Private Equity Spotlight

Over the past year, LP appetite for private equity has shifted noticeably. Private Equity International’s latest LP Perspectives Study revealed that 38 percent of respondents plan to invest more in private equity in 2026, which is down from 45 percent in 2025. Meanwhile, 12 percent plan to invest less, up from 7 percent the prior year.

What is driving this change? To unpack the data, PEI Group senior content producer Evie Rusman is joined by Hong Kong bureau chief Alex Lynn and senior research manager Evie Taylor to analyse the findings and discuss how these trends are shaping LP sentiment towards private equity.

This is the first episode in PEI’s new miniseries Data Dive, where we'll dig into PEI's 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 the asset class is evolving.

Stay tuned for the next episode, which will provide insight into affiliate title Secondaries Investor’s inaugural global survey of the secondaries market.

Have expectations for private equity changed? What’s the role of the asset class in the portfolio these days?

These are the questions that Dale Burgess, executive managing director for equities at Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and David Nowak, president of private equity firm Brookfield, tackle in the second episode of PEI Group's new Commitment Issues podcast miniseries.

As the industry works through a backlog of unrealised assets, questions have arisen about performance, asset valuations and firms’ ability to acquire and sell companies in the time frame LPs have come to expect. For instance, average investment hold periods in private equity have now risen to around seven years, according to data from Bain & Company. Performance has to be even greater to achieve the same types of returns that private equity generated in past eras of cheaper debt.

As Burgess and Nowak explore, this can present a significant challenge for some firms, while for others – particularly where operational improvement is an established part of the toolkit – the game hasn’t really changed.

In the first episode of PEI Group’s new Commitment Issues podcast, Yangge Seaman of the Children’s Health System of Texas spoke with Hg Capital co-CEO Steven Batchelor about the slow pace of exits and the rise of alternative forms of liquidity that some GPs are using to boost distributions.

While exit activity and overall deal activity appear to be picking up this year, as a percentage of total net asset value, distributions are hovering around 11 percent. That’s a similar level of activity to that seen around the global financial crisis, and well below the 20 percent or more associated with more robust years.

Seaman talked about what she is looking for when it comes to exit activity among the GPs in her portfolio, and Batchelor gave insight into how Hg approaches exit activity, including its use of a realisation committee to ensure the firm maintains a focus on selling companies. The two also discussed best practices around secondary sales as LPs look for liquidity.

Seaman and Batchelor also talked about the evolving LP-GP relationship, and ways both sides can ensure strong partnership through cycles.

Private Funds CFO's 23rd annual New York Forum gathered together nearly 600 compliance, financial and operational experts in two days of discussions that covered everything from AI to new ways to think about carry.

In this episode of Private Equity Spotlight, PEI Group editor Graeme Kerr chats with Private Funds CFO’s Graham Bippart, Rob Kotecki and Bill Myers to get their top takeaways from one of the world’s biggest events for CFOs.

In this episode:

Graham Bippart is senior editor of Buyouts and Private Funds CFO

Rob Kotecki is deputy editor of Private Funds CFO

Bill Myers is Washington correspondent for Private Funds CFO

Graeme Kerr is an editor at PEI Group

Join senior editor Adam Le, Hong Kong Bureau Chief Alex Lynn and America's correspondent Hannah Zhang in our end of year Private Equity Spotlight episode looking back at the biggest trends in the PE market in 2025.

From tariffs to trade wars, semi-liquid funds to the 401(k) opportunity and the resurgence of China, our editorial team dissects how LPs and GPs navigated various challenges and which developments are likely to spill over into 2026.