NextWave Private Equity

The episode packs in a reasonable number of proprietary data points for a 7-minute update, but the analysis rarely goes beyond summarising survey results and headline numbers. The observation that tech's drop from ~30% to ~10% of PE deal value accounts for the entire Q1 decline is the sharpest point; everything else is high-level macro commentary.

“if we hadn't seen that drop off, deals would have been up 12% last quarter instead of down 12%”

“13 deals announced in the utilities and energy space with a total value just under $70 billion. That's the most on record”

The themes - tariff uncertainty, AI disruption of software valuations, rotation to hard assets - are the standard 2025-26 PE narrative circulating across every market update. The framing adds little first-principles or contrarian thinking; even the 'risk of doing nothing outweighed the risk of doing something' line is a well-worn formulation.

“a lot of what we saw last year across the M and A markets was this theme M of transactors deciding that the risk of doing nothing outweighed the risk of doing something”

“rotating from asset light companies to harder assets, infrastructure, energy data centers”

Pete Witte is an EY PE research practitioner with genuine survey access, but this is a solo advisory-firm market briefing rather than an interview with an actual GP, deal-maker, or operating executive who has deployed capital at scale. No external guests appear.

“My name is Pete Witte and I'm part of the Private Equity Group here at ey”

“In our quarterly survey of GPs, 64% of the firms that we talked to said that they were becoming more selective”

The episode is notably data-rich for its length, citing proprietary EY GP survey percentages, deal counts, dollar volumes, and quarter-over-quarter comparisons. The main weakness is a complete absence of named companies, named funds, or deal-level case studies to ground the aggregate statistics.

“firms announce 110 deals valued, uh, at just over $170 billion. That's a 12% decline by value versus the first quarter of last year. It's a 36% decline from the fourth quarter”

“software indices are down, call it 25%, 30% from their highs last October”

This is a solo scripted monologue with no interview, no guest, and no real-time questioning or pushback; the 'Speaker A' interjections are pre-written chapter headings, not dialogue. There is no conversational craft to evaluate.

“This quarter's deals environment, acquisitions, exits and M financing.”

“This quarter's key market themes and fund priorities.”