Company Reports

EQT posted EUR 2 billion in exits from investments for the third quarter, bringing the total for 2025 to EUR 19 billion. It also announced efficiency measures, including reversing headcount growth and cutting consulting roles.

EQT has made a name for itself as a thematic specialist with sector expertise, especially in healthcare and technology. Initially, it invested mainly in Europe, but it is one of the most prolific global private-market firms today. In many of its investments, it straddles the gap between startups that tend to attract mostly venture capital funding and the mature firms that buy out funds tend to target. EQT offers direct private equity, real estate, and infrastructure funds. It sold its private credit business and does not offer fund of funds to institutional clients.

Narrow-moat EQT ended 2024 with fee-generating assets under management reaching EUR 136 billion by year-end, which is in line with our expectations. The company reported a significant acceleration in capital deployment and exit activity compared with 2023 and 2022, investing EUR 22 billion and exiting EUR 11 billion during the year. Despite these solid results and a 17% rise in the share price since the start of 2025, we believe current trading multiples remain excessive and maintain our fair value estimate of SEK 315 per share. We believe shares are overvalued.

EQT has made a name for itself as a thematic specialist with sector expertise, especially in healthcare and technology. Initially, it invested mainly in Europe, but it is one of the most prolific global private-market firms today. In many of its investments, it straddles the gap between startups that tend to attract mostly venture capital funding and the mature firms that buy out funds tend to target. EQT offers direct private equity, real estate, and infrastructure funds. It sold its private credit business and does not offer fund of funds to institutional clients.

In its third-quarter 2024 trading update, narrow-moat EQT reported a 4% yearly increase in fee-generating assets under management to EUR 134 billion. Compared with the second quarter of 2024, FAUM was broadly stable. EQT also provided fresh FAUM guidance and it now expects to raise EUR 100 billion in its upcoming 2025-27 fundraising cycle, which is around 33% higher than what it raised during its previous fundraising cycle. The new FAUM guidance is broadly in line with what we have penciled in for FAUM growth over the medium term, but our 2024 estimate was overly optimistic. We now estimate that EQT will manage around EUR 136 billion of FAUM at the end of 2024 and we reduce our fair value estimate to EUR 315/share from EUR 330/share previously.

We initiate coverage with narrow moat ratings on all three major European-based private market firms: CVC Capital Partners PLC, EQT AB, and Partners Group Holdings AG. We expect all three firms to remain highly profitable, and the private market industry benefits from established secular growth trends. However, the eye-watering mid-20s EV/EBITDA multiples the firms trade at currently suggest that the market already prices in these strong fundamentals. We do not believe that higher interest rates mark a structural change in the industry, but we expect near-term dealmaking to remain muted.

EQT has made a name for itself as a thematic specialist with sector expertise, especially in healthcare and technology. Initially, it invested mainly in Europe, but it is one of the most prolific global private-market firms today. In many of its investments, it straddles the gap between startups that tend to attract mostly venture capital funding and the mature firms that buy out funds tend to target. EQT offers direct private equity, real estate, and infrastructure funds. It sold its private credit business and does not offer fund of funds to institutional clients.