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2 days ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
Neuberger Berman held a $4 billion final close for its second GP-led secondary fund in one of the largest fundraises of its kind. The new vehicle, called NB Strategic Capital Fund II, beat its initial target of $2.5 billion and is four times the size of its predecessor, Fund I, which closed on $955 million in 2020. The firm also raised additional capital to co-invest alongside Fund II.
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3 days ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
Europe’s middle-market PE funds have already raised €41.8 billion (about $47.6 billion) this year, but the capital is being concentrated into fewer hands. These funds, defined as vehicles with €100 million to €5 billion in commitments, have already raised as much as 68% of last year’s total. Fund count is lagging, however, with 39 closes recorded as of May 30 as more commitments are secured across a small pool of funds.
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4 days ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
Ares Wealth Management Solutions—the unit that caters to private wealth investors at the $546 billion asset manager Ares Management—has added almost $20 billion to its AUM in 12 months, amounting to around $44 billion as of Q1 2025, according to its latest earnings call. Now, the firm is eyeing as many as four new product launches before 2028, aiming to push high-net-worth AUM to $100 billion.
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5 days ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
Where European LPs once scrambled for US exposure, they are now exercising more caution during their due diligence, and trade relations are largely to blame. Two months after “Liberation Day,” when US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on most US trading partners, European LPs are looking to allocate funds closer to home. “LPs are currently rewarding simplicity and resilience, and that’s probably in Europe.
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1 week ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
PE investment in Europe’s aerospace and defense sector is gathering momentum this year, with deal activity on pace to match or even exceed that seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The sector has attracted around €620 million (around $703.7 million) across 12 deals, representing more than half of 2023’s €1.2 billion total. Deal activity in the sector is projected to stay strong as increased government spending boosts manufacturing and further investment.
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2 weeks ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
New York-based RedBird Capital Partners has agreed to buy The Telegraph Media Group in a deal that values the British newspaper publisher at £500 million (around $675.7 million), with plans to grow the 170-year-old brand’s US footprint. The new owner says it is planning new content verticals to help grow the publisher’s international subscribers and will also invest in its digital operations, including AI, to drive subscriptions.
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3 weeks ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
London-based Inflexion has held a £2.3 billion (around $3.1 billion) final close of its first-ever multi-asset continuation fund—the largest vehicle of its kind raised in Europe to date. Inflexion Continuation Fund I, which is underwritten by lead investors AlpInvest Partners, HarbourVest Partners and Lexington Partners, injects new capital into four UK portfolio companies so they can acquire new businesses.
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3 weeks ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
GP stakes investing is gaining traction in Europe as a strategy investors can look to for downside protection in times of volatility. However, these GP stakes have a different playbook from their US counterparts. GP stakes investing is when an asset manager buys a minority equity stake in a PE firm, giving it a cut of the returns. While it is a mature strategy in the US, it is still a nascent asset class in Europe. Globally, there were 30 deals last year with $3.4 billion transacted in the space.
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3 weeks ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
Samsung Electronics has bought FläktGroup, a German maker of air conditioning for data centers, for €1.5 billion (around $1.7 billion), creating an exit for UK firm Triton. Triton acquired FläktGroup via its fourth fund in 2016, merging it with existing portfolio company DencoHappel. It went on to make a €25 million follow-on investment in 2019, according to PitchBook data. This marks Triton’s seventh PE exit in the last 12 months and is the fifth-largest M&A exit in Europe so far this year.
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3 weeks ago | 
pitchbook.com | Emily Lai
European PE funds delivered the strongest performance globally in Q3 2024, the second quarter in a row, as they hit the highest return rate since Q2 2022. The rolling one-year IRR of European PE funds reached 14.1% in Q3 2024, up from 0.2% in the previous quarter, according to PitchBook’s latest Global Fund Performance Report. The EU funds outperformed North American PE funds, which saw a 10.5% one-year IRR in the period.
