According to KPMG's 2025 Global PE Value Creation Survey, private equity firms face an inflection point as traditional strategies of financial leverage and multiple expansion fade. With fundraising contracting by 12% CAGR from 2021-2025, median holding periods exceeding six years, and over $3 trillion in unsold assets, PE firms must pivot from "stock-picking" to systematic, data-driven value creation to deliver expected returns.

According to PitchBook's Q3 2025 US PE Breakdown, private equity deal activity posted strong quarterly growth with $331.1 billion across 2,347 transactions in Q3 2025—a 28% sequential increase and 38% year-over-year gain. The resurgence follows a brief Q2 air pocket and comes as recession risk drops below 10%, Federal Reserve rate cuts take effect, and major indices reach new highs.

Apollo's Kleinman warns PE exits face years of headwinds while AI valuations show dangerous froth despite transformative potential.

Political risk has emerged as the single greatest threat to global investing, surpassing traditional market concerns like valuations or economic cycles. Conni Jonsson, Founder and Chairperson of EQT, addresses this challenge head-on in the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast's DNA series, arguing that geographic diversification represents the only viable mitigation strategy in an increasingly unstable political environment.

Blackstone Q3 2025: Distributable earnings surge 50% to $1.9B on realizations doubling, record $1.24T AUM driven by $54B quarterly inflows. Management forcefully defends $150B direct lending platform (95%+ senior secured, 38% LTV) against market scrutiny of bank-led credit defaults while highlighting capital markets recovery with IPO pipeline set for potential historic year and real estate inflection signals emerging.

BlackRock delivered its third quarter 2025 earnings against the backdrop of a transformative shift in its business model, with the recently closed HPS Investment Partners acquisition immediately contributing to results and signaling the firm's aggressive push beyond its public markets heritage into private credit and infrastructure. The quarter showcased early momentum from the integration strategy, with private markets deployment velocity exceeding expectations.

Orlando Bravo, founder and managing partner of Thoma Bravo—the world's largest software-focused private equity firm managing $179 billion in assets—shared his formula for building one of the industry's best-performing firms at the All-In Summit 2025.

Private markets face a critical moment as the rush to open alternative investments to retail investors collides with mounting concerns over credit quality, transparency, and regulatory oversight. BDC stocks are plunging, dividends are being cut for the first time, and high-profile bankruptcies are exposing risks in the $1.7 trillion sector.

Private equity value creation is experiencing its most significant transformation in decades as artificial intelligence shifts from efficiency tool to fundamental business reinvention. Chris Kindt, Partner and Head of Value Creation at Hg, warns that companies failing to embrace "AI-first" culture risk falling on the wrong side of disruption as agentic AI delivers 10-20x efficiency gains in core functions.

Artificial intelligence infrastructure will require over $7 trillion in capital investment over the next decade—nearly ten times the $800 billion spent on internet fiber buildout—but grid capacity shortages rather than capital availability now threaten to constrain AI adoption, forcing a fundamental geographic inversion where training workloads move to remote power sources while inference demands urban proximity.

Must Know: Record Deal Activity Signals Private Markets Renaissance Bottom Line:   Electronic Arts' $55 billion leveraged buyout—the...

Private equity faces mounting pressure to deliver returns after years of overpriced deals and sluggish exits, forcing firms to fundamentally rethink how they create value in an increasingly competitive landscape. Clark O'Neill, BCG's global lead for AI infrastructure and cyber in the private investors and private equity practice, argues that artificial intelligence has moved beyond theoretical potential to become a practical necessity for differentiated returns.

Private equity is experiencing its worst slump in decades, with quarterly returns plummeting from 13.5% in 2021 to just 8% by late 2024, creating a crisis where firms can't exit investments, return capital to investors, or raise new funds effectively. The industry's traditional model of buying, improving, and selling companies for profit has ground to a halt amid higher interest rates, frozen exit markets, and economic uncertainty, leaving firms sitting on $1.2 trillion in un

Private equity faces its worst crisis in decades as fundraising collapses and exit strategies fail. Over 18,000 funds chase $3.3 trillion while returns plummet from 13.5% to 0.8%. Firms explore retail democratization and continuation funds as traditional models break down across global markets.Retry

Jon Gray warns that artificial intelligence represents "the main thing" driving a new industrial revolution that will fundamentally reshape the global economy, creating massive investment opportunities while threatening to displace entire industries within years. The President and COO of Blackstone, the world's largest alternative asset manager with $1.2 trillion under management, delivered this assessment to investors at the firm's 2025 CIO Symposium.

Must Know: Private Credit Surges as Traditional Asset Managers Struggle to Keep Pace Bottom Line:  Private credit firms are rapidly...

Private equity firms sold $41bn of companies back to themselves in H1 2025 as exit routes stay blocked. With $3tn in stranded assets and rising "zombie fund" predictions, firms turn to continuation vehicles while pension funds retreat from private credit amid quality concerns and regulatory scrutiny intensifies globally.

Healthcare costs now consume up to 20% of U.S. GDP and are growing at twice the rate of inflation, creating what one private equity executive calls a "national security issue" that threatens America's spending power on defense and other priorities. Daniel Berglund, Head of U.S. and Co-Head of Healthcare at Nordic Capital, argues that this unsustainable trajectory demands a fundamental shift toward technology-driven solutions and value-based care models.

Healthcare PE deals slow amid tariff fears, but AI-driven IT assets surge as investors seek policy-insulated growth opportunities.

UK private capital adapts to exit constraints with US investment surge and secondary market growth reshaping liquidity strategies.