EQT AB Half-year
Report 2026
Friday, 17th July 2026
EQT AB Half-year Report 2026
Friday, 17th July 2026
Introduction
Olof Svensson
Head of Shareholder Relations, EQT AB
Welcome to EQT’s Half-Year Report 2026! It’s been a busy and successful first half for us. All
in, fee-paying AUM at EQT grew 10%. We delivered total revenue growth of 5% and 4% of
EBITDA growth versus last year, with significant fundraising activities underway driving growth
into 2027.
Before handing over to Per to kick things off, let me ask that we limit questions to two questions
in today’s Q&A to make sure everyone has sufficient time to answer questions.
So with that, let’s hand it over to you, Per, to kick things off.
Overview
Per Franzén
CEO, EQT AB
Strong execution across the EQT platform
Thank you, Olof, and good morning, everyone. In a challenging and uncertain environment
during the first half, we delivered strong performance and made significant progress across the
board.
We took advantage of a volatile market environment to unlock attractive investments. We were
able to leverage our differentiated sourcing capabilities to really create very attractive deal flow
for investors.
We substantially increased our investment pace compared to last year, and in total, we put €19
billion of capital to work and generated €9 billion of co-investments. At the same time, we
stayed disciplined on exits. Building really on the record year of exits that we had in 2025,
when we achieved €40 billion of distributions, we sent back close to €17 billion to our clients
during the first half.
Strong execution across the EQT platform
Across business lines, we launched a number of new strategies, and we currently have more
than 20 active funds in the market. In Private Capital, we were selected for the Scaleup Europe
Fund by the European Commission. This win is really a great testament of our market-leading
position in Europe and the quality of our early-stage platform.
In Asia, we raised the largest Asia-focused private equity fund ever with BPEA IX hitting the
hard cap at $15.6 billion. For EQT XI, we’re off to a very good start, and we have so far secured
commitments of half of the target fund size.
In private capital, we have strong deal flow across strategies. In total, we put €5 billion of
capital to work out of our funds, and we generated around €5 billion in co-investments. A
significant part of that co-invest came from the £11 billion take-private of Intertek.
Post
Intertek and TachoSil, EQT X is now approximately 85% invested.
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In EQT equity, we continue to see strong attractive deal flow ahead, and we expect to activate
EQT XI during the third quarter.
The attractive near-term investment pipeline in EQT equity is also likely to support drive further
fundraising momentum for EQT XI.
This is something that we’ve seen in prior flagship
fundraisings, most recently in BPEA IX and Infra VI.
Turning to our infrastructure business. Momentum across our infrastructure platform is really
exceptional. The investment volumes for the first half of 2026 are higher than the two previous
calendar years combined. Value creation has picked up significantly. Performance across funds
is strong and the outlook remains favourable, not least for the AI Infrastructure strategy and
all of the connected investments that we have across our infrastructure platform.
Both the AI Infrastructure and the Active Core Infrastructure strategies are off to a very strong
start. We launched the EQT Infra VII fundraising with a €21 billion target fund size, and the
initial reception has been very positive and interest from clients is strong.
In Real Estate, we also see excellent momentum. We closed the most recent Europe Logistics
Value Fund at the €3.1 billion hard cap. And we launched the US Industrial Value Fund VII,
targeting $6 billion. We’re really optimistic about the potential in this part of our business, and
we’ll come back to that shortly.
Coller Capital remains on track for closing in the third quarter. Adding secondaries capabilities
to our platform will make us even better placed to be the most attractive counterparty in private
markets for clients. It will also significantly strengthen our positioning in the insurance channel
and in private wealth.
Across our private wealth platform, we see strong momentum. And in the quarter, including
Coller, our evergreen offerings reached a new milestone of €10 billion in NAV.
Private wealth remains an important opportunity for us. We will approach this opportunity with
a long-term and responsible mindset. And we continue to make the necessary investments
into our client solutions capabilities, distribution partners, as well as our brand. An important
initiative in this regard was the announcement during the quarter, of our first global brand
partnership in sports with the ATP Tour.
Next slide, please.
Selected by the European Commission to manage the Scaleup Europe Fund
In May, we announced the decision by the European Commission to select EQT to manage the
Scaleup Europe Fund. The decision was taken following a highly competitive process and is
really the ultimate validation of what we’ve built over the last 30 years.
As the only European platform investing across ventures, growth and life sciences, we are
uniquely qualified for this mandate. The opportunity set is significant and very attractive. Over
the last decade, an estimated €1.2 trillion in market value has left Europe. Europe really doesn’t
have a startup problem. It has a scale-up challenge. We estimate that there is more than
€500 billion in scale-up funding needed until 2031.
Today, 60% of growth stage funding of European companies comes from outside of Europe.
With the Scaleup Europe Fund, we want to really rally the entire European early-stage
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ecosystem behind this opportunity. We want to leverage our scale, our operational toolbox,
our global network to help European entrepreneurs and founders realise their full potential.
We want them to go for gold and become global winners, just like EQT has become a European
headquartered global winner in the private markets. The focus for the fund will be AI, robotics,
semiconductors, energy, biotech, and advanced industrial systems.
In one of these sub-
sectors, we want to find and back Europe’s first €1 trillion company.
The fund is off to a great start. Deal flow is above our expectations. And interest from investors
is strong. We have more than 125 high priority opportunities that we’re currently pursuing,
and we expect to announce several investments for this strategy already during the third
quarter.
We set the target fund size at €5 billion. We see client demand above this level, and we have
not set the hard cap for this fund yet.
Next slide, please.
EQT AI Infrastructure off to a strong start: $9bn of FAUM
During the second quarter, we officially launched the EQT AI Infrastructure Fund to offer
investors direct exposure to the most compelling investment opportunity of our generation.
The demand for AI compute is accelerating at a rapid pace, and we continue to see a huge
supply-demand imbalance.
Industry estimates suggests that by 2030, $4 trillion will be
invested into data centres and energy infrastructure.
At EQT, across our infrastructure
platform, we’ve invested in this theme with high conviction for many years, starting with our
investment in EdgeConneX in 2020.
Since then, we’ve developed a differentiated strategy to connect our fibre, energy, and data
centre assets and our real estate platform to provide integrated solutions for data centre clients
around the world. As a result, EQT is uniquely positioned to be a central partner in this buildout. Through EdgeConneX, we today operate more than 90 data centres globally across five
continents and 26 countries. We’ve deployed 30 million miles of fibre network, and our energy
companies have a development pipeline exceeding 100 gigawatts. No other private markets
firm can offer this type of integrated solutions to hyperscalers.
The AI Infrastructure Fund provides a unique opportunity for private market investors to get
exposure to this theme, and that is what we’re seeing reflected in the significant value creation
and fundraising momentum for this fund. In less than three months, NAV increased from $2.4
billion to $9.4 billion.
Next slide, please.
Focus on scaling EQT Real Estate
Let me now turn to EQT Real Estate. It’s been approximately five years since we acquired
Exeter. During this time, the real estate market was really or has been out of favour, and the
fundraising environment has been challenging.
In the key funds, EQT Real Estate delivered top quartile or better performance. And as a result,
despite these challenging market conditions, we have doubled fee-generating AUM from
approximately €11 billion at the time of the acquisition to €22 billion today. We want to build
on this performance and momentum, think that now is an interesting time to accelerate growth.
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We see signs of the real estate market gradually improving, and activity levels picking up. We
recently announced the launch of the fundraising for the flagship US Industrial Value Fund VII,
and the $6 billion target is a significant increase in fund size compared to Fund VI. The initial
response from clients has been very positive.
Looking ahead, we see an opportunity to expand into new thematic verticals beyond our current
industrial and logistics focus. Living, multifamily, and data centres are near-term priorities and
opportunities for us.
Geographically, we’re continuing to build our presence in the US and Europe, longer term, APAC
is also an opportunity. The new segment reporting reflects the strategic importance and the
growth opportunity that we see going forward for this part of our business.
Next slide, please.
Delivering attractive deal flow across strategies, thematics and geographies
At EQT, we continue to generate the most attractive deal flow and the most attractive coinvestments in the private markets.
Our ability to generate co-investments is a real
differentiator for us, and is the result of the deal sourcing machine that we’ve built over the last
decades. Combining a strong local presence in our target geographies with a global sectorbased thematic investment approach allows us to unlock deals and to engage with investors in
a more long-term strategic way.
Thematically, thanks to the breadth of our platform, we remain perfectly designed to invest into
the AI opportunity, and that is what we see reflected in our deal flow and in our investment
activity in the first half.
Our Infrastructure and Private Capital platforms are really firing on all cylinders.
In
Infrastructure, we made several attractive investments in the energy sector, for instance, in
AES and Copia Power.
Copia Power will be the first deal in the newly announced EQT
Infrastructure VII fund.
We also invested in physical infrastructure businesses that are providing critical nondiscretionary services, for instance, Kelda and Urbaser.
In EQT Private Capital, EQT X announced an offer for Intertek, one of the largest take-privates
in Europe so far this year, and actually the second largest UK sponsor-backed public-to-private
transaction of all time. EQT X also invested in Exolaunch, a European space company, as well
as TachoSil, a globally leading niche med-tech business. Post-TachoSil, EQT X is now close to
fully invested with an appropriate vintage sector and geographic diversification.
In Asia, we continue to have an attractive pipeline, in particular in India and Japan. In Japan,
over the past 12 months, we’ve done three public to privates, including Fujitec, CareNet, and
Mamezo.
Finally, across the EQT early-stage platform, deal flow is at record levels, also fuelled by the
announcement of EQT being selected as the manager for the Scaleup Europe Fund.
The
momentum that we’re seeing in this part of our business is really very exciting.
Next slide, please.
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In the last six months, we have added four new strategies with €5bn+ in expected
FAUM each
Our strategy of being the client-centric scale player focused on performance, that unique
precision, proposition, that we can bring to the market of being the global provider of
international alpha, that really resonates with investors.
In addition, our performance track record is excellent. We’ve produced attractive short and
long-term risk-adjusted returns. Really, no matter how you look at it, whether on a long-term
or a short-term basis, we’ve delivered real cash back to investors, real alpha. As a result, our
fundraising momentum is very strong, which has allowed us to successfully launch new products
and grow existing strategies.
In the last six months alone, we’ve added four new strategies with an expected fee-based AUM
of more than €5 billion each. The AI Infrastructure Fund, the Scaleup Europe Fund in Private
Capital, the US Industrial Value Fund VII in real estate, and CIP IX in Coller Capital.
Delivering for our clients gives us the right to grow and scale existing business lines and
strategies, and to introduce attractive new products to help investors achieve their objectives
when it comes to target returns and portfolio diversification.
Next slide, please.
We are broadening the offering to our clients ...
Since the IPO, we have significantly expanded our offering for clients. At the time of the IPO,
the EQT platform consisted primarily of the Private Equity and Infrastructure flagship funds.
Our Private Capital fundraising cycle was essentially one flagship fund, EQT IX at the time, at
roughly €16 billion. Since then, we’ve added many strategies across the flagship early-stage,
long hold, and evergreen products.
For many of these strategies, we’re today also offering a specific geographic focus across
Europe, North America and Asia. As a result, in this cycle for Private Capital, we’re targeting
fundraising of approximately €55 billion.
That’s an increase of 40% compared to the prior
fundraising cycle.
Similarly, in EQT Infrastructure, we’ve expanded the fundraising from only €16 billion in Infra
V at the time of the IPO to approximately €45 billion for the current fundraising cycle, an
increase of approximately 80% versus the prior cycle, really an impressive achievement.
In addition to the value-add funds, the Infrastructure platform now includes the AI
Infrastructure Fund, the Transition Infrastructure and Active Core strategies, as well as the
Evergreen vehicles.
Next slide, please.
... resulting in a more diversified business model, with several growth engines
Thanks to the broadening of our offering, we’ve been able to create a much more diversified
business since our IPO. In September 2019, EQT managed approximately €36 billion in feerelated AUM across six private equity and infrastructure-focused strategies.
Today, we manage €155 billion of fee-generating AUM and €291 billion of total AUM. Pro forma
for Coller Capital and including the Scaleup Europe Fund, our total AUM is now around €345
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billion as of 30th June. We want to leverage our scale, our global presence and insights to
deliver the most attractive strategies, product solutions and performance for clients.
The AI investment opportunity is a good example of this. Thanks to the breadth of our platform,
we can find the most attractive risk-reward and allocate capital accordingly for clients. From
making investments into exciting native AI companies out of our early-stage platform, to
investing into the opportunity at scale out of our infrastructure funds.
With that, I hand it over to Gustav. Next slide, please.
Fundraising
Gustav Segerberg
CFO, EQT AB
Strong fundraising momentum across strategies
€18bn in Gross inflows during the first half of the year
Thank you, Per, and good morning, everyone. Turning to fundraising and highlights from the
first half of the year, which has been very eventful with around €18 billion of gross inflow turned
into fee-generating AUM.
For EQT XI, we’ve secured commitments equal to half the target fund size of €23 billion. Half
the target fund size at the first close for EQT XI is slightly ahead of where we were with Infra
VI at the first close. Momentum remains strong with an active pipeline for the H2 tilted towards
Q4, just given the recent first close. We expect activation of the fund during Q3.
As communicated, we’ve set the target fund size for Infra VII at €21 billion, and we’re seeing
promising early indications from investors on the back of very strong fund performance. Infra
VII has signed its first deal acquiring Copia Power via a so-called pre-fund bridge, and we expect
activation around year-end in line with earlier communication.
At year-end, we expect to have held an early close for Infra VII. However, we don’t expect the
first close to happen until H1 2027. Hence, you should expect a smaller amount raised in 2026
than for EQT XI at activation.
As a reminder, EQT XI and Infra VII will not contribute to fee-generating AUM until activation,
and hence, EQT XI is not part of the fee-generating AUM as of today.
Across other closed-ended strategies, we’ve been equally active. The Scaleup Europe Fund is
already anchored by a number of core investors, representing the majority of the €5 billion
target fund size and their commitment is expected to be closed out during Q3 with the activation
of the fund at the same time. We’re in parallel opening up the fundraise for additional investors
and are seeing strong demand on the €5 billion target fund size, and we have not yet set a hard
cap for the fund.
The fund will be paid on committed capital and is expected to have an average management
fee rate in line with EQT’s overall blended management fee rate. The Scaleup Europe Fund will
also mean that we will not be raising a second-generation growth fund. In addition to the
Scaleup Europe Fund, we’re also raising a large number of additional closed-ended funds,
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notably our US Industrial Value Real Estate Fund with a target of US$6 billion, as well as our
Transition Infra Fund.
On the institutional open-ended side, the Active Core Infrastructure strategy has now finalised
its funding round, and it signed its first two investments. The fund will be activated during Q3
and has so far raised $2.3 billion, of which a bit less than US$1 billion will be fee-generating
directly at activation.
The AI Infrastructure Fund reached more than $9 billion of fee-generating AUM at the end of
Q2, driven by taking in both primary capital to fund future growth, as well as secondary capital
to sell down investments in Infra IV and Infra V, as well as reflecting the strong value
appreciation since launch.
We expect continued strong development for AI Infrastructure, which is open-ended. However,
also noting that significant capital has been brought in during the last months, and hence you
should not expect the same velocity of inflow going forward. The fund charges fees on NAV
with the majority of the current capital, i.e. the $9.4 billion, came in as of 1st July and with a
fee rate of between 50 to 75 bps, currently closer to 50 bps due to the founder economics.
Lastly, for the private wealth evergreens, I will talk more about those on the following pages.
Next slide, please.
New strategies creating upside to €100bn fundraising cycle
As of today, we’ve closed out approximately €40 billion out of our €100 billion fund target –
fundraising target. And currently, we have more than 20 vehicles in active fundraising across
closed-ended and open-ended strategies. The remaining €60 billion includes funds currently in
fundraising, as well as a couple of funds that are yet to launch fundraising.
In addition, we’ve added three significant new elements: the AI Infrastructure Fund, the
Scaleup Europe Fund, and the Coller Capital platform. Together, these are expected to add
more than €40 billion of additional fundraising. Hence, we are today expecting to raise more
than €140 billion in this fundraising cycle.
Next slide, please.
Future joint EQT and Coller evergreen platform reached €10bn
We’re continuing to expand our evergreen offering. Today, including the Coller platform, we
have now reached €10 billion in NAV and are continuing to grow rapidly with limited
redemptions.
During the first half, we have started two infrastructure vehicles and we will, during Q3, launch
an Asia-focused fund on the private capital side.
In total, including Coller, we raised
approximately €2.5 billion during the first half, and we expect that to be a relatively good proxy
for forward-looking half years, however, with the notion that Q4 will probably be stronger than
Q3 just due to the holiday period in Q3.
We recognise that wealth investors are more sensitive to headlines and market sentiment. This
has been visible across the industry. Private credit evergreen products have faced the most
headwinds, while other vehicles focused on other strategies have been more resilient.
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For EQT without Coller, we had around €800 million of inflow in Q2, driven mainly by a weak
April due to the market sentiment, and then May and June more in line with the levels that we
saw in Q1.
We continue to see momentum on the Infra side on the back of strong performance and as an
attractive alternative to the significant outflow on the credit side. Redemptions in Q2 continue
to be very limited at the same levels as in Q1, hence around 0.5% of NAV per quarter across
the platform.
Next slide, please.
Coller Capital: on track for Q3 2026 closing
So let me give you an update on the Coller transaction. We are on track to close the transaction
in mid to latter part of Q3 and integration planning is ongoing at full speed. The structural
opportunity within secondaries is evident from the client demand for additional funds and new
products, and the continued muted distributions across the industry are widening that structural
opportunity even further.
Having closed CIP IX earlier this year, Coller’s largest fund ever, we plan to launch the CIP X
fundraising later this year with the activation of the fund expected during the first half of next
year, with fees charged on committed capital.
Fundraising for CCO III, the credit fund, was launched in Q2 and has been well received by the
market. CCO III will charge fees on invested capital similar to their earlier fund vintages. Coller
continues to see a growing market for structured products and insurance solutions with an
innovative evergreen structure closed here in the first half, and they expect to close a large
traditional 10-year structured funding vehicle during the second half of the year.
We identify insurance capital as one of the most interesting pools of capital within private
markets, and through Coller, we get access to strong insurance relationships as well as strong
structuring capabilities.
We are also in early preparations for additional share asset classes, drawing benefits from the
combined platform, including infrastructure secondaries. We continue to be very excited about
secondaries and to join forces with the Coller team.
With that, I will hand over to Olof. Next slide, please.
Investment Activity
Olof Svensson
Head of Shareholder Relations, EQT AB
In H1, investment activity accelerated alongside a strong, diversified exit pipeline
across the platform
Thank you very much, Gustav. So let’s next turn to deal activity. Per covered our strong deal
flow in H1, so let me focus on the exit activity.
We announced about €7 billion of fund exits and another €10 billion for our co-investors during
the first half of the year. We completed public sell downs in Galderma and Azelis, in Enity and
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in Beijer Ref, fully realising the listed portfolio assets. Public market exits represented about
30% of the exit volumes in H1.
On the Infrastructure side, we completed a minority stake sale in Nordic Ferry Infrastructure
as well as EdgeConneX from Infrastructure IV and V. And across the early-stage platform, we
completed the exit of Tubulis from LSP 7, which is the largest ever acquisition of a European
private biotech company.
We created a continuation vehicle for our well-performing assets in the EQT Ventures I fund,
providing further liquidity for those clients. At the start of the year, we announced an ambition
to deliver exit volumes similar to last year’s levels of about €20 billion of exits. We maintain
this ambition for the year despite the somewhat slower start to the year.
As always, the market backdrop and specific deal situations can impact volumes in the short
term, but we expect realisations to pick up versus the H1 volumes when we look a few quarters
ahead.
Looking at our pipeline for H2 specifically, we have a diversified pipeline across geographies,
sectors, and deal types, including a couple of potential IPOs and minority stake sales. Last
year, exits were concentrated to private equity, and we expect exits to be more balanced
towards infrastructure this year.
And as the AI Infrastructure strategy continues to ramp up, we also expect it to increase its
ownership in EdgeConneX through further purchases of shares from Infra IV and V.
Next slide, please.
Double digit value uplift in Infrastructure
Key fund valuations increased by 5% in Q2, and by 8% in the last twelve months
Turning to value creation. All of our key funds continued to perform on or above plan. During
the second quarter, key fund valuations increased by about 5%, and during the last 12 months,
key fund valuations increased by 8%. Double-digit value uplift in infrastructure was led by
strong underlying performance in the digital and energy sub-sectors in particular, as portfolio
companies continued to secure new contract capacity and grow run rate EBITDA.
Over the last 12 months, profitability accelerated across the private capital portfolio with 14%
EBITDA growth in private capital Europe and North America. Looking at EQT X specifically, saw
mid-single-digit value creation in H1, primarily due to strong operating performance with
combined EBITDA growth of 24% over the last 12 months.
In EQT IX, lower valuation multiples offset generally strong operating performances. And in
the earlier private capital vintages, which are largely de-risked already with a meaningful share
of realised assets, there we saw softer performance. And across private capital Asia, operating
performance was broadly positive, which combined with stable valuation references, supported
largely positive value creation.
So with that, let me hand it over to Kim.
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Financials
Kim Henriksson
CFO, EQT AB
Fee-related growth paced by fundraising momentum across the platform
Thank you, Olof, and good morning, everyone. Moving to the financials next. Many of the
ongoing fundraisings have started during 2026 and will continue into 2027. Thus, we expect,
for example, the full year effects of EQT XI and Infra VII to occur in 2027 with a step-up in
management fee revenue as a consequence.
In H1 2026, fee-related revenue was largely flat year-over-year, mainly due to large retroactive
fees in the first half of ’25, as well as significant exits in earlier fund generations during the last
12 months, which is helping the strong fundraising momentum across the platform.
Excluding the effects of the retroactive fees, the fee-related revenue increased by about 5%
year-over-year.
We saw a higher level of fee-related performance revenues in the period,
driven by the performance in our evergreens and open-ended funds. We expect this to continue
to grow in H2 and into 2027 and beyond as we scale the open-ended platforms.
Carried interest and investment income grew by around 40%. Carry was primarily driven by
exits in private capital, and investment income was driven by valuation uplifts in EQT’s financial
investments. Taken together, this led to a total revenue growth of 5%. We have remained
disciplined in our hiring, with headcount marginally increasing during the first half. Our key
strategic priorities for hiring continues to be private wealth, AI capabilities and geographical
presence in Asia and the US.
The guidance on mid-single-digit OPEX growth made at the start of the year is still our
expectation. The growth is related to the key strategic priorities mentioned, as well as rampedup branding, marketing, and AI spend.
In H1 2026, our EBITDA margin remained flat at 60%, and the fee-related EBITDA margin was
50%. During the latter part of 2027, it is likely that we reach the 55% fee-related EBITDA
margin ambition we have mentioned before.
I also wanted to repeat our guidance on Coller. As communicated at the year-end presentation,
we continue to expect Coller to have a fee-related EBITDA of around $175 million to $200
million for the full calendar year 2026.
Next slide, please.
Key funds: €9bn of carried interest yet to be recognised
Near-term carry recognition expected to be attributed to funds already in carry mode
Let’s turn to the outlook for carried interest.
This year, carry will be based on key funds
currently in carry mode. These funds have to-date recognised €1.4 billion and have yet to
recognise around €600 million over a multi-year period.
We have broadened the group of funds expected to enter carry mode next, and it now comprises
Infra IV and Infra V, EQT IX, and BPEA VIII.
Moving Infra V and BPEA VIII into this bucket reflects the progress these funds are making on
their value creation and exit plans, and a pipeline of future carry contributors is maturing.
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Within this group, Infra IV is the furthest progressed, and we expect to continue to realise part
of the holding in EdgeConneX, for example, across both Infra IV and Infra V.
This puts Infra IV on a value creation and exit path towards initial carry recognition in late 2027.
Other funds in this bucket may move into carry mode from 2028 at the earliest. The funds in
our most recent vintages are still investing and are fully focused on value creation.
Next slide, please.
Strong balance sheet to support growth agenda
Higher investment income driven by active use of balance sheet to support growth
Some final remarks on how we continue to use our balance sheet to support our growth agenda.
The foundation of the balance sheet remains robust. We have low leverage ratios, we have
strong cash generation and no bond maturities until 2028, and our revolver remains undrawn.
Worth noting on cash generation is that we had some €400 million of cash carry in H1 2026.
With a well-capitalised balance sheet, we have also returned around €750 million to
shareholders over the last 12 months through dividends and buybacks. And we continue to
have ample capacity to put our balance sheet to work, and I will hand over to Gustav to
comment on that.
Balance Sheet
Gustav Segerberg
CFO, EQT AB
Thank you, Kim. The work falls into a couple of main buckets – four. First, long-term fund
commitments.
Our commitments alongside clients currently at around €900 million, which
aligns us with our investors and grows naturally with the platform.
Secondly, the strategic balance sheet investments of approximately €2 billion, mainly seeding
our evergreen private wealth vehicles and bridging new close-ended strategies through launch.
These investments are designed to build EQT for the long-term to create fee-generating AUM.
Thirdly, Structured Solutions where we expect to increase investing into bespoke structures to
drive business momentum and to add fee-paying commitments. This includes the Structured
Insurance Solutions where EQT’s balance sheet will participate in part of the equity investment.
This is also one of the growth opportunities that the Coller transaction brings.
And then, of course, lastly, M&A. The strategic use of the balance sheet is visible in the P&L.
Investment income exceeded €200 million in H1, more than what we generated in full year
2025. This reflects the broadening of the platform as well as the strong value appreciation of
the positions that we held on the balance sheet investments, especially on the infrastructure
side.
Assuming continued performance, we expect investment income to continue to be strong in H2
2026, in ’27 and beyond. We believe that the level of carried interest and investment income
achieved in H1 is a good proxy also for the second half of the year.
And with that, I will turn back to Per for some concluding remarks. Next slide, please.
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Conclusion
Per Franzén
CEO, EQT AB
Key takeaways
Thank you, Kim and Gustav. To summarise, in a tricky market environment during the first
half, we delivered strong performance and executed well on our strategy.
Our long-term
approach to building the most attractive global client-centric platform in our industry is paying
off. A great example of this is the decision by the European Commission to select us to manage
the Scaleup Europe Fund, a testament to our market-leading position that we’ve built in Europe
and the quality of the early-stage platform.
The combination with Coller Capital is on track to close in the third quarter and will further
strengthen our ability to serve clients. We were able to take advantage of the volatile market
environment to unlock attractive new investments. Thanks to the breadth of our platform, we
are perfectly positioned to invest into the AI opportunity, and that’s reflected in our strong deal
flow.
In the first half, we saw healthy value creation across our business, most notably in EQT
Infrastructure, where we’re seeing exceptional momentum across strategies. In EQT X, we also
saw mid-single-digit value creation in the quarter, and overall operating performance in the
private equity portfolio remains strong. In EQT X, the portfolio delivered 24% EBITDA growth
in the last 12 months.
Across the firm, we remain focused on monetising investments, and we have an ambitious exit
pipeline for the next six to 12 months. We’re really building on a record year of exits that we
had in 2025 when we sent back €40 billion to clients. In the first half, we delivered €17 billion
of distributions. And based on the pipeline that we’re seeing, and subject to market conditions,
we maintain our ambition to deliver exits in this year approximately in line with last year’s
volumes.
Fundraising momentum across the firm remains strong. The AI Infrastructure fund is off to an
excellent start. Reception for the Scaleup Europe Fund has been excellent, and we’ve held a
first close for EQT XI at 50% of the target fund size. We also see continued nice momentum
across our Evergreen platform with €2.5 billion of inflows in the first half, reaching a new
milestone of €10 billion in NAV.
Before I open up for Q&A, I’d now like to take the opportunity to extend a big thank you to Kim
Henriksson. This will be Kim’s last webcast as CFO of EQT before he moves on to a senior
advisor role within the firm. Kim is a deeply valued partner, colleague, and a friend, and he’s
done an outstanding job as the CFO during one of the most transformative periods of our firm.
Kim is going to remain with EQT, and in that advisor role, he will be supporting our portfolio
companies on IPO preparations and public company governance. So a big thank you to Kim.
At the same time, I’m delighted to welcome Gustav as the new CFO. Gustav has played an
important role in the strategic growth of our firm. He’s been closely involved in the acquisitions
of Exeter, BPEA, and Coller, and also in the development of our Evergreen platform.
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As part of the transition from Kim to Gustav, Olof will take on additional responsibilities within
the finance organisation, which is also exciting.
So with that, I open up for Q&A. Operator, please.
Q&A
Operator: Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your
telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press
star one and one again. We are now going to take our first question. Just one moment. And
this question comes from the line of Arnaud Giblat from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Arnaud Giblat (Exane BNP Paribas): Hi. Good morning. I’ve got two questions, please.
Firstly, could we come back on the investment income? I’m just – the €200 million is quite a
large number. I’m just wondering if you could give a bit more detail as to which strategies it
comes from. It seems like quite a chunky return, 10% over six months if it’s over the €2 billion
investments. So just a bit more detail there would be helpful.
And secondly, with Coller Capital, clearly there’s an opportunity, as you’ve described, to address
more the wealth channel.
Are there any other avenues – distribution avenues you could
pursue? Perhaps small institutional mandates where they allocate – where mandates seek to
allocate the significant investments to one manager to do the lot in terms of investments for
them. And yeah, just wondering there and what investments are required to achieve sort of
these step ups in wealth and other distribution opportunities. Thank you.
Per Franzén: Yeah. Thank you for those questions. I will hand both of those questions to
Gustav. Just a quick comment on Coller Capital. In addition to private wealth, as we have
previously communicated, we are also really excited about the opportunity in the insurance
channel that we’re seeing. But I’ll let Gustav elaborate on that.
Gustav Segerberg: Yeah. Happy to. Maybe starting a little bit with the investment income
side. I would say that, as I alluded to, it’s very broad based across the platform, but with a
skewness to the infra side, just given the strong performance there.
I think that the way to think about it going forward, so to speak, is if you think about – I would
– we have around €3 billion, so the €2 billion plus €900 million of fund investments. So in total,
we’re talking about around €3 billion where we’re generating around €200 million. So that’s,
let’s say, just shy of 15% return during the half year. I think if you think about that, then it’s
not like a crazy number given the return targets that we have.
Not all of the €300 million are going to have the same type of return targets, just given that
some of it is more like bridges and stuff like that. But if you think about it in a 10% to 15%
return on the balance sheet, you kind of end up in that ballpark. So that’s how I would think
about the investment income side.
When it comes to Coller Capital, I would say, I think the – what we want to build across is really
to create more solutions for investors, and that goes for private wealth investors, it goes for
institutional investors, it goes for insurance clients that pay a reference. I would say in the
area of, let’s say, smaller institutions, we have not maybe had like the same type of success as
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some other firms in Europe, and I think this gives us another tool in the toolbox in order to be
able to attack that part of the market. So it’s for sure an interesting area for it.
And then lastly, when it comes to growing in wealth, I would say that we’ve taken the majority
of those investments. We’re going to continue to invest into the brand and marketing side,
even though I think the cost that you have in 2026 is a relatively good proxy. It will probably
go up a bit in ’27 and beyond, but not to the same extent given that we’ve grown the sales
organisation. Now we’ve grown the brand and marketing set up.
So now I think we feel that we are well equipped, of course, also given that we’ve gotten a lot
of strong people and relationships through the Coller acquisition.
Operator: Thank you. We are now going to move to our next question. And this question
comes from the line of Haley Tam from UBS. Please go ahead.
Haley Tam (UBS): Morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Can I ask two
and also then a follow-up on the investment income one. But the two initial questions on the
AI Infrastructure fund, that’s $9.4 billion already, which is fantastic. Could you clarify for us
how much of that was primary versus secondary?
And I guess specifically how much was
EdgeConneX? And I think you mentioned there might be more of that in the future. So just to
get a handle on that would be great.
Secondly, the effective management fee, I think it was 1.4% in H1 last year. I couldn’t see a
disclosure for what it was this year. I heard what Kim said about retroactive fees, but I just
wondered if you could help us understand that for the underlying momentum. That would be
great.
And then just to follow up on the investment income. I think you mentioned the EQT balance
sheet will participate in equity investment insurance structures going forwards.
Can I just
clarify whether that’s a recycling of the €3 billion or whether we should expect that to be
incremental in the future? Thank you.
Per Franzén: Thank you for those questions. I suggest we answer them in the order that you
asked them and maybe Olof takes the first one and then Kim and Gustav.
Olof Svensson: Yeah. On the AI Infra Fund, I believe was your first question, Haley. It’s –
this is a structure that is invested in EdgeConneX solely at this point in time, and a large part
of the €9.4 billion is primary capital that we have raised for that. That’s the vast majority of
this, and the primary capital that we raised for the fund is used to fund the CAPEX and the
growth for EdgeConneX primarily. And that is also driving a meaningful uplift that you see in
the valuation of the AI Fund in this quarter.
But it also means that we are investing in the future growth of this, and that’s why we also
have a very strong outlook for the performance of this fund from here.
Gustav Segerberg: And maybe if I take the last two questions, I would say on the effective
management fee, I would – for the closed-ended side, it’s unaffected, so to speak. So the 1.4%
is still valid. Of course, when you bring – when we bring in additional capital in from especially
the AI Infrastructure Fund with the lower fee rate, but also note that the $9.4, the vast majority
of that was included as of 30th June, so to speak. So there is no management fee for the first
half, but it’s included in the end of the period management or fee-generating AUM. So it will
be a little bit distorted there just given that in the first half of it.
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And then when it comes to the investment income, it’s not part of the €3 billion. So there might
be a bit of incremental increase in it. The way to think about it is however also that some of
the other capital, i.e. the €2 billion will come back. So it’s – I wouldn’t put it on top, but I
would think that the €3 billion will probably continue to grow probably at a little bit slower pace
than what we’ve had in the last 18 months, just given the significant ramp-up that we’ve had
on the evergreen side which has, let’s say, eaten quite a lot of balance sheet capital which then
over time will probably, let’s say, work its way into other things. So that’s how you should
think about it.
Haley Tam: Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. We are now going to move to our next question. And this question
comes from the line of Nicholas Herman from Citi. Please go ahead.
Nicholas Herman (Citi): Yes. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation, for taking my
questions, and best of luck to Kim in the new role. Two questions from my side, please. So I
appreciate you see upside to the fundraising cycle. You referenced the challenging fundraising
environment for real estate. But my sense is that it’s also just more challenging across the
piece, given, I guess geopolitical and AI disruption or AI-driven uncertainty. Clearly you guys
look very well positioned as the alpha platform and will take share. But I guess are you seeing
just that challenging fundraising too?
And I’m wondering does the first close of EQT XI, which is I guess percentage-wise lower than
prior vintages, is that kind of indicative that it is just a bit tougher? So just kind of thoughts
on the general fundraising environment please.
Secondly, thank you for the colour on expected timeframe for carry recognition. With EQT IX
at 0.3x DPI, Infra V and BPEA VIII at 1.1x DPI. I guess what gives you confidence that those
funds will enter carry mode by 2028? And I guess what level of DPI would you expect those
funds to have reached by then?
And then just a very quick follow-up if I may on the investment income.
Was there any
investment income kind of booked within that, I guess the Central part of your group that was
also linked to the EdgeConneX and AI Transition – AI infrastructure fund, please. Thank you.
Per Franzén: I can start. So, on the fundraising environment, the comment that I made was
specifically to real estate and the asset class having faced a more challenging fundraising
environment for a longer period of time. And we see activity levels in real estate picking up,
and on the back of the strong performance that we’ve had historically, we’ve doubled our feebased AUM in this part of our business. And if anything, compared to the last five years, we
think that the outlook for this asset class is likely to be more favourable. And so, probably
including a more benign fundraising environment.
Overall for the industry, we very much agree with your characterisation. What we’re seeing
now is something we’ve spoken about in previous calls with you that LPs, institutional investors,
but also private wealth platforms consolidating their GP relationships. And that is happening
right now. And in this environment, we have been able to take market share thanks to the
breadth of our platform, the strong strategic positioning that we’ve had, but also the
outperformance that we’ve generated, right.
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Just to remind you again, in 2025, we sent back €40 billion of NAV. And in our private equity
strategies in Asia and in Europe and the US, that was more than 30% of NAV, which is three
times industry average. And that has helped us in our fundraisers in BPEA IX, where we hit the
hard cap, and also now in EQT XI, where we’ve secured 50% of the fund size target.
I would say that is in line with our expectations.
If you look at Infra Fund VI, as Gustav
mentioned earlier, right, the first close that we had for that fund was actually slightly below the
50% that we’ve secured so far for EQT XI. So we think we’re in an excellent position in this
fundraise and based on the strong deal flow that we have right now also in the co-invest that
we’re generating, we want to build on that momentum during the second half and then into
2027.
In terms of what gives us confidence on the carry recognition, it’s just the exit pipeline that
we’re seeing for all of these funds that we’re working on. Of course, it’s always subject to
market conditions, but that’s reflected in the guidance that we’ve given now.
The only
additional point I would make is that, of course, when it comes to Infrastructure IV specifically,
the way this fund is positioned in terms of the AI Infrastructure opportunity and the momentum
that we’re seeing in performance around that and the exposure that this fund and Infrastructure
V has, we see a good and credible path to reaching the DPI for Infra IV by the end of 2027 as
Olof touched upon.
When it comes to investment income, I’ll let Gustav or Olof comment on that.
Gustav Segerberg: Yeah, I can go. So I would say that, as I said, the investment income is
broad based. It’s not so much specifically to the AI Infra Fund. However, of course, given the
performance of the Edge asset, EdgeConneX asset across a number of different funds that we
have including Infra IV, V, and VI, that is a contributor to it, but it is really a broad-based value
that we see.
Nicholas Herman: Okay. Helpful. Thank you. I guess it was more because I saw that the
investment income seemed to be booked in this kind of central function rather than across the
individual operating entities, hence why I asked that question. But okay, that’s helpful. Thank
you.
Gustav Segerberg: Yeah.
Operator: Thank you. We are now going to move to our next question. And this question
comes from the line of Ermin Keric from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Ermin Keric (DNB Carnegie): Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. So maybe on the
fundraising cycle, I mean, before you talked about €100 billion, and now it’s more like €140
billion. I know that’s including Coller, but would you say you were conservative from the start
or have you seen a stronger-than-expected demand? And also is this then based on kind of
taking market share or slightly improving fundraising market overall?
Then on the Scaleup Europe Fund, it sounds like you’re going to approach the €5 billion target
quite fast. When could we expect to get a hard cap? And in terms of kind of your capacity
from your organisation, will you need to add anything more to be able to manage that fund?
And then lastly, maybe on cost outlook. So you reiterated the 2026 outlook. Could you say
anything about how we should think about it going into ’27 and beyond? Thank you.
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Per Franzén: Yeah. Thanks for those questions. I can start, and I’ll start with the Scaleup
Europe Fund and the question on target fund size. We’ve set the €5 billion. We’re seeing very
strong momentum in terms of deal flow, client interest in this strategy, and we will set the hard
cap in coordination with the anchor investors and the European Commission in due course.
But based on what we can see now, we definitely see interest in this strategy that would support
a larger fund size than the €5 billion, but we will set a hard cap and communicate that in due
course.
In terms of the fundraising cycle going from €100 billion to €140 billion, that’s a reflection, just
like you said it, in terms of us adding Coller Capital to the platform, but also all of the new
product launches that we’ve done, the Scaleup Europe Fund, the AI Infrastructure Fund, all of
these initiatives and products were not part of the initial communication.
Overall, in terms of the fundraising environment in general, I would say, if anything, we’re
facing a tougher fundraising environment right now compared to when we communicated this.
But thanks to our strategic positioning, the performance that we’re generating, the alpha that
we keep on producing, we are taking market share in this environment.
With that, I think I’ll hand it over to Gustav and Kim if there’s anything more you want to add
to the fundraising cycle, and then please also comment on the cost outlook.
Gustav Segerberg: Yeah, I can comment on the cost outlook. First of all, remember that we
did take out some costs in 2025. So the 2026 number is also a reflection of that. So you
should expect that the sort of general cost inflation in the industry and for us as well, and sort
of the investments we’re making in the brand and marketing and our amazing people is – will
continue.
We haven’t given an exact cost growth number, but what we have said is that the margin
ambition of 55% fee-related EBITDA margin could be reached during the course of 2027. So
hope that is helpful.
Per Franzén: And that margin guidance does reflect the investments that we intend to make
into our early-stage platform to support us investing in a successful way to Scaleup Europe
Fund, and all of the deal flow that we’re seeing now in this part of our business.
We are
effectively doubling the AUM in our early stage tech strategies, and of course, we’re building
our organisation accordingly. It’s a fantastic opportunity for us actually strategically to continue
to cement our market-leading position in Europe, and we’re definitely going to seize that
opportunity.
Ermin Keric: Thank you. Wish you all a great summer, and Kim, I wish you the best in your
new role.
Kim Henriksson: Thanks for a good cooperation over the years.
Operator: Thank you. We are now going to take our next question. This question comes from
the line of Hubert Lam from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hubert Lam (Bank of America): Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I’d
like to also thank Kim for all his help over the years, and good luck in the new role. So first
question is on the AI Infra Fund. Can you talk about how big this fund can get? I know it’s
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open-ended, but is there a size that it can achieve? And how do you think about adding new
investments in this strategy beyond EdgeConneX?
The second question is on the Infra strategy. Can you talk about the appetite for Infra VII, just
given you’re also seeing inflows into the AI Infra strategy, Active Core, any risk of
cannibalisation going on within your core, your key flagship infra fund? Thank you.
Per Franzén: I can start with the second part of the question. We don’t see any cannibalisation
for the Infra VII fundraising. If you think about it, it’s a much broader thematic focus. And the
AI Infra strategy is really quite narrow in terms of focusing on the AI infrastructure build out
and investing into this CAPEX super cycle. And the seed investment is EdgeConneX. So the
investments that we would be making in addition to EdgeConneX in this strategy would be sort
of directly connected to that. So it’s much more narrow and hence no cannibalisation, really
quite complementary to the rest of the strategies that we’re offering in EQT Infrastructure.
And in terms of the size of the AI Infra strategy, of course, it’s a very scalable setup that we
have. But I let Olof or Gustav comment on that.
Gustav Segerberg: Yeah. And I would say a little bit, as I alluded to, I think there is – we’ve
taken in quite a lot of capital now in the first half of the year, and I don’t – you should not
expect, at least in the short term, the same type of velocity. With that said, of course, we have
the ambition to continue to grow it. We think that it’s a significant market opportunity. We’re
not going to give any numbers of how large it can be. So it’s rather a question about at what
velocity can we and should we bring in new capital into it.
Operator: Thank you. We are now going to move to our next question. And this question
comes from the line of Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Oliver Carruthers (Goldman Sachs): Hi there. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation.
I’ve got two questions, please. I think slide nine is really interesting where on the right-hand
side you just show this organic growth and broadening out of your various infra strategies.
More of a conceptual question, but is based on addressable markets and the kind of indications
you’re getting in terms of client demand. Just how should we think about the kind of relative
sizing of your flagship AI infra, transition infra, and the longer hold strategies here? Is there
any reason over the medium term that the kind of newer three strategies couldn’t be as big as
your infra flagship? So that’s the first question.
And then the second question, on transaction and advisory fees, your capital markets fee
initiative. So you did €52 million in the first half, so you’re running 40%, 50% higher than you
were this time last year. Will it be higher again in the second half, given that you’ve guided for
a step-up in exits? And really, what’s the latest here in terms of how you’re thinking about this
capital markets fee stream over the medium term, given you only really launched this initiative
last year? Thank you.
Per Franzén: I’ll take the first question. So if we look at our infrastructure platform, the overall
statement would be that the limiting factor really in that part of our business is not deal flow,
it’s really access to capital. And we have I think designed the platform in a very nice way with
a number of complementary strategies that really can scale significantly over time.
And to answer your question, if you take a long-term perspective, none of this – there’s no
reason that any of those strategies that we’ve added to the platform, in addition to the value
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add fund, that they wouldn’t be able to reach the same size or higher compared to the Infra
VII fund size that we’re targeting now. And that includes the transition infra fund but certainly
also the AI infra fund and actually the active core infrastructure strategy, where we’re also
seeing really, really nice momentum and there are also other external benchmarks out there
for that part of our business that would support over time a much larger fund size compared to
the one that we have today. But of course, this is a very long-term perspective that I’m sharing
now.
In terms of the second question on transaction and advisory fees, I’ll hand that over to Gustav
and Kim.
Kim Henriksson: Thanks. I can comment on that. I believe that we gave guidance that it
would be in the region of €100 million or similar to last year when we last spoke. And I would
say that the first half number is still a good proxy also for the second half number. It is – like
you say, it’s dependent on deal flow, but it’s also there’s some moving parts in it. So that’s our
best guess for the moment.
Oliver Carruthers: Thanks.
Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions. I will now hand the call back to the
speakers for closing remarks.
Olof Svensson: Well, thank you everybody for joining today’s call.
Appreciate all the
questions, and we’re wishing you all a very nice summer. So thank you. Thanks all.
Kim Henriksson: Thanks all
Per Franzén: Thank you
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
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