EQT AB (publ) (EQT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of EQT's full year results. We have a lot to cover today. Per will start off by reflecting on our strategic positioning and today's announcement that we're entering the fast-growing secondaries market by joining forces with Coller Capital. Teaming up with Coller strengthens our ability to serve clients globally and it unlock growth opportunities for both firms. The transaction is accretive to our fee-related earnings. It accelerates our growth outlook and it will further diversify our platform. Before handing over to Per to share more details, let me share a few highlights on 2025. First, it was our most active exit year ever with fund exits and realizations for co-investors of EUR 34 billion. We invested EUR 16 billion across our strategies globally while providing a co-invest ratio for our clients of close to 1:1. It was a pivotal year for EQT's expansion into evergreens and open-ended strategies across the globe with new product launches and accelerating inflows. We continued to deliver on our fundraising agenda, more than doubling gross inflows to EUR 26 billion. All our key funds continue to develop on or above plan, and our more recent vintages in particular performed strongly. EQT delivered total revenue growth of 16%, while keeping head count largely flat year-over-year. So with those remarks, let me hand over to Per to go through things in more detail. Next slide, please.

Thank you, Olof. Good morning, everyone, from Davos. We have very exciting news to share this morning, and we'll come back to Coller shortly. I'll start by saying a few words about the private markets industry and our strategic positioning. EQT remains well positioned to navigate a fast-changing world and to capture the growth opportunity ahead. There are a number of forces shaping our industry. The geopolitical backdrop remains volatile. We continue to see private market investors wanting to rebalance their portfolios as they are looking to achieve a better global diversification. At EQT, we are well positioned to navigate this environment and to help our clients achieve their strategic portfolio objectives. We want to be the most attractive global provider of international alpha. Through our global sector teams, we engage with our clients to align on their pipeline priorities. And with the help of our local teams in more than 25 countries, we can move quickly in times of market dislocation to unlock attractive thematic opportunities. The combination of our global sector teams with our strong local presence helps us deliver structural uncorrelated alpha as often the sources of alpha across those various countries and regions are uncorrelated. A good example of the investments that we've made into our global platform and how it's paying off is Japan. We built our local presence in Tokyo over many years. And in 2025, we were able to reap the benefits of those investments. In our private capital strategies, we created 2 attractive public to private opportunities, and we continue to have a very attractive pipeline in Japan going forward. The second force, AI that I'd like to touch upon, that will have an impact on most sectors and businesses that we invest into, including, of course, also our own industry and how we run our business at EQT. At EQT, we keep on investing in our AI capabilities. On the investment side, we continue to back AI-driven tailwinds in our early-stage strategies. We make investments into native AI companies. Harvey and Lovable are 2 good recent examples. In our infrastructure platform, we keep on investing into globally leading data center platforms. One of our companies, EdgeConnex is a good example of that, but also into fiber assets and into energy platforms. We're also driving AI adoption across our organization, deploying advanced solutions that enable better decision-making and help us realize synergies across our platform. Over time, we believe that this will help us run our business in a better way, but also in a more efficient way. Private wealth and insurance remain 2 attractive growth opportunities where we see new capital pools emerging. We're making the necessary investments to build our capabilities in those areas, and we expect to see significant capital inflows in this part of our business. Coller will be a catalyst for the insurance segment as we will get access to their capabilities within structured solutions. The rise of secondaries continues, and this part of the market will also going forward, outgrow the rest of the industry. There's a number of structural forces driving that growth. Private markets have grown in size and in relevance. And in some regards, they've become more complex, and we also see public and private markets converging. Clients want to be able to ride the winners, and they want to stay invested in compounding open-ended structures. On the other hand, there's also been a lack of distributions in our industry post pandemic, we saw a slowdown in dealmaking. And as a result, many firms are not able to raise new funds, and that has created more and more zombie funds in our industry. And all of this drives a need for clients to be able to restructure their private market portfolios and to find good liquidity solutions. And in this context, Coller will be an important enabler and really further strengthen our ability to be that strategic partner for our clients. Finally, we see the consolidation of the industry accelerating. Not everyone in the private markets will be able to navigate this environment. We'll be able to make the necessary investments to capture that growth opportunity ahead. So size and reach matter more than ever when it comes to creating real alpha and when it comes to serving clients in the best possible way. And our global platform, our size, being the largest private markets firm in the world outside of the U.S., will continue to be a true differentiator for us. Next slide, please. At EQT, we remain committed to our long-term strategic ambition to keep on building the most attractive scaled private markets firm, delivering industry-leading performance and solutions for clients. By continuing to be that client-centric firm focused on delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns for investors, real alpha, we will also be able to attract the best talent in our industry to our organization and to our portfolio companies. And really that way, creating that virtuous circle that will give us the license to keep on scaling our firm and as a result, over time, also delivering attractive sustainable value creation for shareholders. Next slide, please. In 2025, we made good progress on our strategic ambitions, and we executed well in a volatile environment. We took the opportunity to simplify our organization to ensure that we can remain that entrepreneurial, fast-paced, high-performing organization. We successfully completed a number of leadership transitions. We streamlined our organizational structures and reinforced our focus on accountability, performance and efficiency across the platform. We also integrated our client relations, capital raising and capital markets teams, creating one unified platform well set up to deliver a seamless experience for institutional clients and private wealth distribution partners. And all of this makes us also well prepared to add Coller now as a new business line to the EQT platform. In 2025, we stayed disciplined in our investment pacing, producing a record year for co-investments. We facilitated EUR 14 billion of co-investment opportunities for our clients. That is up from EUR 12 billion in 2024. And we want to -- this is an important tool for us to also going forward, create those deep strategic relationships with the institutional investors. And we want to -- we remain committed to continue to produce that most attractive co-invest to fund commitment ratio in our industry. We did a superb job really in driving realizations in a tricky exit environment. 2025 was actually our most active exit year ever with EUR 34 billion in total of realizations, and that includes EUR 14 billion of realizations out of co-investments that were done together with our clients. And that is just massive outperformance compared to the wider private markets industry in terms of those realizations. A good example is our equity strategy, which is our oldest strategy at EQT. In that part of our business, we sent back close to 30% of NAV, which is approximately 3x the industry average. And notably, we set a new record for distributions and capital gains from a single investment. So in Galderma, in 2025 alone, we realized more than EUR 9 billion of proceeds for fund investors and for our co-investors. And this actually excludes the stake sale that we have announced to L'Oreal that is yet to close. And this investment has generated more than $20 billion so far in capital gains for investors. As a result of that strong performance, we saw a good fundraising momentum. We more than doubled gross inflows to EUR 26 billion. Our evergreen offerings targeting the private wealth segment saw inflows of approximately EUR 2 billion. And we also introduced our first open-ended institutional product, which is exciting. This is the second generation of our active core infrastructure strategy. And the portfolio in Fund I is performing very nicely, and we really see a strong client interest for this fund. Next slide, please. As you've heard me say, I think, many times before, we have actively been looking to establish a presence in the secondaries market for some time now, actually. And this is one of the fastest-growing parts of our industry and building our capabilities in this area is really critical so that we can become an even more stronger and attractive strategic partner for our clients. And so today, I'm just very, very pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement to join forces with Coller Capital. This is really a highly strategic and complementary combination. By joining forces with Jeremy and his team, we want to build a market-leading secondaries platform together. We really have a very high bar for any M&A that we do at EQT and the fit must be just very, very strong. And in this case, from a strategic, performance, culture perspective, Coller checks all the boxes. The strategic fit between our 2 firms is simply excellent. It's highly complementary. And most importantly, the cultural fit, the values fit is very strong. Similar to EQT, Coller is a performance-driven and entrepreneurial organization focused on delivering consistent long-term solutions and returns for investors. And just like EQT, Coller also has that constant improvement mindset and that relentless drive to continue to drive innovation and stay ahead of the curve. At EQT, we like to say everything can always be improved everywhere at all times. Coller's version of this is better never stops. I'm very excited to welcome Jeremy and the entire Coller team to our firm. And I really look forward to working closely with Jeremy as part of the executive leadership team. And together, we will be just incredibly well placed to deliver the most attractive solutions and the most attractive performance for private market investors and to really fully capture that growth opportunity ahead that we see in secondaries. I'll now hand it over to Gustav, who will cover the highlights from our 2025 results together with Olof and Kim, and I believe starting with fundraising. So next slide, please.

Thank you, Per, and good morning, everyone. In 2025, we executed strongly on fundraising across the platform and more than doubled inflows versus last year. Starting with the key funds. Fundraising for BPEA IX continued with strong momentum, having raised $14 billion as of today. We expect to close at the $14.5 billion hard cap in the first quarter. Fundraising for EQT XI continues to be off to a strong start, further helped by the strong exit pace during 2025. Note that in our reporting fee-paying AUM, it does not include EQT XI until activation. And later this year, we expect to launch fundraising for Infrastructure VII. So moving over to our other closed-ended strategies. We are advancing our Healthcare Growth and transition infrastructure fundraisings, having raised approximately EUR 3 billion combined, and we expect to conclude fundraising for Healthcare Growth momentarily. In the fourth quarter, we activated our latest European real estate logistics fund. The fund is expected to close in Q1, and our reporting fee-paying AUM includes almost EUR 3 billion of commitments versus the size of the last fund at EUR 2.1 billion. And then finally, on evergreens and open-ended institutional strategies. In 2025, EQT launched 3 new evergreens, Nexus Infrastructure and Nexus ELTIF Private Equity distributed in Europe and APAC, and a U.S. domiciled private equity vehicle. Hence, our evergreen offering consisted of 5 vehicles at the end of 2025, and we raised close to EUR 2 billion in 2025, while reaching an NAV of around EUR 3.5 billion by year-end. And just last week, we launched a U.S.-domiciled evergreen structure for infrastructure. During the year, we've also introduced our first open-ended structure for institutional clients, as Per mentioned, with our active core infrastructure strategy. This fund is yet to be activated and is not in our fee-generating AUM number as of year-end. However, we continue to be very excited about the prospects of scaling this strategy in the coming years. We've also decided to pursue our first continuation vehicle based on EdgeConneX. This will be an open-ended structure that will allow us to continuously support EdgeConneX's long-term growth opportunity. And with that, I will hand over to Olof to cover investments and realizations. Next slide, please.

Great. Thank you, Gustav. So looking at the investment activity in 2025, I'd say it reflects our global sourcing machine and our thematic focus. 45% of the EUR 16 billion of fund investments were invested in Europe, about 1/3 in North America and the remaining 20-ish percent across APAC. We invested in a number of high-quality businesses throughout the year, be it the cloud-based software companies such as Fortnox or NEOGOV; industrial tech businesses like Fujitec in Japan or as Per mentioned, AI native investments such as Lovable and Harvey. In real estate, we continue to see attractive risk/reward dynamics. And in our flagship and transition strategy, we invested in areas such as energy, grids, AI infrastructure and transportation companies. And on that note, please do make sure to take the Arlanda Express when you next come and visit us in Stockholm. In total, we provided a further EUR 14 billion of co-invest for our clients, a co-invest ratio of close to 1:1. EQT X and Infrastructure VI are now about 60% to 65% invested, while BPEA IX is 5% to 10% invested. We expect to activate EQT XI around midyear 2026 and Infra VII around year-end. Next slide, please. Turning to exits. It was a breakthrough year in 2025 for exits. Volumes in the EQT funds amounted to more than EUR 19 billion or 70% higher than last year's volumes. Around 2/3 of the fund exits were from funds in carry mode. In addition, we realized EUR 14 billion for our co-investors. The strong activity means that we reached the ambition communicated at the start of the year to execute more than 30 exit events across our key funds. Key fund exits were made at an average gross MOIC of 2.6x above our target return levels. Roughly 40% of the fund exits were minority sales and secondary buyouts. Early in the year, we announced a minority sale in IFS at a gross MOIC of 7x. This is an example of how we actively work with portfolio construction, sending back EUR 3 billion to fund investors while continuing to own an asset that is expected to have an outsized impact on the fund returns for EQT IX. 1/3 of the exits were equity capital markets transactions. And as a result, EQT retained its position as the most active private markets firm across global equity capital markets for the second year in a row. Looking ahead, we believe that fund exits in 2025 is a relevant proxy for '26 if markets continue to be favorable. Our gross pipeline for 2026 is, in other words, similar to 2025 when we had gross realizations of close to EUR 20 billion. And with that, I'll hand over to Kim.

Thank you. Thank you, Olof, and good morning, everyone. All of our key funds continue to perform on or above plan. And during the year, key fund valuations increased by 8% on an FX-neutral basis, but let's look at performance by vintage. 4 out of 5 funds raised in 2019 or before are performing above plan, and most of these funds are in exit mode and already derisked. Funds raised 2020 to 2021, which are still in value creation mode, performed predominantly well with value creation of 10% plus on an FX-neutral basis. We did face some headwinds related to idiosyncratic events in a few individual portfolio companies. But with 350 portfolio companies globally, we will always have certain underperforming assets. Risk-taking is part of our model. As a reminder, historically, about 10% to 15% of our investments have returned less than 1x gross MOIC, while the total portfolios have still delivered on or above target returns. In 2025, we also realized some assets with subpar performance, enabling us to refocus on the part of the portfolio where we can create more value. Overall, underlying operational performance was solid across the portfolio and particularly so in our latest generation of key funds, which increased by 15%, excluding FX. 1/3 of our investments in these funds are already performing ahead of plan. Next slide, please. In 2025, carried interest and investment income increased to EUR 448 million on the back of the strong exit activity in funds in carry mode. Looking into 2026, we expect that carried interest will continue to be paced by the key funds already in carry mode. And please note that the figures on this page are based on a simplified and illustrative on-plan scenario. To date, the 4 funds in carry mode have recognized EUR 1.3 billion of carried interest and roughly EUR 600 million remains, and we continue to expect the remaining carry from these funds to be recognized over a multiyear period. The next 2 funds expected to enter carry mode, Infra IV and EQT IX are currently executing on their value creation and realization plans. And we do not expect these funds to enter carry mode in 2026, in line with our previous communication. The final bucket includes the most recent key fund vintages, which are still in value creation mode. In total, the remaining illustrative carry potential in the key funds activated as of today is approximately EUR 9 billion. This is a simplified round number based on a number of assumptions, which are outlined in the appendix. Next slide, please. Let's now look at the financials in a bit more detail. In 2025, we grew fee-related revenues by 9% and delivered a fee-related EBITDA margin of 52%, reflecting also the continued investments we make in our business, for example, the build-out of the evergreen offering. As you know, we initiated and completed a number of efficiency measures during the second half of 2025. And as a result, the number of FTEs was broadly flat year-over-year. We expect to see the full year cost effects of this in 2026 and therefore, expect mid-single-digit total OpEx growth this year. Run rate savings from the efficiencies will, to a degree, be reinvested to support future growth in our priority growth areas, including focused geographies such as Asia and the U.S., focus areas such as AI capabilities, private wealth and of course, the build-out of our new secondaries business. We're ramping up marketing and brand spend, which will remain at meaningfully higher levels going forward. We remain committed to reaching a 55% plus fee-related EBITDA margin at completion of the current fundraising cycle. And we're highly focused on efficiency, scaling and automating parts of our work, including through increased AI adoption. We will continue to keep you posted on this progress and how we see the OpEx outlook beyond 2026. Let me also come back later in the presentation on how the combination with Coller impacts our financials. The Board has proposed a dividend of SEK 5 per share for 2025, representing a growth rate of 16%. And during 2025, we distributed approximately EUR 460 million in dividends to shareholders. And in addition, we repurchased shares for around EUR 300 million. Let me also spend a brief moment on our new revenue disclosures. We have, in our income statement, introduced the concept of fee-related revenues, which consists of the underlying management fees, fee-related performance revenues and transaction, advisory and other fees. Fee-related performance revenues are revenues from our evergreen products that are measured and received on a recurring basis and do not require the realization of underlying assets to materialize. Transaction, advisory and other fees include fees from, for example, debt and equity underwriting and other capital markets activities. With that, I will hand over to Per to cover the Coller combination. Next 2 slides, please.

Thank you, Kim. As I mentioned earlier, secondaries and solutions is becoming an increasingly important part of the private markets ecosystem. GPs are looking for ways to hold on to their best assets for longer, driving the growth of continuation vehicles or GP-led secondaries and LPs are seeking strategic liquidity tools and the ability to actively rebalance their portfolios where LP-led secondaries are a key enabler. And secondaries have now become one of the fastest-growing parts of our industry, and that the market actually grew by more than 40% in 2025 and is expected to more than double from now until 2030. And continuation vehicles are today driving close to 20% of global exit volumes. Next slide, please. With Coller, we're really happy that we found the right partner to enter this segment at scale. Coller shares our values-driven culture, a strong performance mindset and that drive to constantly innovate for clients with an entrepreneurial approach. As a pure-play dedicated secondaries firm, Coller is 100% complementary and a perfect match for us. I'll now hand it over to Gustav to tell you more about Coller's track record, Coller's offering and its client base. Next slide, please.

Thank you, Per. As a pioneer in secondaries, Coller has led many of the first in the industry, such as leading the first ever GP-led transaction almost 30 years ago and continuing to innovate across product categories and client channels. Coller has 35 years of proprietary data from more than 25,000 companies has incorporated AI-enabled underwriting into its investment process. This enables faster and more precise investment decisions, aligning very well with EQT's data-driven investment approach and leading AI capabilities. Their strong investment track record and ability to innovate has allowed them to expand from a single flagship fund in 2021 to today having a multiproduct and multichannel offering investing across both private equity and private credit secondaries. The private equity secondary strategy recently held a successful final close of Fund IX at USD 10.2 billion of fee-generating commitments, up more than 35% compared to the last generation. Since launching the private credit secondary strategy in 2021, Coller has already been able to raise 3 funds with a total of close to USD 5 billion in fee-generating commitments. Next slide, please. The team also shares our strategic commitment to the private wealth opportunity, and their journey closely resembles ours. They -- like us, they have a very deliberate and disciplined focused on product development to launch and ramp up products across asset classes and geographies. Since 2024, Coller has launched 4 evergreen products in total with the current combined NAV of more than USD 4 billion. And expansion continues to show great momentum and inflows are around USD 200 million per month. Coller also recently announced a strategic partnership with State Street along with State Street's investment in Coller. Their partnership gives a unique opportunity to go after the 401(k) market in the U.S. We look forward to exploring what we can do together to strengthen the global distribution of the combined evergreen platform. Next slide, please. Insurance is 1 of the most interesting capital pools in private markets. However, insurance companies operate in a highly regulated environment with strict requirements around capital charges, duration matching, liquidity, ratings and asset-liability management. To participate at scale credit exposure, secondaries and strong structure capabilities are required. This is an area where EQT on a stand-alone basis has been limited on a structural basis, and where Coller today is the clear market leader. Coller is the preferred partner to insurance clients with deep relationships and in-house structuring expertise. They have reached over USD 5 billion in structured products in the last 2 years, including the largest CFO backed by secondaries at USD 3.4 billion. This is a significant growth opportunity for the combined platform and where EQT's scale will be a key enabler. Next slide, please. We believe that this combination and more diversified secondaries platform by bringing together complementary strengths, we can accelerate innovation, deepen client relationships across both institutional and private wealth clients. Together, EQT and Coller are very well positioned to accelerate insurance-related product -- and to Per. Next 2 slides, please.

Thank you, Gustav. In 2025, we took the opportunity to simplify our organization and to clarify our governance to put us in the best possible position to be able to accelerate our strategic M&A agenda. So today, we are very well prepared to add Coller to EQT and to support Jeremy and the team to accelerate their growth independent investment committee. Next slide, please. The Coller team has demonstrated strong fundraising momentum, most recently with the successful close of Fund IX and has earned the strong client trust to expand into new strategies such as credit secondaries over recent years. Today, Coller has around 600 clients and more than half of those will represent new client relationships for EQT. At the same time, EQT brings a base of around 1,400 institutional clients, of which more than 900 clients are not currently invested with Coller, representing a significant opportunity to accelerate growth across the combined platform. The client bases are also complementary. EQT has a strong footprint with sovereign wealth funds, while Coller is more heavily weighted towards private wealth and insurance. So together, we will be able to offer clients a broader and more flexible range of solutions from primary investments to tailored liquidity solutions within one global platform with a real focus on generating alpha and performance. I'll now hand it over to Olof to comment on the transaction structure. Next slide, please.

Thank you very much, Per. So let me talk about how we have structured this to ensure alignment of interest and this growth orientation. The transaction entails 100% of Coller and EQT will be entitled to 35% of carried interest in all the future funds in line with the EQT setup. We are also acquiring 10% of the carried interest in Private Equity Fund IX that Per just referred to. The deal construct includes a base consideration of $3.2 billion with a growth-oriented contingent consideration in 2029 of up to $500 million. The contingent consideration is structured to incentivize strong growth in the business with full consideration dependent on delivering high 20s, almost 30% fee-related revenue growth until 2029. The base consideration of $3.2 billion will be funded in newly issued EQT AB shares, creating a strong alignment to drive value. At closing, the shareholders of Coller will own approximately 6.5% of EQT, where Jeremy is the main shareholder of Coller's business today. Closing of the transaction is expected in the third quarter of '26. And with that, I'll hand over to Gustav to give us the combined fundraising outlook. Next slide, please.

Thanks, Olof. I'll start on the evergreen side, where the joint offering will compromise more than 10 vehicles distributed across U.S., Europe and Asia. In terms of inflows, Coller increases the H2 2025 annual run rate to around EUR 4 billion. As only 7 out of the 10 plus evergreens where operational during that time frame, we hence expect 2026 to be significantly higher than the H2 2025 annual run rate. We believe that there are significant revenue synergies for the evergreens through the strengthened combined private wealth organization. By leveraging EQT's banking relationships to further accelerate Coller's distribution reach and by jointly tapping into EQT's brand and marketing capabilities. For reference 100% of Coller's evergreen inflows are incremental to fee-generating AUM. Next slide, please. So we are now a bit more than 1 year into our current of that EUR 100 billion based on the funds activated. 2026 is set up to be a very active fundraising year for EQT with 3 flagship funds, a number of other closed-ended strategies and of course EUR 25 billion to EUR 30 billion to the total amount effectively increasing it to roughly EUR 125 billion to EUR 130 billion. And with that, I will hand over to Kim. Next slide, please.

Thanks, Gustav. First, a few words on the latest flagship fund, the introduction of credit secondaries and the expansion into private wealth evergreens and structured products. Fee-related revenues were approximately $330 million, nearly all of which were management fees. This number includes catch-up fees as Fund IX was activated in July 2023 and closed on 31st of December 2025. However, it does not reflect the run rate management fees from evergreens due to fee holidays for some products in 2025. From 2026 onwards, all private wealth evergreens will be charging full fees. Across funds, the average fee rate is about 1% and in general, charged on committed capital. It's worth noting, though, that the private wealth evergreens in general charge somewhat higher fee rates with NAV as the fee base and that we see this channel growing faster than the closed-ended funds. Expect Coller to generate fee-related revenue of between $350 million to $375 million. Adjusting for catch-up fees, fee-related revenue is expected to grow in the range mentioned, the 2029 contingent consideration is based on growth in the high 20s. On costs, Coller has a similar profile to EQT, where the majority of operating expenses are salaries and other personnel-related costs. Then fee-related EBITDA margin at around 50%. Next slide, please. So what does the above then mean for the combined platform? We expect Coller to accelerate our fee-related revenue growth from day 1. In terms of carry, the acquisition will not impact our outlook for a number of years since the first fund where EQT has right to carry is a 2024 vintage. As I mentioned, today, Coller has a somewhat lower fee-related EBITDA margin than EQT. But in the near to midterm, however, we expect Coller to be in line with EQT's margin and to grow fee-related expenses. As a result, we maintain our ambition to reach a 55% fee-related EBITDA margin at completion of the current fundraising cycle. I'll now hand over to Per for some concluding remarks.

Adding Coller to EQT is a significant milestone in the development of our firm. Secondaries represents one of the fastest-growing parts of the private markets industry. We're confident that Coller is the best possible platform to build a market-leading secondaries franchise being a pioneer in the space with more than 3 decades of track record and experience. Next slide, please. The combination really means a step change for EQT in terms of scale, growth and revenue profile. Coller will add approximately EUR 28 billion of fee-paying assets under management and EUR 42 billion of total AUM. We will have a combined AUM of approximately EUR 312 billion. And to our business, we also significantly diversify our fee-related assets under management. Secondaries will represent about 15% initially of that fee-related fee-based assets under management, but it is expected to represent a significantly larger share over time. The acquisition will enhance our growth profile, and we aim to double Coller's fee-generating assets under management in less than 4 years. This means that 5 years from now, the mix of EQT's business will be much more well balanced across our business lines, private capital, infrastructure, real estate and secondaries. And we also see a very attractive opportunity to accelerate growth and scale of our real estate platform in the years ahead. Finally, we now manage strategies that, to some extent, are somewhat also countercyclical, if you will, creating an even more resilient and well-diversified revenue profile. As we look ahead with this transaction, we have created a platform that is even better positioned to attract and retain the best people in our industry and to continue to serve our clients, a more attractive, resilient and higher growing platform. With that, I open up for questions. Operator, please.

[Operator Instructions]

Operator, can I say a few words before we have the first question?

Yes, please proceed.

Thank you. So as you can imagine, Per is on a tight schedule in Davos today. So our suggestion is that we keep the Q&A open for about 45 minutes. And to make sure that everybody has time to ask questions, I would very humbly and politely suggest that you keep it to 2 questions each. And as always, we're, of course, available for any follow-ups after the call today. So let us aim for that and really looking forward to the Q&A session.

And now we're going to take our first question, and it comes from the line of Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs.

Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs. Two questions on Coller, please. So I guess you're acquiring a revenue fee stream in a growing asset class that's accretive to EQT, but you've also acquired this knowledge base in wealth. So can you talk to how you think this might help as you build out your existing wealth and evergreen business? And do you think this will accelerate the uptake of your existing Nexus products? So that's the first question. And the second question on this transaction. I may be wrong, but I don't think Coller has a dedicated infra secondary strategy. And so my guess would be that EQT is one of the largest global value-add infra managers, could add value here? And is this a kind of white space that you could go after? Because it feels like the use case for GP-led secondaries in infra could be even higher than it is in private equity over time because you have these platform build-outs like EdgeConneX that are very long-term assets that need capital and maybe don't fully belong in drawdown funds. So any thoughts there would be helpful as well.

Good questions, Oliver. I think the answer is that in both of those areas, on the private wealth side, evergreen side as well as on the infrastructure side, we see attractive growth opportunities ahead and are both good examples of why we're stronger together. But Gustav maybe you want to elaborate?

Yes, happy to do that. And just echoing what you said, Per, so to speak. I think on the evergreen side, of course, this -- what this enables us, we get 2 strong evergreen organizations, both from a sales perspective, from a product development perspective, where we get to a completely different scale on a combined basis. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there, including joint products going forward in at least a midterm perspective. I think same on the infra side. This is, of course, one of the key areas where we see that there are complementary capabilities in terms of that Coller is very, very strong on the secondary side. We are very, very strong on the infra side and as well on the real estate side. So going forward, we see that this is, of course, a very interesting growth opportunity for us to attack on a joint basis and where we combined will have a very good right to win in that aspect.

Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Arnaud Giblat from BNP Paribas.

I've got 2 questions, one on Coller and one on your infra business. On Coller, could you -- when I step back and just look at who are the largest GP-led secondary fund, typically, there are quite a few, including Coller before the acquisition, being independent and not having a very large direct business. So I'm just wondering how you're thinking about that? Do you see a need to operate a bit at arm's length? How is that going to be pitched to investors? I'm just wondering if there's any risks around that and how you intend to put that to investors. My second question is -- thanks for the update on -- in terms of what you intend to do with EdgeConneX and wrapping that into a longer-term structure. I'm just wondering if you could give us a bit more detail in terms of the mechanics, how much of enterprise value would EdgeConneX come into this continuation or long-term fund? And how you're thinking about fundraising around that?

Good questions. I'll let Gustav talk about EdgeConneX and provide more details on that transaction. In terms of the combination with Coller. As I mentioned in my presentation, right, I mean, we've really organized ourselves in a way so that it's very easy to add on a platform such as Coller and also to have that platform continue to be run in a very independent way so that the Coller team can serve clients and its stakeholders in the right way and in the best possible way going forward. And that's the intention also with the combination. That's how we'll organize ourselves. As I said, Coller will have an independent investment committee going forward and will be a separate business segment of EQT, where we will, of course, collaborate as was mentioned earlier, is in the areas around branding, marketing, also on the client relations side, where we can leverage the strong combined sales force that we have, both on the institutional side and on the private wealth side, right? And that's also how previous transactions have been structured and done in this space in the past, and that's what we intend to do also here when it comes to the combination between EQT and Coller. And Gustav, why don't you address the question on EdgeConneX?

Absolutely. So due to where we are in the process, I can't go into, let's say, details about the size or the terms at this point in time. So we'll come back to you on that at the right time. I think what we can say in general is, so to speak, that we're super excited about this opportunity because, of course, it allows us to really continue to support the company for the long term as there is a very, very significant growth opportunity here in the data center area, so to speak. And therefore, it was also important for us to create this into an open-ended structure.

Now we're going to take our next question and it comes from the line of Hubert Lam from Bank of America.

I've got 2 of them. Firstly, I just wanted to check your expectations for exits in 2026. I think you said you expect it to be similar to 2025. Just wondering why not better? And also, does this mean that we should expect a similar carried interest as in 2025? The second question is on Coller. Can you talk about the opportunity you see with State Street and the partnership there? And do you see this as a way to enter the U.S. target date funds and maybe the outlook for this partnership going forward?

Thank you for those questions. I'll start by addressing the first one, then I'll hand over to Kim to provide more details, and Gustav can talk about the partnership opportunity with State Street going forward. So when it comes to exit volumes, right, I mean, it's important to keep in mind that 2025 was a record year in the history of EQT for us, right? I mean we sent back EUR 34 billion of proceeds to clients, 3x industry average in our equity strategy. So the beauty, of course, the benefits of having a truly global diversified platform the way we have it at EQT is that in certain years, there will be higher amounts of distributions in relation to NAV in certain strategies. And then in other years, there will be a step-up in other parts of the business. And so that's what you should expect in 2026, right? In 2026, we do expect a pickup in distributions coming out of our infrastructure platform, for instance. And yes, I just wanted to provide a little bit of that background and color as to the outlook for 2026. And Kim, maybe you want to elaborate a little bit on the details and carried interest.

Yes. And what Per just said, how that sort of translates into carried interest really then goes into the framework I talked about earlier, where the carry will predominantly come from the funds that are in 2019 vintages or before. And you saw yourself that there's about EUR 600 million of carry left in those funds to be recognized, whereas the 2 flagship funds not -- next to come into carry mode are not expected to -- with the current exit plans it being carry mode still in 2026. So that's the guidance we can give you at this point in time.

And maybe I'll touch upon the State Street partnership. I think, first of all, we're super excited about having State Street as a shareholder in EQT and the partnership that they already have in place with Coller. Of course, there is a lot happening in the private market side connected to private individuals and in the U.S., especially the target date funds and the 401(k) opportunity. We think that there is tremendous opportunities here, both in the form of over time broadening the partnership with State Street, and that's something that we look forward to having a positive dialogue with them around. But also when you think about how the target date funds operate and what's required to be able to win in that channel, it's very clear that secondaries is going to be a very attractive and key component of that solution, also given the need to trade on a daily basis which when you think about it from a primary versus secondary perspective, would just make it easier. So I think all in all, we're very excited about it. As we've talked about, we think that the 401(k) opportunity is very significant, but then it will also take time. And this, of course, is an important step for us in that journey to really create products that fit into that type of client base.

Now we're going to take our next question. And it comes from the line of Ermin Keric from DNB Carnegie.

Do you hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Maybe just you mentioned that you expect an increase in evergreen flows in 2026. Could you quantify that? And sorry, then the second question would be on branding. You're saying that you're increasing your spending on that. Could you give us any more kind of details on how much you expect to spend on branding and put it in context to what you spent before and also how the success of those efforts are measured?

Good questions. I'll leave both of them to Gustav and Kim.

Yes. Maybe I'll start with the first one. I'm not going to quantify it into a number. I think that if you think about -- if I were you, I would think about it in 2 aspects. First of all, as I talked about, during that time frame, 7 out of the 10 or 10-plus were operational. So that kind of gives you, I think, a first piece of the puzzle of seeing how that could then be in the 2026 flow. I think the second piece of it is -- it's really that out of the 7 and of course, the remaining 3, 4 products, we still see an acceleration of the flows as we're ramping it up, so to speak. So I think what we're saying is that we expect that number to be significantly above the EUR 4 billion in 2026.

On the brand and marketing topic, in order to have a successful spend of brand and marketing, you first need to build a sort of organization and have the processes, et cetera, in place. And that is what we have been doing over the last few years, and we now have that foundation, which allows us to spend money efficiently externally on marketing campaigns and on brand events and branding more generally. The -- we're not going to go into the specific numbers here on a line-by-line basis, but it's -- the amount we will spend is a multiple of what we have done historically, but from a fairly low base to start with, I would say. Then it is a science of its own in terms of how this money will be measured, and it's quite different from a directed marketing campaign where you can sort of measure the exact clicks, et cetera, where from a more branding campaign where it's more about brand awareness, et cetera, in the market. But we have a great team focused on that with very specific sort of follow-up processes that are going to be in place.

And the question comes from the line of Isobel Hettrick from Autonomous Research.

Isobel Hettrick from Autonomous Research. So in your presentation, you touched on the significant number of new LP relationships the transaction opens up for both you and Coller. Can you provide some color on how you're thinking about the cross-selling opportunity from both ways, so existing EQT clients investing in new secondary funds and vice versa over time. So perhaps with reference to BPEA, how have you seen cross-selling develop since you acquired that manager? And what can we read across to Coller?

Good question. I'd say it's not only that we have a track record in terms of achieving cross-selling synergies on the institutional side from the merger with Barings. And we, of course, also acquired Exeter before making the Baring's transaction. And I think we have good data points and evidence from both of those transactions in terms of the synergies that we can generate. Gustav can provide more details. And then, of course, what's different also this time around is that the private wealth opportunity has developed further. And here, we really see an opportunity for us to leverage all of the investments that we've been making into our capabilities, into our brand, into our marketing in those areas, right? So -- but Gustav, why don't you elaborate?

Yes. No. But I think as you say, Per, there, we have experienced from it both from Exeter and BPEA. Of course, BPEA is not fully closed yet, but what you will see in the appendix is that around 25% of the capital in BPEA IX is from, let's say, original EQT clients. I think the equivalent number for Exeter on the latest U.S. fundraise there is about 15%. So we -- I think we have good track record of showing that there is significant cross-selling opportunities in these transactions, of course, going both ways in it. And in this specific transaction, as Per points out, the private wealth opportunity, there is significant cross-selling opportunities there. And then, of course, we also have the insurance side where over time, there can also be, let's say, some joint opportunities going forward.

Now we're going to take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Magnus Andersson from ABG Sundal Collier.

Just first of all, on the transaction, if you could, in any way, quantify potential income and cost synergies and any potential structural charges related to this transaction in 2026? And secondly, just on your fundraising, there seems to be very strong demand for infrastructure according to market data. So I was just wondering whether we eventually should expect your flagship infra funds to become larger than your traditional key funds and if we could see that already in the generations that will be on the fundraising in 2026?

Yes. Good questions. I think we're incredibly -- I think as we've mentioned in the past, we're incredibly excited and optimistic about the growth potential across our infrastructure strategies, and we see very good momentum here in the ongoing fundraises that we have. I'm not sure we're going to comment on or give guidance in terms of the sizes for the next generation of these funds. But I leave that to Gustav to comment on further. And then on Coller and the income and cost synergies in '26, maybe, Kim, you want to take that question?

Yes. Well, first of all, on Coller, as you heard, we gave the guidance that we intend to more than double the business in the next 4 years. That's really the income guidance we can give you. And that is based on all of the strengths that we just talked about of the combined business. And this is not a transaction that is done because of cost synergies. Having said that, as I mentioned, there's a number of, let's say, costs that are of a nature where you can spread them out over a larger base, and that will become more efficient. Then there are some areas of overlap on the back end that we will work together to solve in the most efficient ways, but that's not the reason for the transaction. There's likely to be some transaction costs associated with it, of course, but they are not in the big scheme of things of a magnitude that will move any needle.

And then maybe on the infra side, I think we fully agree with you on the infra opportunity in general terms, so to speak. And that's also why we, in the last couple of years, have been very focused on broadening the infra offering which you've seen both with the Active Core, especially now going open-ended. You've seen it with Transition Infra. We talked today about the EdgeConneX opportunity on the [ CV ] side. So I think you should think about it that -- and I'm not going to comment specifically on Infra VII, so to speak. But we probably think that the large opportunity here is continuing to broaden the infra scope and scaling those things in a way that we can really be a market leader across from, let's say, more infra growth opportunities all the way to core plus.

Now we're going to take our next question and the question comes from the line of Jacob Hesslevik from SEB.

So my first question is on the culture fit. When you acquired both BPEA and Exeter, you talked a fair bit about the strong culture and how EQT and the related partner would fit together. But you have said very limited today with the acquisition of Coller. So what are the key culture and operational integration priorities over the next 12 to 18 months? And how will you maintain both EQT and Coller's entrepreneurial culture while achieving the synergies? That's the first question. The second one is you highlighted a particularly strong pipeline for Japan for 2026. What makes Japan distinctive from other Asian markets in the upcoming year? And do you need to change your approach to capture the market potential?

Yes. I'll start with the second one. On Japan, the reason why we are particularly excited about the pipeline that we see in Japan right now is because of some of those corporate governance reforms that have been implemented in Japan and that just enable us to pursue opportunities where we can really unlock value creation opportunities. And it allows us to create sources of alpha that are uncorrelated to the type of value creation opportunities that we see elsewhere in Asia. So for instance, in India, there's a lot of tailwind from demographics, capital markets-related tailwinds, whereas in Japan, the alpha-generating opportunities really around unlocking that value creation opportunity, thanks to some of those corporate governance reforms. And of course, we are very well positioned to capture that. Why? Because we have a best-in-class value creation toolbox that we've developed over 30 years. We have best-in-class sector-based strategies and value creation playbooks that we can apply. And then, of course, in Japan, our brand resonates very well. We've been present in the country for 20 years, thanks to the Wallenberg connection. We were also seen as a very credible long-term player, which is particularly important in a market such as Japan. So for all of those reasons, we're very excited about the opportunity ahead in that country. When it comes to Coller and the cultural values fit, right, it is as strong as we have seen in previous combinations. We've spent -- Jeremy and I have spent a lot of time together to get to know each other. I'm sure we're going to have an excellent partnership. And we've also spent significant of time together at the next generation of the leadership team between Coller and EQT, exactly like we did it in the combination with Barings and also in the transaction with Exeter, right? So that's a good way to get to know each other, and that's why we can with confidence say that this fit from a values perspective, culture perspective, the entrepreneurial, the innovation drive, the performance drive, all of that is exactly similar as it is in EQT. And the way, of course, we maintain and retain that culture, that's how we run our business, right? And that's why it was so important that we took those steps in 2025 to simplify our organizational setup. What I spoke about in my presentation and what I've also talked about in previous instances. So today, we have organized ourselves around a number of highly accountable high-performing business lines. And then we have simplified our governance, our structure in a way so that we have one combined capital markets client relations team on the institutional side that will be very well positioned to serve all of these business lines going forward, including Coller EQT. And then finally, of course, we have a clear governance around how we run our backbone, our business on the operations side. And those would also then be areas where we can achieve synergies together, right? And so by having those highly accountable business lines, that's also how you can ensure that you retain that entrepreneurial performance-driven culture. Kim and Gustav, anything else you want to say on the synergies?

No, I think maybe one more point, and that's we just had a partner meeting earlier this week where, of course, the real estate and the Asia team was there. And I think it's so clear to see how well those integrations have gone, how much they feel like part of EQT in a real way. There is only one company. And I think it also shows that the model works, and also that we're ready to do the next one. So I think from all of those perspectives, this timing is also a good one, I would say.

And now we'll go and take our last question for today. And it comes from the line of Nicholas Herman from Citi.

Congrats on the deal. Two questions from me, please. One on accretion and synergies and one on cash. On the accretion and synergies, you referred to a doubling of fee-paying AUM in Coller over 4 years. Is that the time frame for the mid-single-digit FRE accretion? Or is the accretion time frame shorter? And related to that, what synergies are in that guidance? And how should we think about the sequencing of adjacencies and synergies. And then a quick one on cash. I guess given this transaction is almost entirely equity, should investors now have greater confidence that you will announce share buybacks over time? And I guess for avoidance of doubt, I'm assuming you have no ambition for further deals or especially larger deals for now at least?

Thank you. Olof and Kim, do you want to take those questions?

Yes. Do you want to go ahead? So I mean, if you think about the accretion, we're buying, first of all, 100% management fees, right, over the next several years. And as we talked about before, the earn-out mechanics is based on a fee-related growth of close to 30% or high 20s, right? And to Kim's earlier comments on the margins, that means that you're going to have a very rapid top line growth, and that means that our margins are going to scale quite meaningfully over the next several years in this business. So if you think about this from a fee-related EBITDA multiple, it's based on the guidance that we gave, it's about 16 to 18x multiple that we're paying in '26, but that's not then capturing this significant ramp-up that you have in '27 and '28, right? So to your question, if you think about this transaction in, say, a couple of years' perspective, I'd argue it's high single-digit accretive to our earnings. And that means that this mid-single-digit guidance, that's an average over the next few years.

And in terms of cash and buybacks, yes, you're absolutely right. This is an all-share transaction and will, if anything, strengthen our balance sheet further over time. There's -- last year already, we did about EUR 300 million of share buybacks in 2025. So it's not that we haven't been doing share buybacks already. And what we have said in terms of guidance is that we will use share buybacks or extraordinary dividends for that matter as a tool if we, at any point, become overcapitalized, for example, if cash carry comes in at scale, but I can't give you any specifics around that in terms of timing or how that's going to look. But right now, we have a solid balance sheet, but we're not overcapitalized given the opportunities we have, both organic and inorganic going forward.

That's really helpful, guys. If I could quickly follow up on the synergies. Just what synergies, as you said, are in that guidance? And how should we think about the sequencing there from, I guess, from a -- presuming is it wealth first, then insurance then Asia, I mean how should we think about the way you're going to be tackling those -- the numerous opportunities there?

Yes. And I think we're not going to go into specifics of it. Of course, as always in this, it's going to be evolving development in it. And there are a number of opportunities. But I think we also feel that we're very well equipped, both from a Coller perspective and from an EQT perspective in order to capture many of this. I think you should think about the guidance on, let's say, doubling the business on -- in less than 4 years that, that does not include a very significant new initiatives in that. It's, of course, a development of the business. It's continuing to scale of the PE and credit side. On the institutional side, it's maybe 1 or 2 new initiatives on the institutional side. And then, of course, it's a development of the evergreen as well as the insurance side. But it's a base case that we feel and the Coller team feels comfortable, which I think is good.

Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to management for any closing remarks.

Okay. Well, everybody, thank you very much for great questions and for the discussion. As you can hear, we're extremely excited about this combination with Coller, and we are very pleased with the results that we delivered for 2025. As always, you know where to find us, we're available for any follow-up questions. So thank you very much.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.