Schroders Capital aims for £100 billion by 2027 after strategic overhaul

Sitting apart from the gloom that has shadowed much of private equity in recent years, Schroders Capital has quietly remade itself into a major force in private markets, expanding both scale and scope under the leadership of Georg Wunderlin.

Since Wunderlin took charge of Schroders’ private assets and alternatives arm in 2019, the business has grown substantially. Schroders Capital now sits near the top of Europe’s private markets players and, by the firm’s own reporting, manages roughly £81 billion of assets; the division accounts for about 9% of Schroders plc’s fee-earning group assets. According to Schroders’ public filings and company material, the unit runs strategies across private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private debt and credit alternatives and employed more than 725 people globally as of mid‑2025. Industry reporting shows the wider Schroders group reached a record £816.7 billion of assets under management at the end of the third quarter of 2025, helped by a run of positive net inflows and market gains.

Wunderlin attributes Schroders Capital’s performance to a deliberate tilt away from the crowded large‑cap buyout market and towards mid‑market opportunities where valuation discipline and operational improvement rather than heavy leverage drive returns. “When I joined, private markets were a small part of the group,” he said. He argues many large‑cap managers are now contending with “indigestion” after long periods of cheap debt, producing stretched holding periods and reduced exit activity; by contrast, Schroders’ mid‑market focus has preserved a healthier turnover of assets and kept its cash‑to‑cash cycle nearer historic norms.

The division’s asset mix underlines that breadth. Schroders Capital’s own disclosures show major exposure to private debt and credit alternatives and real estate, with private equity and infrastructure also sizeable. Separate company material states the private equity platform manages about $25.5 billion, while the Insurance‑Linked Securities team has expanded rapidly, reaching $5.5 billion of AUM by mid‑2024. In infrastructure, the business has emphasised energy transition opportunities since its 2022 acquisition of Greencoat Capital, pursuing investments in wind, solar, hydrogen, battery storage and heat networks it says will require long‑term ownership and operation.

The firm also attributes growth to product innovation aimed at widening access to private assets. Schroders has been an early mover in evergreen and semi‑liquid vehicles designed to let retail and pension investors participate in illiquid markets, and it has partnered with distribution platforms to extend reach into self‑invested pensions. Wunderlin has welcomed regulatory moves intended to steer long‑term defined contribution capital into private markets, noting the logic of restoring pension savers’ exposure to infrastructure, private equity and credit after decades of shift towards passive, lower‑cost holdings.

That pragmatism extends to internal resource allocation. Wunderlin describes a tightly enforced review process for business lines: if a unit fails to scale within three years it will be wound down. That approach has already resulted in closures of smaller operations where growth prospects were limited, freeing capital for higher‑priority areas.

Management now has a clear growth objective. According to Investing.com and Schroders’ strategy updates, Schroders Capital is targeting £100 billion of assets by the end of 2027, which requires approximately £20 billion of cumulative net new business between 2025 and 2027. The group has established a dedicated development team to chase that goal and has folded the target into Schroders plc’s broader strategic plan to restore profitable growth across the group.

Where risks remain, they are familiar: prolonged market dislocation could lengthen holding periods again, competition for mid‑market deals may intensify, and illiquidity remains harder to manage during stress. Yet Schroders Capital’s mix of product breadth, mid‑market focus and distribution innovation has so far produced steady fundraising and inflows even as peers have struggled. As Wunderlin noted, the firm’s trajectory has transformed a once peripheral set of desks into one of Europe’s largest private markets businesses, and the next phase will test whether that momentum can be translated into the further scale the board has demanded by 2027.