Private clients at the bank in Asia and the Middle East are being targeted by the change, part of a continuing trend in international wealth management.

Citigroup in Singapore and Hong Kong are partnering with private market investment houses Blackstone, Blue Owl and KKR to launch evergreen funds for high net worth clients.

Clients of Citigold in Asia and the Middle East will be able to access areas such as private equity, credit, infrastructure, and real estate, widening access in a trend that is sometimes referred to as “democratisation.”

And continuing a trend that has evolved in recent years, Citigroup said the funds will adopt an “evergreen” form, which it said gives “more flexible subscription and liquidity terms than traditional closed-ended private markets solutions, subject to a minimum initial holding period.”

The launch of the funds has started, and the funds will continue to be rolled out in the next few months, the US banking group said in a statement. 

"In today's complex and volatile market, our clients are rightly seeking resilient, diversified sources of returns beyond traditional public markets,” Vicky Kong, head of wealth, Asia North and Australia, Citigroup, said. 

Evergreen trend
Evergreen funds, also known as perpetual funds, are structures that don’t come with the drawdowns, capital calls, exit deadlines and other traditional features of private market entities. 

There are no free lunches in capitalism, however, so evergreen funds raise questions. For example, as this publication heard recently, if redemptions rise, how does the fund satisfy departing investors without becoming a "forced seller" or degrading the quality of assets left for remaining investors? 

On the other hand, precisely because they appear not to have some of the complexities of traditional private market funds, evergreens are an attractive route into the space for those who haven’t entered before.