the industry: many PE firms have raised their last fund without realizing it. Experts like Marco Masotti of Paul Weiss predict the sector will consolidate over time, noting, “There will be fewer firms. But it will take a while to play out. Private equity firms don’t die—they wither away.”
Despite the gloom, there are glimmers of hope. The IPO market, while still a shadow of its 2021 heyday, has shown signs of life. In 2025, IPOs raised $170.6 billion for investors, up from the lows of the previous two years, though still far short of the $606.4 billion peak. Notably, Blackstone and Carlyle’s joint IPO of Medline, a major medical device distributor, was a runaway success: shares surged over 40% in the first three days of trading, valuing the company at more than $50 billion.
Harvey Schwartz, who had been bullish at the start of the year, pointed to these successes as vindication. In a recent statement, he called the uptick in IPOs “an encouraging signal for market sentiment as we head into 2026.” Industry leaders and investors alike are hoping that such wins will help unlock the capital tied up in thousands of companies still waiting for their moment in the sun.
As Vietnam’s real estate market heats up and global private equity navigates its toughest stretch in years, the contrast is striking. Where some see opportunity, others see a reckoning—and for both, the next chapter will be shaped by how they adapt to these new realities.