Sovereign wealth funds have overtaken private pension funds to become the second-largest group of investors in private equity after a sustained increase in allocation to the asset class in the past two years.

Despite being few in number - Preqin tracks 76 globally - the government funds as a whole have $83.1 billion committed to the asset class as of January 2016, up from $79.8 billion in January 2014, according to the data provider. This comprises 17% of all capital committed to private equity, for the first time putting sovereign wealth funds ahead of private sector pension funds, which made up 15%.