A year on from PE Market Trends 2025, Professor Sophie Manigart returned to openthebox for a fireside conversation with Steve on what the private equity market actually looks like in 2026, beyond the headlines and the year-end reviews.
In this session, Sophie and Steve walk through:
- 2025 in review. What the data actually showed versus what the market expected, and what surprised Sophie most as she went back through the numbers.
- Deal sourcing in 2026. Why pipeline volume is not a proxy for sourcing quality, and what the information gap is costing firms that are not thinking about it.
- The Belgian Family Office Monitor 2026. openthebox's first quantitative mapping of 99 family offices managing €43 billion in equity, and what it means for deal origination across Europe.
- Sophie's three takeaways. The things PE professionals should keep front of mind for the rest of the year.
Whether you work in private equity, advisory, or invest your own capital, this conversation gives you both the academic and practitioner view on where the market is heading, and what that means for how you source and evaluate deals.
