By Gilles Mougenot, Senior Advisor at Argos Fund, former Chairman of France Invest
1. Signal of the Week: Listed Platforms Live in a Different World Than Their Critics
KKR after Blackstone: records in a row. KKR released record second-quarter results on July 30, one week after Blackstone’s own record numbers: the disconnect between the roaring health of the large listed platforms and the prevailing gloom in private markets is becoming the defining story of this earnings season.
The firm-wide picture. For Q2 2026, KKR reported adjusted net income of $1.49 billion, up 40% year over year ($1.63 per share, up 38%), and fee-related earnings (FRE) of $1.21 billion (up 37%). Assets under management reached $796 billion (up 16% year over year), with $34.3 billion raised in the quarter and $24 billion deployed; on a trailing-twelve-month basis, fundraising hit $133 billion — a record for the firm — driven by infrastructure, whose AUM has doubled to roughly $120 billion, and by the K-Series wealth product line ($42 billion in AUM, up 70%). On the earnings call, as reported by Investing.com, Scott Nuttall summed up the mood of management: « I can’t remember a time when outside perception was so disconnected from what we are feeling inside the firm. »
The private equity segment in detail. PE assets stand at $254.7 billion, up 19% year over year (up 10% in the quarter) — barely a third of the group’s AUM: the historic business of the firm founded by Kravis and Roberts is no longer its growth engine. The segment raised $9.6 billion in Q2 ($14.3 billion year to date), deployed $5.2 billion, and holds $64.9 billion in uncalled commitments — a considerable amount of dry powder. Management points to sustained monetizations, in traditional PE and growth alike, feeding carried interest. The friction point is performance: the traditional private equity portfolio appreciated by just 1% in the quarter and 9% over the trailing twelve months — far from the 14.4% posted by Blackstone’s corporate PE a week earlier. A useful reminder: these returns rest largely on unrealized valuations — paper gains, not completed exits.
Source: KKR, Q2 2026 earnings release, July 30, 2026
📖 Going deeper: Private Equity: An Asset Class at Maturity — in-depth analysis published on this blog (in French).
2. Global Market: The Symbolic $1 Trillion Half-Year Mark Is Crossed
A milestone — but the market is still running below its 2025 pace. According to data released July 27 by KPMG, global private equity invested $1 trillion in the first half of 2026, across 9,294 deals. On a trailing-twelve-month basis, investment stands at $2.3 trillion (20,105 deals), slightly down from $2.4 trillion and 21,060 deals in the prior period. Geography remains heavily skewed: $579.2 billion invested in the Americas (of which $545.1 billion in the United States alone), $343.2 billion in the EMA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa), and $67.9 billion in ASPAC (Asia-Pacific). By sector, TMT (technology, media, telecommunications) dominates ($354.7 billion), ahead of manufacturing ($154 billion) and energy and natural resources ($149.2 billion), running at a record pace — Gavin Geminder, KPMG’s global head of private equity, attributes it to the combined effect of national moves to reduce energy dependencies and the electricity demands of artificial intelligence. Exits totaled $570 billion for the half (1,315 deals), including $112.7 billion through IPOs — a channel that is reopening, though not yet wide open.
Source: KPMG, press release, July 27, 2026 — H1 2026 data
3. EMEA and France: Europe Finds Itself on the Right Side of the Cycle
Europe, long mocked for its liquidity deficit, is reversing the trend. The mid-year report from Moonfare (July 22, PitchBook data) documents a transatlantic inversion: European exit value jumped 59% year over year in H1 2026, with €158 billion in Q2 alone — two-thirds of it concentrated in 22 mega-exits — while US exit value declined. Deal counts are rising on both sides of the Atlantic (up 13% in Europe, up 11% in the United States), a sign the engine is running — it is the size of the disposals that makes the European difference. The $343.2 billion invested in the EMA region recorded by KPMG in the first half confirms the market’s recovered depth.
In France, the market’s institutions are in summer hibernation — no publication this week from France Invest, the French private equity association — but the mid-market deal flow tracked daily by CFNEWS, the French corporate finance daily, is not slowing down in midsummer, from secondary LBOs to employee-ownership transactions: the French market works through August.
Sources: Moonfare, Mid-Year Report 2026, July 22, 2026; KPMG, July 27, 2026
📖 Going deeper: Transaction Value 2025: What Invest Europe’s New Report Really Shows — in-depth analysis published on this blog (in French).
4. Germany Is Easy to Overlook
The fastest-growing ecosystem in European venture. Germany is emerging this year as the fastest-growing ecosystem among Europe’s large, mature venture markets, according to PitchBook‘s Q2 2026 Germany Market Snapshot (Leah Hodgson): German startups raised €6 billion in H1 2026 — a pace that, if sustained, would put the year nearly 40% above 2025, ahead of the United Kingdom and France — with Q2 at €2.1 billion, in line with the country’s quarterly average, on a declining deal count: there too, capital is concentrating. The drivers are deep tech and defense, boosted by Berlin’s budget target of 3.5% of GDP for defense by 2029: nearly half of Europe’s most highly valued defense startups are headquartered in Germany, fed by the engineering talent pools of TU Munich and RWTH Aachen and the industrial heritage of Siemens, BASF, Volkswagen, and BMW. A signal investors elsewhere in Europe would be wrong to dismiss.
Source: PitchBook, Q2 2026 Germany Market Snapshot, Leah Hodgson
5. ASPAC and China: The Weak Link of the Cycle
Asia-Pacific is falling behind. With $67.9 billion invested across 639 deals in H1 2026 according to KPMG (July 27 data), the ASPAC region accounts for just 6.8% of global investment by value — a spectacular decline for a region that was the industry’s great growth frontier five years ago. The contrast with the $545.1 billion invested in the United States says everything about LPs’ and GPs’ refocusing on Western markets, amid persistent geopolitical tensions around China and volatile currencies.
Source: KPMG, press release, July 27, 2026
6. Fundraising: The Market Keeps Polarizing
Never have so few funds raised — never have the chosen ones raised so fast. Global fundraising reached $261.8 billion in H1 2026 across 315 funds according to KPMG (July 27), including $224.7 billion for buyout funds alone — the lowest vehicle count in a decade, for ever-larger average fund sizes.
The past week illustrated this Darwinian selection in the US mid-market: AltAssets reported on July 31 that Kingswood Capital Management closed two oversubscribed vehicles totaling $4 billion, a day after Wind Point Partners closed its eleventh fund at $3.2 billion, above its hard cap. Another lesson of the week: « capital solutions » is becoming a fundraising segment in its own right, with the first dedicated funds from GTCR ($1.25 billion, July 30) and GCM Grosvenor ($1.2 billion, July 28) — hybrid strategies between structured debt and preferred equity, thriving on the liquidity needs of a market where exits remain slow and debt expensive.
Sources: KPMG, July 27, 2026; AltAssets, July 28–31, 2026
📖 Going deeper: Private Equity 2026: Market Recovery or Regime Change? — in-depth analysis published on this blog (in French).
7. Critical Corner: Retailization Is Moving Faster Than Its Guardrails
Retail savings are entering private markets — at the worst possible time? While European regulators had a quiet week — no notable measures for private funds in the July 30 regulatory bulletin from Slaughter and May — the opening of private markets to retail savings keeps accelerating in the United States. As documented by Financial Planning (July 16), Paul Atkins’s SEC has put « Enhancing Retail Exposure to Private Markets » on its 2026 agenda and lifted the two-decade-old 15% cap on unlisted assets in retail closed-end funds. The market did not wait: according to Morningstar, assets in retail funds exposed to private markets have jumped 120% in four years, to nearly $600 billion.
The uncomfortable question remains: why open the floodgates of household savings precisely when exits are slow, dry powder is piling up, and valuations rest largely on NAVs untested by the market? Retail investors rarely arrive at the right moment in an asset class — indeed, their arrival is often how you recognize the end of the cycle.
Sources: Financial Planning, July 16, 2026; Slaughter and May, July 30, 2026
📖 Going deeper: Does the 2025 Crisis Resemble 2008? — in-depth analysis published on this blog (in French).
This Week’s References
KKR, Q2 2026 earnings release (July 30, 2026)
Investing.com, KKR Q2 2026 earnings call transcript (July 30, 2026)
KPMG, press release — global H1 2026 data (July 27, 2026)
Moonfare, Mid-Year Report Private Markets 2026, PitchBook data (July 22, 2026)
PitchBook, Q2 2026 Germany Market Snapshot (Leah Hodgson)
AltAssets, Kingswood Capital Management and Wind Point Partners closings (July 31, 2026)
Financial Planning, « SEC pushes private market access — but retail is already in » (July 16, 2026)
Slaughter and May, Financial Regulation Weekly Bulletin (July 30, 2026)
Figures flagged as estimated or self-reported: KPMG H1 2026 investment and fundraising data (the firm’s own deal census); KKR and Blackstone portfolio performance (unrealized valuations); assets in retail funds exposed to private markets (Morningstar, self-reported data); full-year projection for German venture (PitchBook extrapolation of the first-half pace).