Podcast
Private Equity Spotlight
Hosted by PEI Group · EN
PEI Group’s ‘Private Equity Spotlight’ podcast illuminates the latest trends in private equity across fundraising, portfolio management, deals, regulation and more. Get a front-row seat with our award-winning journalists from publications including Private Equity International, Private Funds CFO, Buyouts and PE Hub, as they interview the industry’s biggest personalities and dig deep into the dynamics affecting LPs, GPs and service providers. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
52episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
What’s next for value creation?
1w ago00:36:23Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by Cinven and KPMG Private equity firms are accustomed to navigating change, but operating partner teams in particular have had to become more agile in recent years. As volatility becomes the new normal – from macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty to AI-related disruption – operating partners need to continuously reassess the value creation levers they are pulling to drive portfolio company growth, while also building resilience across their portfolios. This, in turn, is leading sponsors to reimagine their operating partner teams, in terms of structure and skill sets, as well as the way in which they engage with portfolio company management. In this episode of Private Equity Spotlight, Louise Fordham, head of special projects for private equity at PEI group, sits down with Sam Williams, managing director of strategy and investment insights at international private equity firm Cinven, and Paul Pan, private equity leader for the deal advisory and strategy practice at KPMG, to discuss the future outlook for value creation strategies.
Transcribe →Measuring alpha in private markets: Why asset-level data matters
3w ago00:09:41Tap to summarizeAs private markets mature and competition intensifies, investors are searching for ways to better measure risk, performance and true manager outperformance. Peer‑group comparisons and fund‑level IRRs may tell part of the story, but they are insufficient for knowing whether a GP is really achieving the alpha they might claim. In this episode, Frédéric Blanc‑Brude, CEO of Scientific Infra & Private Assets (SIPA), discusses why asset‑level data and benchmarking are becoming essential tools for investors. He explains how SIPA’s indices were developed to address long‑standing private markets data gaps, why the firm recently joined PEI Group, and how asset‑level benchmarks can help LPs determine whether GPs are genuinely generating alpha, or simply telling a compelling story. Learn more about Scientific Infra & Private Assets at sipametrics.com
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PEI’s Data Dive: Reading the signals in secondaries sentiment
May 500:31:40Tap to summarizeHow is market sentiment shaping secondaries fundraising and deal activity? In this episode of PEI’s Data Dive podcast, PEI’s senior content producer, Evie Rusman, is joined by Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman and PEI head of special projects for private equity Louise Fordham to discuss the findings from PEI Group title Secondaries Investor’s Global Market Survey 2026. The survey, conducted in partnership with Goodwin, polled LPs, GPs, secondaries buyers and the intermediary community about market trends, transaction processes, deployment issues, regulation and more. Download a data pack of the findings discussed in the podcast episode here. PEI’s new Data Dive miniseries digs 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 private markets are evolving. Stay tuned for the next episode, which will provide insight into the 2026 edition of the PEI 300 – our annual ranking measuring the five-year fundraising totals of the world’s biggest private equity firms.
Transcribe →The new playbook for emerging managers
Apr 1500:29:26Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by Davis Polk and DC Advisory Senior dealmakers at established firms increasingly seem to be choosing to strike out on their own, much like those firms’ original founders once did during the surge in mid-market firms during the late 1990s and early 2000s. But in those years, institutional capital was flooding into a PE market that had proven its model repeatable, whereas the landscape for new firms today is markedly different. Not only do LPs want to see differentiated strategies with a compelling story and outsized returns, they want the young managers with whom they invest to have institutional-level operations and infrastructure. In this episode, Buyouts senior editor Graham Bippart sits down with Michael Hong, a partner in the Investment Management practice at Davis Polk, and Donato de Donato, co-lead of DC Advisory’s GP Strategic Advisory practice, to discuss the state of the emerging manager market. They point out that there is no shortage of challenges and complications lying in wait for would-be new managers, who often may be more restricted by their previous employers than they thought, make all-too-common mistakes in their pitch decks, and may even have notions about the most important first hires they should make. But in an ever-more-crowded market, those who can carve out a unique and compelling strategy are best poised to lure LP interest away from long-established managers. This episode was produced alongside Buyouts’ annual Emerging Managers Report, done in association with Gen II.
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PEI's Data Dive: How LPs' investment priorities are shifting
Apr 900:25:29Tap to summarizeOver 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.
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Are PE's best days behind it? An LP and GP discuss
Mar 3000:30:07Tap to summarizeHave 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.
Transcribe →How an LP and a GP are approaching the slower exit environment
Feb 2000:34:21Tap to summarizeIn 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.
Transcribe →Private Funds CFO NY Forum: Sighs of relief
Feb 1200:15:30Tap to summarizePrivate 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
Transcribe →How PE markets evolved in a volatile 2025
Dec 2300:22:24Tap to summarizeJoin 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.
Transcribe →Behind PE’s democratisation drive and how GP-leds are thawing the liquidity freeze
Dec 1800:32:46Tap to summarizeIn this episode, senior reporter Carmela Mendoza sits down with Sabina Comis, global managing partner, and Kenneth Young, a partner and co-chair of the corporate and securities practice at Dechert, to unpack key findings from the law firm's 2026 Global Private Equity Outlook. The survey results, gathered from 100 senior-level executives at global PE firms with at least $2.5 billion in AUM, highlight creative deal structures and the importance of distributions for LPs. The results provide insight into where the asset class may be heading in the next 12 months. The discussion centres on the gradual thawing of traditional exit channels. The pair outline the most promising opportunities for capital deployment in 2026. The episode also explores why more GPs plan to make management stake divestitures in the next 24 months and the regional differences behind them; how capital pools are developing to keep companies private for longer; and why future product design of semi-liquid funds could address concerns around valuations.
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