Private Equity Spotlight

This episode is sponsored by FTV Capital and J.C. Flowers & Co

Financial services is one of the most active sectors in private equity dealmaking, but getting the highest returns requires deep sector expertise, especially in today's challenging exit environment.

In this episode, PE Hub editor-in-chief Mary Kathleen Flynn speaks with Peter Yordán, a managing director of J.C. Flowers & Co, and Kyle Griswold, a partner at FTV Capital, to find out what makes financial services different from other sectors. We also hear their strategies for successful dealmaking, including how AI is changing the landscape.

In the third episode of PEI Group’s Commitment Issues podcast miniseries, Joana Rocha Scaff of Neuberger Berman and Alexis Maskell of BC Partners unwrap the competitive world of private equity co-investments.

Over the past few years, such deals have become an expected feature of a GP’s offering, with both investors and managers honing their approaches accordingly.

As a very hands-on co-investor, Neuberger Berman looks to “re-underwrite” the asset alongside the GP, Scaff says. She highlights some of the issues that commonly crop up during the process, pointing to bugbears such as GPs going back on promises made or co-investments being pulled into continuation vehicles.

For his part, Maskell outlines why he wants to see a variety of sophistication levels among LPs participating in co-investments, including what he likes – and prefers not – to see from clients, and how both sides can work together most effectively.

This episode is sponsored by Cinven and KPMG

Private equity firms are accustomed to navigating change, but operating partner teams in particular have had to become more agile in recent years.

As volatility becomes the new normal – from macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty to AI-related disruption – operating partners need to continuously reassess the value creation levers they are pulling to drive portfolio company growth, while also building resilience across their portfolios. This, in turn, is leading sponsors to reimagine their operating partner teams, in terms of structure and skill sets, as well as the way in which they engage with portfolio company management.

In this episode of Private Equity Spotlight, Louise Fordham, head of special projects for private equity at PEI group, sits down with Sam Williams, managing director of strategy and investment insights at international private equity firm Cinven, and Paul Pan, private equity leader for the deal advisory and strategy practice at KPMG, to discuss the future outlook for value creation strategies.

As private markets mature and competition intensifies, investors are searching for ways to better measure risk, performance and true manager outperformance.

Peer‑group comparisons and fund‑level IRRs may tell part of the story, but they are insufficient for knowing whether a GP is really achieving the alpha they might claim.

In this episode, Frédéric Blanc‑Brude, CEO of Scientific Infra & Private Assets (SIPA), discusses why asset‑level data and benchmarking are becoming essential tools for investors. He explains how SIPA’s indices were developed to address long‑standing private markets data gaps, why the firm recently joined PEI Group, and how asset‑level benchmarks can help LPs determine whether GPs are genuinely generating alpha, or simply telling a compelling story.

Learn more about Scientific Infra & Private Assets at sipametrics.com

How is market sentiment shaping secondaries fundraising and deal activity?

In this episode of PEI’s Data Dive podcast, PEI’s senior content producer, Evie Rusman, is joined by Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman and PEI head of special projects for private equity Louise Fordham to discuss the findings from PEI Group title Secondaries Investor’s Global Market Survey 2026. The survey, conducted in partnership with Goodwin, polled LPs, GPs, secondaries buyers and the intermediary community about market trends, transaction processes, deployment issues, regulation and more.

Download a data pack of the findings discussed in the podcast episode here.
PEI’s new Data Dive miniseries digs into our proprietary data, surveys and rankings, as well as recent market data sets, to understand what investors and fund managers are thinking, where capital is moving and how private markets are evolving.

Stay tuned for the next episode, which will provide insight into the 2026 edition of the PEI 300 – our annual ranking measuring the five-year fundraising totals of the world’s biggest private equity firms.