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KPMG
PULSE OF PRIVATE EQUITY Q1’26
Entering Q1’26, there was momentum in the PE market in the EMA region, particularly coming off a three-year investment high of $734 billion in 2025, which occurred across a relatively steady number of deals (9,043) compared to 2024. The first two months of the quarter built on this momentum, attracting all but one of the largest PE deals of the quarter, including the $9.2 billion buyout of Poland-based parcel locker company InPost by a consortium including Advent International and FedEx, the buyout of Ireland-based aircraft leasing company Macquarie Air Finance by Dubai Aerospace Enterprise for $7 billion and the buyout of Spain-based waste management company Urbaser by Blackstone and EQT for $6.5 billion. >more

Amundi
PRIVATE ASSETS: A NEW RETURN ARCHITECTURE
For private and alternative assets, the new regime highlighted throughout our 2026 CMA has two critical implications: first, higher nominal discount rates structurally cap valuation multiples, compressing the gains from the multiple expansion that defined the previous decades; and second, income and operational value creation remain at the driving seat of return generation. >more

Bain & Company
THE NEW ERA IN TECH INVESTING STARTS NOW
Software dealmaking limped along in early 2026 as slowed revenue growth and the threat of AI drove a wedge between buyers and sellers. But amid the tumult, patterns are emerging that suggest how general partners and their portfolio companies can navigate through the uncertainty. Managing both the risk and opportunity posed by AI boils down to rethinking due diligence and value-creation playbooks, while retooling metrics to validate success. >more

Deutsche Bank Research
IM SCHATTEN DER FISKALEXPANSION: DEUTSCHLANDS GEMEINDEN IN GROßEN FINANZNÖTEN
German local authorities are facing a major budgetary crisis, which came to a head in 2025. With a funding shortfall of just under EUR 32 billion, the core and supplementary budgets of local authorities and associations of local authorities recorded the highest deficit since German reunification. It was once again significantly larger than in 2024, when it had stood at around EUR 25 billion. As recently as 2023, it was ‘only’ just under EUR 7 billion. The budgetary situation has thus deteriorated significantly within the space of a few years. >more

RISK-FREE RATES AND CONVENIENCE YIELDS AROUND THE WORLD
William Diamond, and Peter Van Tassel
2025
We infer risk-free rates from index option prices to estimate safe asset convenience yields in 10 G11 currencies. Countries' convenience yields increase with the level of their interest rates, with US convenience yields fifth largest. During financial crises, convenience yields grow, but the difference between US and foreign convenience yields generally does not. Covered interest parity (CIP) deviations using our option-implied rates are a similar size between the US and each other country. A model where convenience yields depend on domestic financial intermediaries, but CIP deviations reflect the funding costs of international arbitrageurs financed with dollar-denominated debt, explains these results. >more

THE EFFECT OF ADVISORS' INCENTIVES ON CLIENTS' INVESTMENTS
Diego Battiston, Jordi Blanes i Vidal, Rafael Hortala-Vallve, and Dong Lou
2025
We use granular data from an investment firm and a credible identification strategy to estimate the effect of financial advisors' incentives on client investments. Exploiting a natural experiment triggered by the 2018 implementation of MiFID II, we find that clients' investments respond strongly to changes in advisor incentives. Advisors react through multiple mechanisms: (a) inducing existing clients to bring in new money, (b) channeling it to high-incentive funds, and (c) attracting more new clients. We also find that the MiFID II reform generated more balanced incentives, which translated into higher portfolio efficiency through both lower average fees and stronger portfolio diversification. >more