In the Financial Times this week, Per Franzén, who became CEO of Swedish private equity firm EQT in May 2025, said that 80% of private markets firms could be zombie firms over the next decade, managing invested portfolios to exit while struggling to raise fresh capital from investors. He told the FT that only about 5,000 of the 15,000 private capital firms had successfully raised funds in the last seven years and that probably “less than half” would have a successful fundraise in the next five to 10 years. According to Preqin, the industry is facing a nine-year low in the number of final close funds (as of October). Franzen himself recently led the industry’s largest PE fundraise in 2024: the EUR22 billion fundraise for EQT X. Franzen will lead EQT into a new chapter, and be hoping for more ‘treats’ than ‘tricks’, as the firm targets a EUR100 billion fundraising exercise.