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.
59episodes
Episodes
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Dealmaking: Is a rebound around the corner?
Nov 1900:44:23Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by Francisco Partners and Platinum Equity Dealmakers had high hopes for 2025, expecting the year to deliver a welcoming environment for M&A. Instead, uncertainty about tariffs and other issues stopped them in their tracks mid-year, and deal volume dropped. Exits have been especially challenging. But now as the year draws to a close, some clarity has returned to the market, and the number of completed transactions is rising once again. Many say the elusive rebound is just around the corner. In this episode, PE Hub editor-in-chief Mary Kathleen Flynn speaks with Dipanjan 'DJ' Deb, co-founder and CEO of Francisco Partners, and Louis Samson, co-president of Platinum Equity, to find out how dealmakers are navigating the current conditions and what they're foreseeing for 2026.
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Disruption Matters: Building sustainable growth engines
Nov 1100:31:02Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by AlixPartners The Disruption Matters special podcast miniseries is back for its fourth season, and this year, leading industry experts will discuss how private markets can still deliver growth, despite the headwinds of a revolution in tech, geopolitics and global markets. All season long, we’ve argued that PE firms need to pursue growth even in times of uncertainty and volatility. But in our final episode of the year, we’re clarifying that not all growth is created equal. The right kind of growth is cost-effective and sustainable. We explore the threats to sustainable growth, the need to shape growth strategies around exit routes, how buy-and-build strategies can go awry, and how to pause a growth strategy without stalling the company’s progress. Guests include Jason McDannold, co-lead of the PE practice at AlixPartners; Halvor Horten, partner at Bain Capital; Jennifer Fox Bensimon, a managing director on the co-investment team of Partners Capital Investment Group; Emanuela Cisini, a partner and head of Middle East & Asia at Investindustrial; and Burak Kiral, a partner and managing director with AlixPartners.
Transcribe →Disruption Matters: Launch codes for 2026
Oct 2800:27:25Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by AlixPartners The Disruption Matters special podcast miniseries is back for its fourth season, and this year, leading industry experts discuss how private markets can still deliver growth, despite the headwinds of a revolution in tech, geopolitics and global markets. In our fifth episode this season, we focus on best practices in planning for 2026 that allow portcos to hit the ground running in pursuit of growth. This means building the plan around customer pain points and preferences, with leaders freeing up resources both in terms of finances and human capital to win more business in the new year. In many ways, this is when to apply the principles around human capital, tech and innovation that we’ve been discussing all season long. Guests include Jason McDannold, Americas co-leader of private equity at AlixPartners; Bob Brown, founding partner of Motive Partners; Hoyoung Pak, chief AI officer at AlixPartners; Gunnar Overstrom, a partner with Corsair Capital; and Saurabh Singh, a partner with AlixPartners.
Transcribe →Inside secondaries' expansion into private wealth
Oct 2Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by Lexington Partners, Proskauer and StepStone Group and first appeared on Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast The secondaries market is benefitting from private markets' push into the private wealth space, with managers either launching secondaries-focused vehicles or secondaries making up a meaningful component of many evergreen funds. Evergreen funds raised $16 billion in the first half of 2025 alone, 60 percent of which is dedicated to secondaries capital, according to estimates from Campbell Lutyens included in its H1 Secondary Market Overview Report. In this episode, Secondaries Investor editor Madeleine Farman is joined by Lexington Partners' Taylor Robinson and StepStone Group's Brian Borton, both of whose organisations run evergreen vehicles deploying into the secondaries market. Proskauer’s head of its registered fund group John Mahon also joins the conversation. In the wide-ranging conversation, Mahon, Borton and Robinson discuss appropriate ways to structure these vehicles, where to invest evergreen capital, regulatory updates, the long-term trajectory for these vehicles, and how they may impact the secondaries market.
Transcribe →Opportunities amid the dislocation: Investing in Germany’s property market
Sep 900:21:11Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by Arrow Global and first appeared on The PERE Podcast Germany’s property market is facing the highest insolvency rate in Europe. Years of cheap credit and rising prices encouraged aggressive development, but when interest rates jumped, buyers paused, sales collapsed and projects ran out of cash. The result: a wave of bankruptcies across the sector. However, in this episode, CEO of Arrow Global Germany Bernhard Hansen explains that there’s opportunity within this dislocation. Stalled projects and smaller developments are waiting for investors with the expertise and capital to finish them. With housing demand far outpacing supply, especially in cities like Munich, he believes there is still strong long-term potential. That potential of course comes with challenges: stricter sustainability rules, tougher financing conditions, and wary buyers mean projects take longer and require deeper due diligence. Yet Hansen is optimistic. International investors and alternative lenders are stepping in, and he says the correction is less of an ending, and more of a recalibration of Germany’s real estate market.
Transcribe →Should semi-liquids charge 2 and 20?
Jul 29, 202500:08:26Tap to summarizeNo trend has taken the private equity industry by storm quite like that of semi-liquid and evergreen funds. Data from consultancy Bfinance shows that at least $30 billion has been raised via private equity semi-liquid funds since 2020 – a figure that represents just 10 percent of the overall semi-liquids universe. In this episode, Ajay Pathak, a partner and co-chair of Goodwin’s UK business, joins PEI senior editor Adam Le to discuss how management fees and carried interest are calculated; whether the typical 2-and-20 model prevalent in traditional drawdown funds make sense to apply to semi-liquid funds; whether charging carried interest on net asset value on both a realised and unrealised basis really make sense; and more.
Transcribe →Disruption Matters: Winning the digital race
Jul 23, 202500:27:17Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by AlixPartners The Disruption Matters special podcast miniseries is back for its fourth season, and this year, leading industry experts discuss how private markets can deliver “weatherproof growth”, despite the headwinds of a tech revolution, geopolitics and volatile global markets. In our third episode this season, we focus on how best to decide where, when and how to use AI tools to deliver growth, no matter the weather. These are groundbreaking technologies, but like any other tool, they’re only as good as the people using them. Even today, the buck still stops at the human leadership of the portfolio company and the private equity firm. Guests include Jeremy Lehman, a director at Alix Partners; Jason McDannold, Americas co-leader of private equity at AlixPartners; Hoyoung Pak, global co-leader, AI and data, at AlixPartners; Sanjay Ravi, managing director at Partners Group; Lou D’Ambrosio, the co-lead of Goldman Sach’s global portfolio operations and value accelerator; Cory Eaves, partner and head of portfolio operations at BayPine; and Jay Park, the co-founder and managing partner of Prysm Capital. For further reading on this show’s topics: Practical AI For Private Equity Operating Partners | AlixPartners
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Bain's David Gross on how to invest in periods of heightened volatility
Jul 9, 202500:15:32Tap to summarizeTariff turmoil, trade wars and real conflict in the Middle East – these are just some of the challenges private equity participants have had to navigate so far this year. Speaking to senior editor Adam Le, David Gross, co-managing partner at Bain Capital, said volatility and uncertainty is nothing new for investors. “I’d be the first to agree that it’s a very disorienting time period,” Gross said. He points out, however, that volatility and uncertainty have characterised almost the past two decades. “Since the global financial crisis, we’ve seen heightened volatility in the investing world. If you just look at the VIX [volatility index] and other metrics, and the market windows that are open in the public market, you’ve seen heightened volatility." Gross, who has been with the firm for 25 years and is also managing partner of Asia, discusses what effective investors need in uncertain environments, the attraction of defence investing in Europe, the exit environment, and why the firm has no current plans to launch a secondaries investment business.
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Unlocking potential in Dutch residential: Global capital is key
Jul 8, 202500:17:33Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by Bouwinvest Real Estate Investors and first appeared on The PERE Podcast The Dutch residential market has remained resilient despite economic turbulence and rising interest rates and is now emerging as a prime destination for international investors. In this episode, Paul van Stiphout of Bouwinvest Real Estate Investors and Jorrit Arissen of Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management unpack the forces driving the market’s strength – from a deep-rooted rental culture and robust occupancy levels to increasing demand for senior and student housing. With the Netherlands facing a housing shortfall, Van Stiphout and Arissen discuss how foreign capital will be essential to bridge the gap. They also explore how demographic trends and public funding cuts are creating opportunities in niche sectors, such as senior living, which saw investment jump to €724 million in 2024.
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The opportunity surrounding uncertainty
Jun 30, 202500:43:48Tap to summarizeThis episode is sponsored by Pomona Capital and Proskauer and first appeared on Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast While the Trump administration's tariff announcements and the subsequent unfurling of uncertainty globally does create some headaches, it also creates a tailwind for the LP-led secondaries market. "What the market has trouble adjusting to is uncertainty. And what happens in times of uncertainty, like the times we're dealing in now, is that [M&A and IPO] transactions tend to pull away," Michael Granoff, founder and chief executive of Pomona Capital, said in this episode. "That uncertainty does tend to push more sellers into the secondary market... And so, in a funny way, it's not that we're uncorrelated to the world – we are – but on the other side of things, all of those things that keep us up at night that we're talking about actually create more opportunity for a buyer in the secondaries market." While market participants continued to put their heads down and get deals done that were far along when the tariff announcements occurred, secondaries professionals are still working to digest second- and third-order impacts, Galen Lewis, a partner in Proskauer's private funds group, explained. "Normally, distress of some sort is something that creates additional volume in the secondaries market." In this far-reaching discussion, Granoff and Lewis discuss a variety of issues affecting the LP-led market and the drivers of underlying deal volume, including the regulatory developments that may spur or hinder LP-led portfolio sales in the coming year, the rise of '40 Act capital, as well as new entrants.
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