1、Global Private Markets Report 2026Private equity:Clearer view,tougher terrain by Alexander Edlich,Chris Llewellyn,Christopher Croke,Rahel Schneider,and Warren TeichnerFebruary 2026Private equity weather has improved,revealing more demanding,technical ground.Heres what our analyses indicate for dealm

2、akers,operators,fundraisers,and LPs as they look to the road ahead.After three years of dampened dealmaking,we observed early in 2025 that the global private equity(PE)industry was“emerging from the fog.”Now,the fog has finally burned off.Dealmaking returned in 2025 in force:Buyouts surged,exits reb

3、ounded,and initial public offerings(IPOs)reemerged.Indeed,buyout and growth deals larger than$500 million in deal size1a typical barometer for industry healthincreased 44 percent to over$1 trillion in value,eclipsing 2021s total to become the highest year on record for deals of this size.Deal value,

4、when measured across all buyout and growth deal sizes,increased 17 percent.The value of PE-backed exits globally surged as wellup more than 40 percentaided by a nearly 100 percent increase in PE exit deal volume via IPO.“Megadeals”(that is,transactions larger than$2.5 billion)also returned,reflectin

5、g the changed environment of 2025 compared with the recent past.Not only did 2025 see the largest PE deal in history(the announced$55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts by a syndicate of firms),but it also marked the third-highest year ever for take-private activity by either total deal count o

6、r value.Now,with improved visibility,we can more clearly observe how much the private equity terrain has changed.Shifts in deployment,returns,value creation,and traditional fundraisingpreviously considered to be episodicare more likely structural features of a maturing industry.Moreover,the rapid in