PEI Private Equity Spotlight

Patrick Krajci, Alter Domus’s head of private equity for North America, explores how the secondaries boom is transforming fund operations. He discusses continuation vehicles, investor elections, capital calls, deferred payments and the infrastructure needed for new secondary strategies. The conversation also covers connected accounting, data systems, automation and AI, plus how managers can prepare for growing complexity.

Erik Hirsch, executive co-chairman of Hamilton Lane and a veteran private-markets investor, examines an industry crowded with too many managers. He explores weak exits, stranded funds, zombie vehicles, and the evolving role of secondaries. Hirsch also compares private and public-market performance and explains why AI is prompting more selective, not less, software investing.

What happens when a sale falls apart? Industry leaders explore how to diagnose a stalled exit, gather candid feedback, reset management, tackle regulatory hurdles, and rebuild momentum. They also consider alternative routes such as partial sales, minority investments, strategic partnerships, or waiting for stronger results, while examining how setbacks can become opportunities to strengthen the business and find the right buyer.

A successful exit depends on far more than financial performance. This discussion explores building and aligning management teams, preventing deal exhaustion, retaining key talent, communicating with customers, and expanding the circle of trust at the right time. It also examines how to assess buyers for cultural fit, leadership compatibility, and their treatment of management under pressure.

When is the right moment to sell? Private equity experts explore the value-creation sweet spot, crafting a compelling equity story, and preparing for intense buyer scrutiny. Topics include reducing diligence friction, cybersecurity and technology readiness, cultivating buyers before launch, and a 15-times-EBITDA infrastructure exit. The discussion also challenges rigid timetables in favor of building businesses worth holding indefinitely.

A practical look at reverse-engineering investments from likely exit scenarios. Industry experts explore buyer expectations, strategic versus IPO exits, management upgrades, recurring revenue, and evidence of scalable performance. The discussion also covers technology, data infrastructure, cybersecurity, early buyer engagement, and how to build a credible value-creation story from day one.

What makes a company irresistible to its next buyer? Industry experts explore buyer-focused exits, from underwriting growth and mapping value to strategic versus sponsor acquirers, to building a credible equity story. The discussion also covers saleable technology, AI governance, cyber risk, and why proven upside, honest positioning, and long-term relationships can shape negotiations.

Young Lee, managing director at Abbott Capital, evaluates private-market managers and portfolios. Jack Purcell, managing partner at Ridgemont Equity Partners, brings 25 years of partnership and investment experience. They explore fund growth versus strategy drift, credible valuations, genuine operating expertise, secondary sales, personnel changes, and why succession planning is crucial during fundraising.

Bill Myers, Washington correspondent covering regulatory trends; Theodore Edwards, private funds lawyer focused on fiduciary duties; Colleen Fay, advisor on fees, expenses and compliance. They unpack growing SEC scrutiny of fees, how managers handle cost allocation and disclosures, ambiguity around continuation vehicles, preparations for retail capital, and AI’s role and risks in fee-related operations.

This year's Global Investor 150 – Private Equity International's annual ranking of the largest private equity LPs in the world based on the fair market value of their PE investment portfolios – reveals a total of $2.88 trillion was allocated to the asset class by the featured investors as of end-December 2025. This represents an increase of almost 9 percent on the previous year. Investors appeared to prioritise long-term strategy over short-term market conditions, maintaining confidence in private equity despite a challenging fundraising and exit environment. Rather than stepping back from the asset class, many are refining how they deploy capital, with greater interest in the mid-market and increasingly sophisticated portfolio construction strategies. PEI Group’s senior content producer Evie Rusman was joined by Carmela Mendoza and Katrina Lau, both senior reporters at PEI, to break down the findings and explore what this signals about the private equity landscape. This is the fourth episode in PEI Group’s new Data Dive miniseries, where we dig 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 the asset class is evolving. Stay tuned for the next episode, which will provide insight into affiliate title Private Funds CFO’s Fees and Expenses 2026 Survey.