Per Franzén: Leading EQT Into Its Next Phase of Growth

As I stepped into the role of CEO in May 2025, having already spent 18 years with the firm, I did so with deep conviction of the attractive strategic positioning of EQT in the private markets industry. EQT has a truly global platform, a diversified offering of investment strategies across asset classes and a three-decade long track record of performance. During 2025 we made good progress further strengthening EQT’s platform, expanding our business in line with evolving client needs, positioning EQT as the most attractive client-centric private markets firm of scale, delivering industry-leading performance and solutions globally.

Geopolitical uncertainty and the benefits of global diversification

Geopolitical developments are reshaping how investors think about portfolio diversification. As allocations to private markets continue to grow, institutional investors are focused on achieving a better geographical balance in their portfolios. As the largest private markets firm in the world outside of the US, EQT is exceptionally well positioned to help private market investors achieve their objectives.

EQT’s global footprint remains a defining advantage. Across the globe, we see idiosyncratic drivers of growth and value creation. In 2025, North America remained a powerful engine of activity for EQT and parts of Europe benefited from advancing reform agendas. Asia continued to be supported by attractive long term growth dynamics.

Asia represents about half of global GDP, yet less than 10 percent of global private equity investments. Across our deal pipeline, we see opportunities to accelerate growth, drive digital transformation, and unlock value creation. Within the region, our pipeline for 2026 is particularly strong in Japan where we have continuously strengthened our local presence.

Putting AI at the core of our investment approach

At EQT we are a thematic investor, and we want to be invested in the most important trends; digitization, the energy transition, healthcare innovation and infrastructure modernization are forces reshaping the global economy. Arguably, the most important theme of our generation is AI.

Our ambition is to become the world’s most AI-literate investment organization. We pursue this through a holistic approach to AI transformation: embedding AI across our own operations while integrating AI systematically into how the EQT funds invest and drive value creation.

AI technology is advancing rapidly and having a profound impact on many industries, including the private markets industry. AI is rapidly becoming a central driver of value creation, transforming business models across sectors. At EQT we have been investing in our AI capabilities for more than a decade and we have long assessed AI-related opportunities and risks across every investment, regardless of sector.

Investing through periods of rapid technological change requires a long-term, active ownership approach - backing strong management teams and working closely with them to navigate change. Our portfolio spans multiple AI-driven themes. In our infrastructure platform we are investing into the AI opportunity at scale through our data center, digital and energy investments. In our Private Capital strategies we are investing into AI-native businesses out of our Venture and Growth funds. In the EQT Private Equity funds we are leveraging those insights and practical applications of AI tools and processes to realise ambitious value creation plans in our large buyout investments. The focus is consistent: strengthening competitive positions, creating more resilient and profitable business models, and driving long-term sustainable value creation. This allows us to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns for clients.

Building the most attractive platform for private market investors

The private markets industry has experienced significant growth and - according to external studies - is expected to continue to grow 7-9 percent over the next 5 years. For both institutional and private clients, having exposure to the private markets is today a core element of any long term portfolio strategy. Investors seek diversification, durable returns and, increasingly, flexibility and liquidity. EQT’s ambition is to lead in this environment by offering long-term partnerships through a fully integrated platform spanning geographies, asset classes and ownership structures.

As private markets have grown in importance and complexity, the need for sophisticated liquidity and portfolio management solutions has become paramount. Secondaries have therefore emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of the industry, driven by longer-term ownership of assets and more sophisticated portfolio construction needs.

Against this background, EQT’s acquisition of Coller Capital marks an important next step in our evolution. Entering secondaries is a natural extension of our platform - reflecting our ambition to become an even more strategic partner for clients - as private markets evolve with new capital pools, ownership structures, and liquidity needs.

Coller Capital is highly complementary to EQT, and the combination represents a strong cultural fit. As one of the largest dedicated secondaries firms and a pioneer of the asset class, Coller brings origination depth, innovation, and a strong track record to our firm.

By adding a leading global secondaries franchise, we expand our ability to provide strategic liquidity solutions, active portfolio management and access to high-quality private market exposures across cycles, strengthening our relevance across institutional, private wealth and insurance clients. Insurance represents an important and structurally growing channel. With Coller Capital’s deep origination reach and in-house structuring expertise, insurance could become a significant growth opportunity and a natural extension of EQT’s platform.

Post closing of the transaction, Coller Capital will be branded Coller EQT. We have ambitious growth plans for Coller EQT. Our target is to more than double Coller Capital’s FAUM in less than four years. This will accelerate EQT’s overall growth and create an even more diversified global platform, equipped to better serve clients. I am very excited to welcome Jeremy Coller and the entire Coller Capital team to EQT; I know we will achieve great things together.

At the same time, we continue to expand access to private markets for individual investors. To meet growing demand from this segment, we expanded our evergreens platform with three new strategies in 2025. We have more products in the pipeline for 2026. The EQT evergreen vehicles provide private wealth investors with access to our high-quality deal flow available to institutional clients.

Together, these developments strengthen EQT’s platform by broadening how we engage with clients - from primary investments to liquidity solutions, evergreen strategies and portfolio management - putting us in an even better position to be the most attractive long term partner to private market investors globally.

Consolidation of the industry is accelerating

As private markets mature, scale is becoming increasingly important in order to be able to deliver attractive performance for investors.

There are a number of forces driving the consolidation of the industry. Distributions have slowed and fundraising conditions have become more challenging. As a result, clients are concentrating their relationships with firms that can help them achieve their return targets across cycles and can help them achieve attractive diversification and liquidity solutions. EQT stands out in this regard through our consistent ability to return capital to clients, deliver attractive performance and offer meaningful co-investment opportunities.

In the future, a limited number of globally diversified, high-performing platforms will attract the vast majority of the capital being allocated to private markets. At EQT, we want to be the most attractive counterparty for clients in the industry, helping investors achieve their portfolio objectives and building long term strategic partnerships.

A year of strong execution

2025 was a year of great progress and strong execution for EQT.

We navigated a volatile market environment, staying disciplined in our investment pacing, driving exits and managing cash flows on behalf of our clients.

We invested with discipline behind long-term themes including AI, digital transformation, healthcare innovation and business services, across €16bn of gross fund investments globally.

We continued to provide the most attractive co-investment generation in our industry. EQT facilitated a record €14bn of co-investment opportunities in 2025, corresponding to a co-investment ratio close to 1:1. This reflects both the depth of our global deal pipeline and our continued focus on developing long term strategic relationships with clients.

We also had the most successful exit year in EQT’s history, delivering approximately €34bn in total realizations, an absolutely outstanding achievement in a tricky exit environment, significantly outperforming the rest of the industry. For the second consecutive year, EQT was the most active private markets firm in the global Equity Capital Markets.

The year also marked meaningful strategic progress. In addition to expanding our evergreen strategies, EQT introduced its first open-ended institutional structure, and took the strategic step to expand into secondaries. We implemented several leadership transitions, simplifying our organization, sharpening accountability and streamlining decision-making. Thanks to all these initiatives, we have put EQT in a better position to continue on its ambitious growth journey and to lead the consolidation of the private markets industry.

Looking forward

As EQT enters 2026, we do so with confidence, knowing that our group has never been better positioned to deliver on our mission - to create attractive risk adjusted returns for private markets investors.

Across strategies we have access to a deep bench of talent, and we have invested in a high-quality, well performing, globally diversified portfolio. Post the combination with Coller Capital, we are in an even better position to deliver industry leading liquidity and portfolio solutions for private market investors.

My focus as CEO is clear: to ensure that we continue to build EQT in the best possible way for the benefit of our clients. I am proud of what the EQT team achieved and the progress we made on this journey in 2025. I remain grateful for the trust our clients and shareholders place in us.