1. Records for the Pension Funds, a Breakdown for Their Private Equity
Last week, CalSTRS — the California teachers’ pension fund — reported a +13.9% annual return, but its Private Equity book, at +7.5%, was its weakest asset class outside fixed income. This week, the half-year reports of the other large pension funds confirmed the trend, with numbers that are sometimes harsher.
At CDPQ, Quebec’s public pension manager (Canada, C$552 billion), Private Equity returned −4.3% over six months while the benchmark the fund sets for that book gained +8.0% (August 13): more than twelve points below expected performance, which the Quebec fund attributes to valuation pressure in technology, insurance and AI-exposed financial services. At OMERS, the Ontario municipal employees’ pension fund (Canada, C$151.6 billion, August 11), the Private Equity book made +1.1%, against +12.2% for the fund’s public equities.
The contrast is all the sharper because, the same week, these institutions’ total-fund returns — across all asset classes, not the Private Equity book alone — were records: +9.4% for the half at NBIM, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund (August 12), +9.5% at Ontario Teachers’, the Canadian teachers’ plan (August 10), the best quarter in more than a decade at CPP Investments, Canada’s federal pension manager (August 14) — records driven by listed equities and the AI theme, not by private assets. The Norwegian case deserves one more sentence: NBIM is precisely the one large investor that is not allowed to invest in Private Equity — Norway’s finance ministry has once again denied it permission “for now.”
Sources: NBIM (August 12), Ontario Teachers’ (August 10), CDPQ (August 13), CPP Investments (August 14), OMERS (August 11, 2026).
📖 Going further: 26. Private Equity: An Asset Class Come of Age
2. NVIDIA Enlists the Big Platforms: $500 Billion to Finance Compute
The week’s structural announcement came not from a fund, but from a chipmaker.
On August 10, NVIDIA announced the creation, with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR, of AI compute infrastructure financing platforms designed to mobilize more than $500 billion of third-party capital — memoranda of understanding, with definitive agreements still to come. Is this Private Equity? Strictly speaking, no: it is not the buyout pockets being mobilized, but these managers’ credit and infrastructure arms — the release speaks of “long-duration usage-linked revenue,” the grammar of infrastructure debt — to finance compute purchases by NVIDIA’s customers; NVIDIA itself commits no capital and is organizing the financing of its own demand. The story belongs in this review because of its actors: three of the six partners are houses born of the buyout — KKR, inventor of the LBO (1976), Blackstone, founded in 1985, and Apollo, born in 1990 — now turned general-purpose financing platforms; BlackRock (originally a bond manager), Goldman Sachs (a bank) and Brookfield (real assets) come from other worlds. It is on that ground, more than in buyouts, that the former’s growth is now playing out. Apollo’s Jim Zelter sees compute emerging as “a scarce, mission-critical asset class”; Jensen Huang put it more bluntly: “In AI, compute is revenue.” On August 14, CPP Investments confirmed a $1.75 billion commitment to EQT’s AI infrastructure strategy. And per Reuters (August 13), Vantage Data Centers — owned, in equity this time, by funds managed by DigitalBridge and Silver Lake — is exploring an IPO at around a $100 billion valuation, or a sale: that one is genuine Private Equity, and it would be the first triple-digit exit test on the data center theme.
Sources: NVIDIA (August 10), Reuters / BNN Bloomberg (August 13, 2026).
📖 Going further: 2. The major trends in Private Equity (in French)
3. The Public Tech De-Rating Is Mega-Buyout Fuel
While public markets de-rate technology stocks in the name of AI, tech buyout firms are buying — at premiums that say everything about the gap between public price and transaction value.
On August 13, Thoma Bravo announced the acquisition of Accelerant — a specialty insurance marketplace, more technology platform than insurer, and treated as such by software specialist Thoma Bravo — for more than $4 billion in cash — a 49% premium, for a company that went public in July 2025: a “de-IPO” in thirteen months, with legacy sponsor Altamont rolling over. The same day, Reuters and then Bloomberg reported talks between Silver Lake and Workday on a take-private that would exceed $50 billion — the stock jumped 25% before being halted. Nothing is signed, but after Electronic Arts ($55 billion), the bar for software mega-LBOs has durably moved above $50 billion. PitchBook (August 13) sums up the buyers’ thesis: the AI-driven correction inflicted on SaaS is overdone — Workday generates about $3 billion of annual free cash flow on a $27.3 billion backlog.
On easyJet, Apollo’s offer is following its regulatory course (offer documents made available August 9); London press reports detail strict rollover terms for minority holders — a preferred dividend reserved for Apollo, forced-transfer clauses — that reveal the real mechanics of a take-private under European ownership constraints.
Sources: Accelerant / Thoma Bravo release (August 13), Bloomberg (August 13), PitchBook (August 13), easyJet (August 9, 2026).
📖 Going further: 3. The evolutions of Private Equity (in French)
4. Secondaries — The Buyout Shops Pull Up a Chair
The secondary market, already on a record run, is changing shape: buyout managers are entering as direct competitors to the specialist houses, such as Ardian, Lexington Partners or Coller Capital.
PitchBook (August 13) documents the shift, numbers in hand. Of the $121 billion of secondary transactions closed in H1 2026 — fund stakes and portfolios changing hands — GP-led deals account for about $65 billion — 54% of the market — and single-asset continuation vehicles alone reached $34 billion, up 88% year over year. The buyout houses are building dedicated vehicles: Leonard Green closed its first fund in the category, Sage Equity Investors, at $3.6 billion in January — more than double the initial target — and Warburg Pincus fields some 300 investment professionals who have already evaluated close to a thousand assets for its “partnership solutions” strategy.
The new entrants’ sales pitch comes down to two words: speed, and asset knowledge. Warburg Pincus’s Vishnu Menon claims diligence completed in “two to three weeks as opposed to two to three quarters, which is the industry average.” The week supplied two illustrations: Exponent’s €750 million continuation vehicle for H&MV Engineering, valued at €1.4 billion — a 12x multiple, powered by data center demand — co-led by Apollo S3, Pantheon and SQ Capital (Secondaries Investor, August 11); and Blue Owl taking roughly 25% of the economics of secondaries specialist Hollyport (Secondaries Investor, August 11). On the LP side, Korea’s NPS added another $1 billion of secondaries exposure, now about $3.7 billion (August 13).
Sources: PitchBook (August 13), Secondaries Investor (August 10-13, 2026).
📖 Going further: 29. What is a continuation fund, and why is it so successful?
5. Europe — Brussels Invests, London Empties
An August week in Europe — thin on publications, but what came out draws two clear lines: European public money is taking equity stakes in scale-ups, and the London market keeps emptying.
The Scaleup Europe Fund made its second investment, in Sweden’s Lovable, valued at $13.3 billion — double December’s mark (Private Equity Wire, August 13). The vehicle’s origin is worth a detour. The diagnosis first — the very one made by the Draghi competitiveness report: European scale-ups cannot find growth capital at home and go looking for it, or relocate, in the United States. Hence the initiative, announced by Ursula von der Leyen in her September 2025 State of the Union address to keep Europe’s future tech champions in Europe: a European Commission fund, carried by the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund board, that pairs €1 billion of public money at first close with private “founding investors” — Allianz, APG, CriteriaCaixa, Intesa Sanpaolo and Novo Holdings among them — toward a €5 billion target, expandable to €25 billion. Management was awarded to EQT, which also commits its own capital, after an open tender won against Eurazeo, Atomico, Northzone and Vitruvian (TechCrunch, August 11); declared fully operational in early August, the fund signed its first two investments within ten days — Finland’s ICEYE, then Lovable. In the UK, PitchBook (August 13) measures fundraising on course for its lowest level in a decade — £11.7 billion raised in H1 across fifteen funds — and notes (August 10) that PE-backed companies no longer return to the London market: eight IPOs in five years, none in 2025, while take-privates account for about 20% of UK exit value this half.
Sources: Private Equity Wire (August 13), European Commission and TechCrunch (August 11), PitchBook (August 10 and 13, 2026).
📖 Going further: 28. Transaction Value 2025: what the new Invest Europe report really shows
6. Japan, Private Equity’s Stronghold
In Asia-Pacific, the week put Japan front and center — with a rare illustration of what governance reform has changed there.
The battle for Kakaku.com intensified: the EQT–Digital Garage consortium raised its offer to ¥3,570 per share (about $4.6 billion of market value), against the Bain Capital–LY Corp tandem (Private Equity Wire, August 14) — a rare public bidding war in Japan, made possible by governance reform: since METI’s 2023 takeover guidelines, boards are required to give any credible offer sincere consideration rather than dismiss it, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange is pressing companies trading below book value to improve their return on capital — two levers that have opened the market for corporate control in Japan to the funds. And the opening is measurable, with figures specific to Private Equity: per Bain’s annual report dedicated to Japanese Private Equity (June 2026), Private Equity deal value reached ¥4.8 trillion in 2025 — about $30 billion, the fifth consecutive year above ¥3 trillion — take-privates account for roughly half of that value at premiums of 60% to 80%, and Japanese Private Equity funds outearn their American peers: a 2.5x median multiple and 31% median IRR, against 2.1x and 22% in the United States.
Sources: Private Equity Wire (August 14, 2026), Bain (June 2026).
📖 Going further: 5.1. Europe’s position in Private Equity — China’s relegation (in French)
7. Critical Perspective — The SEC on Valuations, a Federal Payout for Landlords
Two American files, one thread: the declared value of private assets, and public money.
Private Funds CFO (August 13) reports that the SEC has made private fund valuations an examination priority — and Private Equity funds are indeed concerned, first and foremost. The US regulatory category of “private funds” also covers private credit, real estate and hedge funds, but it is on Private Equity’s illiquid portfolios, valued on the manager’s own assumptions, that the question bites hardest: “Examiners ask about funds by name in opening requests. Enforcement has picked up the scent, too.” Context gives the offensive its relief: the same SEC created a Financial Reporting and Accounting Unit within Enforcement on August 5, while the administration pushes to open Americans’ retirement savings — 401(k) plans — to private assets. The more retail money flows into private markets, the more the declared value of funds becomes a matter of public interest.
And The American Prospect (August 14) documents a federal settlement in preparation for landlords affected by COVID-era eviction moratoriums — initially estimated at $1.5 billion for about 1,500 owners, with more than 2,000 claimants now — whose first beneficiaries would be large fund-backed landlords: Starwood, Dominium, Morgan Properties, Apollo. The Private Equity link is structural: since the 2008 crisis, funds have become some of America’s largest landlords, and compensation proportional to rent lost during the moratoriums mechanically flows first to the largest portfolios — theirs.
Sources: Private Funds CFO / Secondaries Investor (August 13), The American Prospect (August 14, 2026).
📖 Going further: 8. US Private Equity Under Fire
8. Private Equity’s Checkbooks Swing Right
A political shift documented this week in the United States.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the industry’s political spending strongly favors Republicans and conservative causes for the 2026 midterm races — reversing a nearly decade-long pattern of leaning Democratic. The move fits a broader trend: per Fortune (July 27, 2026), nearly 80 cents of every dollar given by American billionaires for these midterms goes to Republicans. The industry has no shortage of business in Washington: the administration’s opening of 401(k) plans to private assets, the taxation of carried interest — regularly threatened, regularly spared — and the nascent antitrust pressure on roll-ups, including from the Republican side, as the bipartisan Warren-Banks resolution showed. The industry that used to water both banks is picking its shore; what that buys remains to be measured.
Sources: The Wall Street Journal (this week), Fortune (July 27, 2026).
📖 Going further: 8. US Private Equity Under Fire
References of the Week
NBIM — Record high krone return in the first half of the year (August 12)
Ontario Teachers’ — 9.5% total-fund net return in first half of 2026 (August 10)
CDPQ / La Caisse — Mid-year 2026 return of 5.1% (August 13)
CPP Investments — Net Assets Total $863.6 Billion (August 14)
OMERS — $6.9 billion in the first six months of 2026 (August 11)
NVIDIA — AI compute infrastructure financing platforms, $500B+ (August 10)
Reuters / BNN Bloomberg — Vantage Data Centers explores IPO at $100B valuation (August 13)
Accelerant / Thoma Bravo — Definitive agreement, >$4B (August 13)
Bloomberg — Workday jumps after Reuters reports Silver Lake talks (August 13)
PitchBook — Private equity calls the AI de-rating overdone (August 13)
easyJet — Offer from Apollo, offer documents (August 9)
PitchBook — Buyout shops are bringing something new to secondaries (August 13)
Secondaries Investor — Exponent’s €750m CV (August 11)
Secondaries Investor — Hollyport stake sale to Blue Owl (August 11)
Secondaries Investor — Korea’s NPS adds $1bn of secondaries exposure (August 13)
Private Equity Wire — EQT-managed EU fund invests in Lovable at $13.3bn (August 13)
PitchBook — Growth strategies grab a bigger slice of shrinking UK PE fundraising (August 13)
PitchBook — PE-backed UK companies shirk IPOs while delistings mount (August 10)
European Commission / EIC — EQT selected to lead the €5 Billion Scaleup Europe Fund
TechCrunch — What’s Scaleup Europe, the fund that just backed ICEYE? (August 11)
Private Equity Wire — EQT raises Kakaku.com bid to ¥3,570 (August 14)
Bain — Japan Private Equity Report 2026 (June 2026)
Private Funds CFO / Secondaries Investor — SEC zeroes in on private funds valuations (August 13)
The American Prospect — Landlord bailout would funnel billions to private equity (August 14)
The Wall Street Journal — Private Equity’s Political Spending Flips Toward Republicans (this week)
Fortune — Billionaires are flooding the midterms with cash (July 27)
