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More than 2,300 new private funds reported raising $96.1 billion in September, bringing year-to-date fundraising across new and existing private funds to $1.3 trillion, according to data collected and analyzed by Convergence.
The increase came despite a 44.7% decline in new private credit fund issuance to 26 funds in September. Year to date, private credit funds in their initial fundraising stage raised $28.9 billion, down 20% from the same period in 2025. READ MORE
Private equity and venture capital aren't leaning into a Blue Wave, according to an Axios analysis of campaign donations made by political action committees affiliated with the American Investment Council and National Venture Capital Association.
Why it matters: Political alignment could impact issues like expanded retail investor access to alt investments, crypto market structure, qualified investment definitions, and AI regulation. READ MORE
The private equity industry has shown particular interests in defense and data centers. Twenty-nine percent of PE-acquired companies in H1 of 2026 comprise entities providing goods and services to the defense sector, while another 29% provide components for data centers or to incorporate AI into products. READ MORE
I have spent much of my career leading technology and transformation programs where protecting data was treated as a fundamental part of good governance. We controlled who could access it, where it could move and how it could be used. AI has made me question whether that boundary is still sufficient.
The question I believe boards, CIOs and private equity investors now need to confront is not simply who owns the data but who owns what an AI system learns from it. READ MORE
Lawmakers Target Private Equity Greed
This month saw the re-introduction of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, a bill that would (among other things) require PE firms to be responsible for the debt burdens of the companies they control, increase transparency about the management fees they charge, and create new protections for workers and consumers. CEPR’s Eileen Appelbaum pointed out that it also cracks down on common tactics that have devastated health care providers:
“The Stop Wall Street Looting Act removes the ability of private equity funds to extract cash from companies they acquire via sale-leaseback deals, dividend recapitalizations, and monitoring fees. These legal but unscrupulous practices enrich PE firms and their investors. But they undermine the financial stability of the companies they acquire, squeeze their workers, and reduce the quality of their products and services, hurting employees, customers, and communities.” READ MORE
A 10-year Treasury yield above 5% is creating a fresh challenge for private equity firms: convincing investors to lock up capital when government bonds offer a meaningful return with far less risk and more liquidity.
“At a 5% risk-free rate, private equity has to work much harder to justify locking up capital for years,” Mark Spindel, senior advisor and partner at Pilot Wave Holdings, told Benzinga. READ MORE
Private equity dealmakers in the US are poised for higher borrowing costs as the Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised interest rates for the first time since 2023.
The rate-setting committee unanimously agreed to raise its benchmark target range by a quarter of a percentage point, and officials largely agreed that, at the current trend, one more hike would be needed in 2026. READ MORE
Most of my time is spent with operating partners and portfolio company CEOs. Many are still holding a company that was on target to sell two years ago. While the business may be performing, leadership can’t easily prove why.
For years, private equity value creation followed a familiar playbook: improve margins, grow EBITDA, complete strategic acquisitions and exit when timing is right. READ MORE
Leadership continuity is becoming a more significant consideration for private equity firms as demographic pressures tighten the market for experienced executives. A new report from Cowen Partners finds that aging CEO and CFO populations are creating succession risks that can intersect directly with a fund’s hold-and-exit timeline. For executive search firms, the trend is increasing the importance of building leadership pipelines well before a critical transition becomes urgent. READ MORE
US private equity funds that invest in fast-growing companies without taking a controlling stake raised a record amount of capital in the first half of this year, in a sign of their strong recovery from a 2023 fundraising slump. Growth funds attracted $33.2bn in the first six months of this year, the highest first-half total on record and a 36 per cent jump from a year earlier, according to data from Preqin. Fundraising across other private equity strategies grew 20 per cent over the same period. READ MORE
Gail McManus is stepping back. 30 years after founding Private Equity Recruitment (PER), the firm that’s both literally and practically synonymous with getting a private equity job in Europe, McManus is working part-time. She handed leadership of PER to long term colleagues Charlie Hunt and Rupert Bell last year in a management buyout and now has the luxury of regularly switching on her out of office. But she hasn’t disappeared entirely: McManus is the well-established queen of private equity hiring, and she still enjoys wearing that crown.
“Jobs in this industry are all about trust and judgement and potential and whatever you do people remain gloriously diverse, difficult, charismatic, challenging, awkward and entrepreneurial,” says McManus of private capital firms and their employees. “This is why I love it.” READ MORE
Private equity firms have raced to embed AI into portfolio companies, betting it will reshape businesses and boost valuations, yet few have results to show for it.
A round of conversations with advisers provided a reality check on the hype, laying bare the distance between what the PE industry is hankering for from AI and what its experiments have delivered so far. While most firms have been tinkering enthusiastically, many haven’t done it in a way that has translated into financial gains. READ MORE
Secret backrooms where deals are done in private: the realm of conspiracy theories? Or an increasingly large part of capitalism?
Since the financial crisis, some of the big winners have been private equity firms. They’ve snapped up bargains on everything from high street brands, to care homes and nurseries – and maybe even the house you own. READ MORE
Management fees have held steady, but general partners are shifting more administrative costs and other fees on to their investors READ MORE
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