Panel
Navigating Liquidity Challenges in Private Equity | Global Conference 2026
Milken InstituteIvan Lehon, Jenny Chan, Dipanjan "DJ" Deb, Dean Mihas, Yann Robard, Jonathan D. Sokoloff, Paul Taubman, DJ, Jan Robart
- Exit environments are expected to remain difficult for at least three to six months as participants assess if current conditions represent the new normal, with the IPO market potentially shifting trajectory three to six months out; the overall exit environment is anticipated to stay less attractive over time with increased difficulty compared to ten years ago.
- Liquidity is forecast to be lower this year than levels from four or five months ago, with a return toward normalization expected either within this year or certainly into next year.
- Holding periods are predicted to extend due to difficulties in achieving target marks, though GTCR projects its average hold period will remain stable at five to six years; new fund structures may evolve to 10+5 or 10+7 years to accommodate longer timelines for liquidity or public listing.
- A significant pivot away from public markets for exits is anticipated to have occurred over the past two to four years, with a further shift toward continuation vehicles (CVs) expected over the last five to seven years, where CVs are projected to comprise 15% of all exits and potentially represent one in five or one in ten companies for GPs in the future.
- The market is poised for a reckoning and meaningful fallout over the next three to five years characterized by extended hold periods, questionable valuation marks, and multiple compression requiring firms to lower carried multiples versus acquisition multiples.
- Continuation vehicles are viewed as a permanent feature and a "fifth exit option," with the single-asset CV market growing to be much larger to create competitive tension, despite recent stigma that GPs are addressing through increased transparency over the last 12 to 18 months.
- The secondary market is struggling with deployment despite record fundraising of $165 billion last year against $225 billion in deployed capital, prompting expectations that the asset class is shrinking from a dry powder perspective and needs to expand meaningfully in AUM.
- Software vendor consolidation is predicted to see reductions from 22 to 15 vendors rather than the extreme 22 to 3 scenario, with AI adoption occurring over the next four to six years to create 150 to 200 basis points in margin improvement.
- AI is characterized as a meta wave that is overestimated in the short term but underestimated in the long term, expected to cause a huge dispersion of winners and losers where 5-10% of companies become market leaders while 90% fail.
- Vintage performance expectations suggest the last three or four years will underperform historically, while the next three or four years will be great vintages similar to 2001-2003 and 2009-2011, with 2026 anticipated as a busy year of great opportunity.
- Private equity is expected to outperform public markets over the next five to seven years due to superior governance and the ability of GPs to make operational changes, whereas public market CEOs are described as running companies with "hearts and not their brains."
- Firms unable to return more money than they call are expected not to survive for a very long time, with 12-year leveraged recapitalization strategies largely over and harder to execute than in the 2010-2021 period.
- Five and 10-year returns for alternative assets are predicted to look poor relative to public markets for all but top quartile managers, potentially baiting capital back to public equities as the number of public companies drops from 8,000 to 4,000.
- Skepticism regarding continuation vehicles is expected to diminish over the next decade, with the industry eventually viewing them similarly to the early 2000s skepticism of sponsor-to-sponsor transactions.
- GTCR expects to start the year well following a record year in realizations, while the broader market anticipates public markets may over-react to the AI narrative before companies reinvent themselves rather than disappear.