Ahead of SuperReturn Europe 2026, some of the biggest questions facing LPs are familiar: when will liquidity really improve, how permanent is the secondaries boom, and which managers deserve scarce re-up capital? Last year’s SuperReturn LP Insights: Europe edition [1], captured those tensions early. Nine months on, the market has moved, but many of those allocation challenges have become more pressing.

Private equity exits: Quality is doing the separating

Dana Haimoff, Managing Director at JPMorgan Asset Management, put the challenge starkly last year:

Only the best businesses will achieve an exit in today’s environment.
Dana Haimoff, Managing Director, JPMorgan Asset Management

Her concern was the number of unrealised companies sitting in private equity portfolios. Some GPs were holding assets in the expectation that once exit markets reopened, the problem would resolve itself. But not every business would necessarily find a buyer.

There was certainly more activity in 2025. Global buyout-backed exit value jumped 47% year-on-year to $717 billion, according to Bain & Company [2]. Yet just seven exits valued above $10 billion contributed $155 billion – 22% of the total – while the overall number of exits fell 2%.

The backlog also remains significant. Bain estimates that the industry is sitting on roughly 32,000 unsold companies worth $3.8 trillion, with almost 40% of portfolio companies now held for more than five years.

Andi Klein, Managing Partner at Triton Partners, anticipated part of that challenge, arguing that weaker “B-class assets” would need either lower pricing or more work before they could exit. The issue for LPs is therefore no longer simply whether the exit window is open. It is which assets can get through it – and at what price.

Coller Capital’s Summer 2026 Barometer found that 54% of surveyed LPs expect the number of so-called zombie funds in their private equity portfolios to increase over the next two years [4]. That puts greater weight on what sits behind reported NAV: asset quality, holding periods, valuation assumptions and whether managers have a credible route to realisation.

Secondaries: From liquidity solution to portfolio tool

If traditional exits remain selective, investors have increasingly been creating liquidity elsewhere.

We’ve never seen so much deal flow.
Ricardo Miro-Quesada, Partner and Head of Private Equity, Arcano Partners

Last year, Miro-Quesada described LPs selling more frequently and bringing larger portfolios to market. Other investors pointed to repeat sellers using secondaries to reduce non-core GP relationships, rebalance vintage exposure and make room for new commitments.

The latest numbers suggest that behaviour is becoming embedded. Global secondary transaction volume reached approximately $121 billion in the first half of 2026, up 19% year-on-year, according to Evercore [3]. GP-led activity accounted for $65 billion and LP-led transactions $56 billion.

The more interesting development is not simply the record volume, but what investors are using the market for. LPs are increasingly treating secondaries as part of ongoing portfolio management rather than waiting until they have a liquidity problem. Continuation vehicles are becoming established alongside them.

Philippe Ferneini, Partner at StepStone Group, described CVs as an “elegant solution” that allows GPs to retain high-conviction assets while giving LPs the option of liquidity.

LP sentiment suggests they are unlikely to disappear when traditional exits improve. Coller Capital found that 40% of LPs expect continuation vehicle activity to keep increasing even as conventional exit conditions recover, while another 29% expect activity to remain at current levels.

Secondaries therefore increasingly look a permanent part of the LP toolkit, rather than a workaround for a difficult cycle.

Evergreen funds: Growth brings harder questions

Evergreen and semi-liquid private markets funds continue to gain momentum, particularly as managers look to broaden access to private markets. But LPs are looking closely at what sits behind the label.

There is lots of confusion about the definition of evergreens.
Matthias Erb, Partner, StepStone

As Erb explained, “evergreen” covers a range of legal structures, capital-call mechanisms and liquidity profiles. The underlying challenges can include gating, valuation, portfolio diversification and managing liquidity without disadvantaging investors who remain in the fund.

Those questions become more important as the market scales. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of LPs surveyed by Coller Capital expect the proportion of private markets AUM held in evergreen vehicles to increase by 2035, including 36% who expect a significant increase.

Portfolio construction matters too. Investors in last year’s discussions highlighted the role secondaries and co-investments can play within evergreen portfolios, alongside the need to manage vintage diversification and liquidity carefully.

Even institutional LPs that never invest through an evergreen vehicle may feel the effects as these pools of capital become larger participants in private markets. The growth story is straightforward. The more important due-diligence question is what investors are actually getting inside the wrapper.

Manager selection: Fewer relationships, a higher bar

Manager selection may be one of the most important issues facing European LPs.

We back emerging managers because they have provided outperformance… manager selection is very important because return dispersion is high.
Partner, Europe-based fund of funds

The attraction of emerging managers is clear: specialist strategies, differentiated sourcing and the opportunity to back tomorrow’s leading franchises early. But LPs are making those decisions in an increasingly selective environment.

Almost a quarter (23%) of investors surveyed by Coller Capital expect to reduce the number of GP relationships in their portfolios over the next three years, up from 16% when the question was asked in 2020. At the same time, 33% expect to accelerate their overall pace of private markets commitments and 57% expect it to remain unchanged.

Europe itself is attracting renewed attention. Adams Street Partners’ 2026 Global Investor Survey found that 61% of LPs cited Europe as an attractive region for private markets investment, ahead of North America at 54%, while 72% favoured middle-market funds over large and mega buyouts [5].

That makes manager selection especially important in Europe’s fragmented lower mid-market.

As an investor, you have to understand and continually evaluate the space. You also have to meet a lot of fund managers.
Imogen Richards, Partner and Head of European Primaries, Pantheon

For GPs, the bar is rising. A credible track record is important, but managers increasingly have to show why they deserve one of a smaller number of LP relationships – through differentiated sourcing, sector expertise, alignment, co-investment access or an ability to return capital.

For LPs, the challenge runs in the opposite direction: becoming more selective without closing themselves off from new sources of alpha.

Looking ahead

What has changed over the past nine months is not so much the list of issues facing LPs, but the decisions underneath them.

The exit question is increasingly about which assets can clear the market, not simply when activity will recover. Secondaries are becoming part of active portfolio management. Evergreen structures are broadening access while adding new layers of due diligence. And a more selective fundraising environment is raising the bar for manager relationships. With Europe attracting renewed allocator interest, those choices carry more weight.

They will be among the conversations at SuperReturn Europe, 3–6 November 2026 at Hotel Okura Amsterdam, where this year’s programme puts the European lower mid-market, fundraising, co-investments, secondaries and manager selection firmly in focus.

References

[1] SuperReturn LP Insights: Europe, 2025.
[2] Bain & Company, Private Equity Outlook 2026: Gaining Traction.
[3] Evercore, H1 2026 Secondary Market Review.
[4] Coller Capital, Global Private Capital Barometer, Summer 2026.
[5] Adams Street Partners, 2026 Global Investor Survey: The Great Recalibration.