KPMG Pulse of Private Equity 3Q26 says that global private equity firms invested 1.5 trillion US Dollars in 14650 deals. The report used PitchBook data as at 30 September, Wednesday. Financial volumes have remained stable despite an increasingly selective market. If the pace of investment continues through to December 2026 could become the third-best year on record in terms of value invested, after 2021 and 2025. The number of transactions, however, is set to record its lowest annual figure since 2020 (press release).
The most significant finding is the growing concentration of capital in a limited number of large-scale transactions, whilst difficulties in divestment persist and institutional investors continue to put pressure on fund managers to return liquidity.
On a rolling 12-month basis, the total value of private equity transactions stood at 2213 billion US Dollars, down from the approximately 2400 billion recorded in the previous quarter, whilst the number of deals fell to 20362, the lowest level since the first quarter of 2021.
The preference for large transactions is also confirmed by the size of buyouts: in 3Q26, the median value of a buyout reached 101.7 million Dollars, whilst the average rose to 725.5 million. For growth equity transactions, the median stood at 21.2 million and the average at 139.8 million.
Americas keep attracting the largest share of investment worth 854.6 billion US Dollars were recorded across 6845 transactions in the first nine months. The United States alone accounted for 793.4 billion, spread across 6223 deals. The EMA region totalled 521.3 billion US Dollars across 6,249 transactions, whilst the Asia-Pacific region stood at 137.8 billion US Dollars across 1,109 deals.
However, the latter is the only region which could end 2026 with growth in both the value and the number of transactions compared with 2025. On a rolling 12-month basis, investment in the Asia-Pacific region rose from 171 billion in the second quarter to 181.4 billion in the third, the highest level in the last six quarters. In the EMA region the value of investments over the past twelve months fell from 818.2 to 764.4 billion US Dollars, whilst the number of transactions dropped from 9,251 to 8,805.
The United Kingdom remains the region’s most important market in terms of value invested over the nine-month period, with 165 billion US Dollars, Germany follows with 58.1 billion and 615 transactions.
The technology, media and telecommunications sector is still the main recipient of investment, with 479.1 billion US dollars across 4,508 transactions. However, the most interesting trend concerns the energy and natural resources sector, which attracted 243.3 billion US dollars in the first nine months, coming close to the annual record.
The infrastructure required for the development of artificial intelligence is the main driver of interest from funds: data centres, energy generation, electricity grids and electricity distribution equipment.
The report highlights how AI is reshaping fund managers’ strategies on two fronts: on the one hand, the use of technology to boost the efficiency and value of portfolio companies; on the other, the acquisition of firms that provide the physical infrastructure required for AI to function.
KPMG cites as main deals example the take-private of DCC Power, worth 7.7 billion US dollars; the secondary buyout of Aypa Power, worth 7 billion; the acquisition of VTX Energy Partners, worth 3 billion; and the buyout of the Australian firm Plus ES, worth 2.1 billion.
The industrial manufacturing sector is also attracting capital, with 122.6 billion US Dollars invested over the nine-month period – a figure that could approach the record of 163.3 billion set in 2021. The automotive sector reached 28 billion.
KPMG reckons that both sectors are also benefiting from increased defence spending, which is creating opportunities to repurpose production capacity and industrial facilities for new uses, as well as from the growing adoption of robotics and artificial intelligence applied to physical processes.
In 3Q26, carve-outs global value amounted to 182.2 billion US Dollars accross 1.254 transactions, putting the market on track for its second-best year ever, after 2021.
On a 12-month rolling basis, the value of carve-outs remained high at 247.7 billion US dollars, compared with 249.6 billion in the previous quarter, whilst the number of deals fell from 1,805 to 1,751.
KPMG reckons that the change is primarily qualitative: not only struggling or unprofitable businesses that are for sale, but increasingly healthy companies that no longer fit within the parent group’s strategy.
Large industrial firms are, in fact, reviewing their portfolios to concentrate capital and management on activities deemed strategic, partly in response to technological transformation.
At the same time, private equity funds are using carve-outs to monetise individual divisions of their portfolio companies, returning liquidity to investors without necessarily having to sell the entire company.
The EMEA region is the world’s leading market in terms of the number of carve-outs on a rolling 12-month basis, with 883 transactions totalling 92.7 billion US dollars, whilst the Americas lead in terms of value, with 125.5 billion.
The energy sector has been dynamic, having already reached a record value of 56.6 billion US dollars in the first nine months through 144 carve-outs. In the automotive sector too, with 8.3 billion US dollars and 40 transactions, the value of carve-outs has already reached a five-year high.
The other major issue in the market concerns divestments. In 3Q26, the value of global exits stood at 985.2 billion US dollars, across 2,204 transactions. This figure is relatively robust and could enable 2026 to come close to the previous year’s result, whilst remaining some way short of the record 1,700 billion recorded in 2021.
However, a few large transactions lead the value of divestments. On a rolling 12-month basis the value of exits reached 1.4 billion US dollars – the highest since the 1Q22 – whilst the number of transactions fell to 3,295, the lowest since the 1Q21.
This is a particularly significant divergence for funds: the resurgence of large exits has not yet translated into a normalisation of capital distributions to investors.
Continuation vehicles and secondary market transactions that enable the generate liquidity even when traditional exit routes remain difficult are a partial solution to the exits’ struggles, says the report.
The issue also affects Europe. In the EMEA region, exits in 3Q26 totalled 320.9 billion US dollars across 945 transactions, whilst on a rolling 12-month basis the value rose to 460.5 billion – the highest in the last seventeen quarters – against just 1,434 transactions, the lowest in the last twenty-two quarters.
The difficulties in fund closures are having a direct impact on fundraising. In the EMA region, in 3Q26, just 113 funds raised 92.2 billion US dollars. This figure is already close to the 94.7 billion raised in the whole of 2025, but the number of funds is particularly low. If the pace does not change, 2026 could end with fewer than the 208 funds raised in 2025, which already represented the lowest figure of the last decade.
This trend confirms the concentration of institutional investors’ commitments on a limited number of large managers, multi-asset platforms and specialist operators with a proven track record and demonstrated ability to return capital. Among the examples cited by KPMG is ICG, which in September announced the raising of its ninth European Corporate fund, totalling approximately 14 billion US dollars.
The report highlights how the large number of companies still held in portfolios and the difficulty in realising exits continue to affect managers’ ability to raise new funds, despite the abundance of capital available globally.
For the final months of 2026 and throughout 2027, KPMG expects the market to remain selective, with a particular focus on resilient companies and sectors where concrete opportunities for value creation can be identified.
AI infrastructure, energy, industrial technologies, advanced manufacturing and healthcare will remain key areas, whilst the growing interest in take-privates reflects the potential to identify listed companies considered to be undervalued.
In the EMA region, the report also forecasts an important role for buy-and-build strategies, industrial carve-outs and generational succession transactions in family-owned businesses.
On the exit front, an acceleration may require a convergence between sellers’ and buyers’ valuation expectations, which is necessary to revive the fund-to-fund deal market.
Finally, fundraising may remain concentrated on larger managers and those able to demonstrate concrete results in terms of distributions to investors.
