Bain & Company and StepStone Group Release 2026 Private Equity GP Outlook
BOSTON and NEW YORK, March 02, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bain & Company and StepStone Group today released findings from their inaugural GP Outlook, offering a forward-looking view of how buyout general partners are approaching 2026 amid shifting deal dynamics and evolving liquidity conditions.
Conducted between December 2025 and January 2026, the survey captured insights from 100+ investment and investor relations professionals, primarily across North America and Europe. The goal: to complement backward-looking performance data with a view of what GPs are seeing, underwriting, and planning for the year ahead.
"This survey highlights how GPs are adapting to an ever-evolving investment environment," said Lindsay Creedon, Partner and StepStone's Head of Private Equity. "While expectations around exits improved coming into 2026, valuations remain a key obstacle in diligence processes. A focus on driving returns through operational value creation, including the impact of AI, is paramount. In addition, liquidity remains top of mind, so the secondary market will remain an important portfolio-management tool for GPs and LPs alike."
Key findings
- Many GPs will have to up their value-creation game. Without the benefit of multiple expansion and perhaps even increased multiple volatility, GPs that can find a repeatable model for sourcing deals, determine early how to create value, and execute at speed, may generate better returns.
- Price remains the biggest deal obstacle. Even more than typical diligence issues or macroeconomic volatility, the most common reason deals failed to close in 2025 was an inability to agree on valuation.
- The use of continuation vehicles is normalizing. One quarter of GPs report having recently launched or completed a continuation vehicle, and roughly 40% expect to explore one in the next year or two, primarily to return capital to investors.
- Fee pressure and discounts are reshaping fund economics. About a third of GPs offered either scale or early-bird discounts to investors while raising their last flagship fund. GPs remain keen to offer co-investment opportunities to LPs that can execute swiftly at scale.
- AI impact is strongest in deals, less certain in portfolios. GPs report the highest returns from generative AI in deal sourcing and due diligence. Within portfolio companies, benefits skew toward cost savings, with nearly 40% of GPs not expecting material financial impact from AI in 2026.
"What we're seeing in this survey reinforces what we outlined in our Global Private Equity Report: the industry has reached an inflection point," said Hugh MacArthur, Chairman of Bain's Global Private Equity Practice. "Multiples aren't doing the heavy lifting anymore and new deals are harder to pencil out. In this environment, alpha has to be earned operationally and that requires sharper strategy, better data, and real execution discipline."
To access the full report, click here.
About StepStone Group
StepStone Group Inc. (NASDAQ:STEP) is a global private markets investment firm focused on providing customized investment solutions and advisory and data services to its clients. As of December 31, 2025, StepStone was responsible for approximately $811 billion of total capital, including $220 billion of assets under management. StepStone's clients include some of the world's largest public and private defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies, as well as prominent endowments, foundations, family offices and private wealth clients, which include high-net-worth and mass affluent individuals. StepStone partners with its clients to develop and build private markets portfolios designed to meet their specific objectives across the private equity, infrastructure, private debt and real estate asset classes.
For more information, visit StepStone Group.
About Bain & Company
Bain & Company is a global consultancy that helps the world's most ambitious change makers define the future.
Across 65 cities in 40 countries, we work alongside our clients as one team with a shared ambition to achieve extraordinary results, outperform the competition, and redefine industries. We complement our tailored, integrated expertise with a vibrant ecosystem of digital innovators to deliver better, faster, and more enduring outcomes. Our 10-year commitment to invest more than $1 billion in pro bono services brings our talent, expertise, and insight to organizations tackling today's urgent challenges in education, racial equity, social justice, economic development, and the environment. We earned a platinum rating from EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social, and ethical performance ratings for global supply chains, putting us in the top 1% of all companies. Since our founding in 1973, we have measured our success by the success of our clients, and we proudly maintain the highest level of client advocacy in the industry.
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