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

Global equity capital markets faced volatility in 1H25, with a strong start, April collapse, and May rebound amid macroeconomic shocks.

The US economy experienced a 0.3% GDP contraction in Q1 2025, its first real decline since 2022, as trade policy uncertainty severely disrupted business planning and market confidence. According to PitchBook's "False Start" Q2 2025 Quantitative Perspectives report, the April "Liberation Day" tariff announcement has shifted the US from expected sustained growth into potentially recessionary territory.

As President Trump's tariff policies drive significant market volatility, top firms like Apollo and KKR are aggressively deploying billions while institutional investors face a perfect storm of allocation pressures from both the "denominator effect" (public market volatility) and "numerator effect" (limited distributions from existing private investments).

Alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital reported first quarter 2025 earnings that showcased the resilience of its permanent capital model during a period of heightened market volatility.