Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Partners Group's announcement of AUM as of the 31st of December 2025 webcast and conference call. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, David Layton. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Partners Group's 2025 Business Update, an Outlook call. I'm Dave, CEO of Partners Group, and today I'll be joined by Juri, our President, and Roberto, our Head of Portfolio Solutions. AP will be present for the Q&A. 2025 was a mixed environment for the industry, marked by macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical instability. Despite this backdrop, we have again shown that we are a highly differentiated, all-weather investment firm. We've successfully navigated this complex environment and delivered on our objectives, growing our assets under management by 21% overall this year. We added $30.2 billion of total new assets this last year, at the upper end of our $26-$31 billion guidance. We had $26 billion in fundraising during 2025, which represents our highest year for new client demand in our 30-year history. That's an increase in fundraising activity of 22% from last year.
This organic contribution was supplemented by $4 billion from M&A. Our bespoke solutions contributed 72% of inflows, with both mandates and evergreens also recording their strongest years ever. Our positioning, quite simply, is as the leading provider of portfolio solutions in the private markets. On the investment side, the transaction environment is gradually improving, and investment activity remains robust. We deployed $27 billion in 2025, representing a 26% increase year over year. Finally, 2025 was a reasonably strong year for realizations. Those were up 47%. Our realizations were most commonly from our pre-2022 vintages, and when looking at the needle-mover exits, we managed to generate a premium at exit, on average, from where these assets were booked six months prior to the event, which highlights the strength and the remaining upside of our investment portfolio. The next slide shows our outperformance versus the broader industry. This is a mixed market.
This is an industry that continues to operate below peak levels. This is an industry that's increasingly bifurcated between the haves and the have-nots. Partners Group is built differently, and we're taking share across these key dimensions. Our $26 billion in fundraising last year exceeded our previous peak from 2021. The industry remains well below peak levels. Our tailored solutions and our evergreen platform differentiate us and have allowed us to more quickly rebuild this momentum. We also observe meaningful outperformance on investment activity and realizations versus the broader industry. This performance underscores the strength of our investment model and our ability to navigate through complexity. I think this resilience, this ability to buck industry trends and to meaningfully differentiate, positions us well for 2026, which, in our estimation, will remain a highly complex environment. Next slide. A little deeper dive on realizations here.
These $26 billion in realizations were driven primarily by direct assets, which accounted for 73% of the mix. Notably, direct equity realizations were up 54% year over year. Our portfolio assets contributed close to $7 billion and highlight a high level of diversification on the platform. Our transformational investing approach has continued to deliver strong outcomes for our clients. These gains from these realizations also helped to drive performance fees for our dedicated, hardworking professionals and for our shareholders alike. And I'll talk about that after this next case study. Next page. We acquired PCI Pharma Services in 2016, and at the time, PCI was a regional, moderate-growth pharma packaging company. 90% of its revenue at that time came from more traditional pharma packaging segments. However, 10% of its revenues were from clinical trial packaging.
Through our thematic work, we had identified this segment as having outsized growth potential, and our strategy was therefore to harvest the cash flows from the legacy business and to reinvest into high-growth areas like clinical trial services, complex injectables, and biologics. Next slide. In the first stage, we focused on the business's product expansion, moving from basic commercial packaging to more advanced solutions. We leveraged PCI's capabilities to specialize in injectables, an area with high barriers to entry and strong profitability, and the result was that PCI accelerated from a single-digit grower to a solid double-digit grower consistently, and EBITDA margins expanded from the high teens to the mid-20s. In 2020, we partially exited at a high teens multiple but stayed invested as a meaningful shareholder to support PCI's continued evolution.
We helped to drive the digital strategy of PCI, and by the end of these technology investments, we had a proprietary digital platform that gave clients real-time visibility into production and supply chain operations. And over eight years, PCI evolved from a mid-sized platform into a global leader with over $1 billion in revenue. And this journey exemplifies our investment philosophy: deep industry research, hands-on transformation, and a focus on long-term value creation. Now, this is a business update call and not a financials call.
However, I told you in September on our last financials call that if certain transactions, including PCI, which we had at one point in time forecasted for generating performance fees in 2026, closed in calendar year 2025, that it would result in performance fees being pulled forward into 2025, and that performance fees as a percentage of 2025 revenue would likely increase to above 30%. That was the catalyst for us also to pull forward our new performance fee range, as we believe that there was an increasing probability for us to exceed our 20%-30% previous guidance for 2025. PCI did indeed close in 2025. We therefore foresee performance fees of somewhere around $150 million to be pulled forward. We believe that for 2025, this pull-forward effect will likely put us above the 30% level in terms of performance fees as a percentage of revenue.
For 2026, we recommend commensurately lowering performance fee expectations. We expect, again, to be within the new range of 25%-40% of revenues coming from performance fees. But with this pull-forward effect, our starting expectation for the year is probably in the lower part of that range. It's somewhat unnatural for us to start the year with such a directional guidance for the year, but we have clear visibility on this pull-forward effect, and it's too early in the year to have as clear visibility on outsized realizations that would offset this effect. We have a very solid pipeline of mature assets. We have some of the most diversified performance fees out there. We're confident in our ability to generate performance fees on a consistent basis, and we'll keep you updated on exits as the year progresses. I'll now hand over to Juri to talk about new investments.
Thank you, Dave.
Thank you, Dave. Now, 2025 marked a strong year in terms of investment activity. We invested $27 billion, which marks a 26% increase to prior years. Deployment was robust across all asset classes, with 65% of investments in direct assets. Now, not too different to prior years, where also the lion's share was focusing on direct assets. Throughout the last 12 months, we saw attractive opportunistic transactions. This was driven by less capital raised in the industry, as we saw previously, therefore less competition and better transaction dynamics. Whereas a few years ago, you would have seen in first round bids up to 20 NBOs, there was still less competition and better transaction dynamics. We also benefited from a strong thematic pipeline that we executed on, especially in infrastructure, with thematic growth in digitization and energy transition platforms. Both teams have structural double-digit tailwinds and a strong investment need.
So we increased our investment volumes for infrastructure by 46%, amounting to $7 billion in 2025. Now, let me dive into some recent investment examples on the next page. One such recent private equity direct investment on the left-hand side of the slide was investment in India. And in Infinity Fincorp Solutions, the company offers customized secured loans. Now, we like the sector and the theme. We have many thematic tailwinds here: many underbanked towns, economic growth, growing government support, and a rapid digitization. So other than the thematic tailwinds, we'll transform the asset. We will create value by rolling out branches, expanding the size of the asset, as well as investing in technology to enhance the customer experience, enhancing the quality of the company. On the infrastructure side, energy transition continues to be a structural growth theme.
We invested in the US in Life Cycle Powe r, a leading provider of mobile power generation solutions. Again, the business benefits from thematic tailwinds, including an increased data center power demand, the expansion of domestic industrial facilities in the US. And also here, we will transform the asset, creating value by increasing the contract lengths, extending the fleet capacity, and by enhancing the data center offerings. So again, expanding the platform, increasing the size and the quality of the asset. Now, finally, our royalties business executed on another landmark transaction: a royalty spec note for The Weeknd. Now, that's an artist who has the highest number of monthly listeners on Spotify: over 29 hits, with over 1 billion listeners. Truly top of the pops, leading to broadly diversified cash flows, investing royalties in music, TV, but also pharma and infrastructure going forward across the sectors. So more to come.
Now, these investment highlights are demonstrating our sourcing and capabilities, but we also have very strong value creation capabilities across the investment platform, leading to an industry-leading track record. Now, Partners Group having the 30th anniversary. On the following slide, we're looking at investment volumes worth $261 billion since inception. We're looking at track records that are net cash on cash back to investors fully realized. So for private equity directs and infrastructure, we generated north of 20% net IRRs. In the middle of the slide, our $40 billion credit platform generated a 6.9% net IRR, clearly with a focus on senior secured debt on the basis of a very low loss rate. In 2025, we successfully added Empira to our real estate platform, strengthening our vertical depth. On the right-hand side, our royalties business were off to a strong start with our fifth asset class.
As a result of our investment capabilities, we raised $26 billion in 2025, driven by investor demand for customization. This record fundraising has been driven by our equity asset classes, private equity, and infrastructure that accounted for 53% of the total inflows. These inflows were supported by record demand for mandates and private wealth offerings. Private credit was likewise a major contributor, with 36% of fundraising driven by mandates and insurance demand. Our real estate business turned the corner and was back on the growth path, contributing 8% with client demand for Empira offerings, contributing significantly. Royalties saw $500 million inflows, surpassing the $1 billion mark at the end of the year. So tying it all together in terms of fundraising strategies, it's 72% of inflows that were driven by our bespoke solutions. Both mandates and Evergreens had their strongest fundraising years ever.
Let me dive into the mandate slide to provide additional color. While it's been the strongest ever year for mandates, we see by now a six-fold increase of mandate AUM over the last 10 years to $69 billion. It's clearly not the new toy. It's a proven and tested long-term, strong, and sustainable growth driver that addresses the complexities of today's market environment. Today, mandates represent 37% of our asset base. Mandate solutions can solve structural issues that insurance companies face with closed-ended funds. As such, we successfully converted several insurance mandates in 2025. We customize line-by-line mandates with a very high degree of customization. We give our clients direct access to single lines across all asset classes. As such, we do apply a dynamic portfolio steering, meaning we can shift allocations in line with market opportunities, particularly valuable in today's volatile environment.
So let me now hand over to Roberto to provide an update on our Evergreen platform.
Thank you, Juri. 2025 was a record year for our private wealth fundraising, driven by the strength of our broad Evergreen platform. Inflows increased 12% year-on-year, reaching $9.4 billion. But it's not just about hitting that fundraising record. What's really significant is that the majority of flows came from our broad Evergreen platform. Let me put this into perspective. Historically, our Evergreen business was carried by our three most mature and largest funds. This has now changed. While these mature funds contributed more than three-quarters of our flows 10 years ago, they now contributed 41%. The majority of our inflows in 2025 came from our broad platform with 59% of total inflows. We have seen strong inflows across the board from the new Evergreen funds, but also strategic partnerships started to contribute. These broad inflows are a result of the increased customization within the wealth space.
Private wealth individuals are building more diversified private markets portfolios, and our diversified offering benefits from this development. We're catering to these increased needs of the clients. Our Evergreen platform today consists of more than 30 vehicles launched over the past 20 years. Beyond our known Evergreen funds, some of these vehicles are white-labeled funds or dedicated funds for our strategic partnerships, which I will explain in a second. This evolution really underscores our ability to deliver flexible, long-term solutions that meet the changing needs of our clients. Now, while I've been talking about recent inflows, let me also address the other side of the equation: outflows and the topic of redemptions. Historically, in the initial phase of the private wealth markets, redemption levels ranged between 6% and 8% from 2015 to 2022.
Over the past couple of years, as more participants entered the market, the market starts to mature, and we increasingly observe people switching between different offerings. Different dynamics are at play, such as rebalancing across Evergreen funds as private individuals build out their diversified private markets portfolios. Due to these dynamics, the redemption levels have been increasing. Across our platform, redemption levels were 10% in the past two years and reached 11% in 2025. This is, in our view, consistent with a maturing market, as we expect some more mature funds in the industry, which even reach structurally higher redemption levels for mature Evergreens. It's also important to note that redemptions are expected to be offset by NAV growth through performance over the mid to long term. Let me dive deeper into the performance of Evergreen funds. Next slide, please.
As the Evergreen market matures and we see more funds entering the space, there's naturally more comparison and benchmarking happening. But here's something really important to keep in mind. Just like you can't compare closed-ended funds from different vintages, you also can't compare Evergreen funds launched in different years, at least not in the short to medium term. Vintage share exposure is hugely influential in driving returns. Evergreen funds launched in different years have completely different vintage exposures in their underlying portfolios. Funds launched after 2022 are not exposed to the same valuations when building up their portfolios than funds launched before that period. While funds pre-2022 have built more diversified portfolios, they also have invested before the interest rate hike and therefore faced valuation adjustments over the past years.
Such vintage share effects can impact performance for a few years, especially when markets see more substantial changes in environments such as 2008 and 2022. You can see this playing out in our own private equity registered strategy. While the strategy has achieved double-digit annualized returns over the long term, in line with the performance target of 10%-12%, it has faced some headwinds recently. But we're seeing the situation improve, and we expect to inch towards our long-term return target in the coming years. On the flip side, our recently launched Evergreen funds are benefiting from positive vintage share performance since inception, with returns above 15% for most strategies, which is above the long-term target. Again, it is important to highlight that our Evergreen platform is highly diversified, and these strong results across our strategies really reinforce our platform's strength. Next slide, please.
As private markets become increasingly mainstream, many large public asset managers are seeking to incorporate them into their product shelves through selective partnership with leading private markets managers. Our ambition is to position Partners Group to secure scalable strategic partnerships with leading asset managers during this period, with the goal of launching multiple funds with different strategic partners to access different investor pools. What is key for us is that we partner with institutions to build portfolio solutions together that typically become their house flagship products. We do not push our products on their shelves, but develop solutions together instead. This approach creates long-term relationships, improving flow stability and reducing rebalancing pressures. Our recently announced strategic partnership with Deutsche Bank is a perfect example. The collaboration with Deutsche Bank will represent the main private markets offering on their private wealth platforms of more than 20 million clients.
It is designed as an Evergreen ELTIF fund of funds and will allow their clients to have a one-stop solution with direct and secondary investments from Partners Group, as well as some allocations to third-party managers. Deutsche Bank chose us given our investment track record and our experience in not only managing Evergreens, but specifically because they wanted an ELTIF structure, and we are the first to have launched such a structure in the market, but this is only one of many. We have highlighted select partnerships entered across different asset classes for multi-asset offerings or more focused offerings, such as within our newest royalties asset class. Our global partnerships strengthen our ability to deliver tailored portfolio solutions and expand fundraising potential. They will drive inflows into existing Evergreen programs and support the launch of new vehicles. We will continue to evaluate opportunities. Next slide.
Now, let's switch gears and take a closer look at our AUM bridge for the year. As you are aware, our guidance specifically covers fundraising and tail-downs. In 2025, we raised $26.2 billion and had an underwritten contribution of $4 billion from M&A, bringing our total new assets to $30.2 billion. Our tail-downs, which are largely formula-based, amounted to $8.7 billion. We had provided you with guidance of $9-$10 billion, but tail-downs were lower as the tail-down of certain older traditional funds has shifted from 2025 to 2026. We therefore expect higher tail-downs in 2026. Moving to redemptions, they came in at $6 billion, corresponding to a redemption rate of about 11% of our Evergreen AUM, as shown before. Performance-related effects amounted to positive $7.6 billion. They include contributions from a select group of products where AUM tracks their NAV developments.
We continue to believe that redemptions from Evergreen programs are often netted out by performance effects in a normalized environment. Last but not least, foreign exchange effects had a positive impact of $9.5 billion, mainly due to the strengthening of the euro against the US dollar. As a reminder, 40% of our AUM is in euro-denominated programs and mandates. Overall, we achieved a 14.1% growth rate on guided metrics and an 11.5% net organic growth rate before M&A and FX. Handing it back to Dave now.
Thanks, Roberto. As mentioned at the beginning, we expect the environment in 2026 to remain complex, but we believe that we have shown that we are well-positioned to differentiate ourselves and to navigate complexity. Our focus for this year on the institutional side will be to build out strategic relationships with large institutions, to scale our mandate offering across our client base, to capture growing opportunities in Asia and the Middle East, and to use traditional funds to capture new client segments. On the private wealth side, we'll continue to build strategic partnerships with leading financial institutions that give us leverage in the wealth and defined contribution space, and we'll continue expanding the breadth of our increasingly diversified Evergreen platform. In terms of 2026 guidance for new client demand, we expect between $26 billion and $32 billion of new assets, reflecting strong fundraising momentum.
Regarding tail-downs, as explained by Roberto, due to the lower tail-downs in 2025, we estimate $10-$13 billion of tail-downs in 2026, driven by closed-ended traditional funds. For redemptions, these are anticipated to be offset by performance and other effects over time. We are very well-positioned as an organization to deliver sustainable growth and to capitalize on evolving market opportunities in 2026. Before wrapping up and kicking the Q&A session off, I want to just quickly mention our upcoming capital markets day. Invitations were sent out in December for March 10th. We're excited to host some of you in person in our London office. With that, I'll pass to AP, who will quarterback the Q&A.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press Star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press Star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. We will now take the first phone question. One moment, please. And your first phone question today comes from the line of Nicholas Herman from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon and good evening. Thanks for the presentation for taking my questions. Three from me, please. So you've outlined the expectation for $26-$32 billion of inflows this year. Could you please talk about the mix of flows between the three strategies? I'm just curious if there's anything lumpy, particularly on the traditional programs. I know that you're kind of in that you have been raising for your direct infrastructure strategy, for example. Second question is on Evergreens. You've obviously done a lot in the past year or even a couple of years to build out distribution there. Could you give us a sense, please, as well of the bridge on Evergreen flows from last year to this year? And I guess how that kind of might, I guess, you might be benefiting from scaling strategies from strategic partners that you outlined.
I guess the BlackRock offering, which will be launched this year. Presumably, that all plays into that. So just kind of curious on the moving parts there. And then finally, you mentioned the CMD for March. I guess without asking you to front-run too much, just what would be the purpose of the event, I guess, especially as you gave such a detailed update last year? Thank you.
Maybe I'll take number one and three, and then Roberto, you can take question number two. With regards to the $32 billion in inflow, up to $32 billion in inflows next year, anything lumpy? I don't think so. We have a very diversified business, and we do see different trends based on different geographies even. In the Americas this past year, closed-ended strategies were a highlight for us. We saw a meaningful uplift in terms of new clients that we were able to bring on board with some of our closed-ended offerings. And I think that makes sense because that's a geography where we're not as large and deep as some of our peers. And so we're focused on establishing new relationships with some of those more traditional offerings. In Europe, wealth and open-ended structures were a real highlight, and we saw an uplift there.
In Asia, our mandate offering was particularly strong this year. We saw a 3x increase in the need for customization from our Asian clients this past year for mandates. And so I think the breadth of the business, the diversification of the business is really the theme there, and there's nothing really lumpy that I would highlight as a part of the fundraising mix for next year. We are wrapping up the infrastructure fund, but that was meaningfully represented in this year. A little bit of spillover in the next year, but nothing to highlight in particular. With regards to capital markets day, look, I think many of our topics will be updates on what we talked about last year. The world has changed meaningfully from that capital markets day.
And we have a number of, I think, solid developments since then, and it's worth refreshing on some of those topics. So we do have a couple of new topics and some refreshed topics from what we talked about last year. Roberto?
With regards to your second question on the bridge, on the Evergreen flows, there's two main drivers of the increase. On one hand, the new Evergreen funds backed by new distribution partner relationships were a significant part of the increase, and on the other hand, we have seen contribution from strategic partnerships already spread really across the U.S. and Europe.
That's very helpful. If I could just come back as well, please, on the mix for this year. Previously, you've given us a rough guide on the mix of flows percentage-wise between Evergreen's mandates and traditionals. Would you be able to give us a similar mix for this year as well, please?
Yeah, it's similar. So you've seen a gradual shift towards bespoke solutions over the last number of years. I would assume that that trajectory holds.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take the next question. And the next question comes from the line of Hubert Lam from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I also got three questions. Firstly, around the fundraising guidance of $26-$32 billion, you discussed what are the assumptions driving the bottom end of the range as well as the top end of the range. Second question is on the mix of fundraising, which is geared, as you said, with the majority of it this year in 2025, higher with a majority coming from private equity infrastructure. So what does this mean for fee margin? Should we expect the fee margin to be held at the current level? And how do you expect the mix of the asset classes to change and what it means for the fee margin going forward? And lastly, in terms of also the fundraising guidance, how much of it do you expect to come from the new partnerships like BlackRock and PGIM?
Or also, do you expect it to be more second-half weighted as these type of products come on board early on? Or do you expect fundraising to be more equally weighted in the first half, second half for this year? Thank you.
Thank you, so we expect for 2026 to be a continuation of 2025, meaning in 2025, we're back on the double-digit growth as we've shown. So going from there, I'd say there's upside potential from improved Evergreen performance, expanded distribution platforms, strategic partnerships, and strong mandate opportunities in Asia, but also the Middle East. Looking into next year as a continuation, I'd probably guide it to the middle of the range of 2026 to 2032, which again brings us into a double-digit growth path of new client demand.
With regards to management fee margin.
With regards to management fee margin, we have a couple of factors that can influence things there. Number one, with regards to mix, credit as a percentage of the mix can influence that equation. And we did see fundraising within credit at 33% in 2024, moved to 36% for the full year. It was dramatically lower in H2 than it was in H1. So I think that's one thing to note. But in addition to kind of mix, you have the type of offerings that are closed. We had our infrastructure fund, traditional fund raise, pretty good margins. We had a number of smaller mandates close as a part of our mandate or our strategy to expand the number of clients that are using our mandate to solutions, good margins there. And so there's no drama from a management fee level. We expect stable management fees. That's our outlook.
With regards to new partnerships, how much can they contribute? Look, we probably had about $1 billion in contribution from these partnerships that are at a relatively early stage. Do we think they have the potential to scale? Yes, we do. Therefore, will it probably be more weighted towards the second half of the year, the contribution? Yes, I do think that that's a fair characteristic. But we already see in 2025, maybe even a little ahead of schedule from what we had expected, meaningful contributions from some of these partnerships.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. And the question comes from the line of Gregory Simpson from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks for the presentation. A few on my end as well. Firstly, on the Evergreen inflows, the 9.4, can you split that between US and non-US and how much the regions differ? Second question is on the realization backdrop heading into 2026. I hear what you say about PCI shifting between the years, but when you talk about the lower-end performance fees, what kind of exiting backdrop are you kind of factoring in? How do you see the current health in terms of processes you've got underway? And then thirdly, you did have quite strong performance contribution to AUM growth in H2. I think it was over $5 billion. Just wanted to check in what drove that and what's the right base for thinking about performance effects going forward? Is it just Evergreen AUM, or do you have mandates in there too? Thank you.
Roger?
I guess with regards to the first question about the private wealth split in terms of how much comes from the Americas versus the other regions, it's probably around 40%-50% from the Americas. Maybe taking your third question before then giving a last one today regarding the $7.6 billion, it's a mix of performance effects and other effects such as management fee mechanisms. So performance has a positive effect, mainly on Evergreen funds, but also a good part of the mandates work in a similar way. Then in addition, for some vehicles, the AUM count switches from committed capital to investment exposure after five years. Now, as those programs had strong performance over those five years, this represents an increase in the fee basis, which is now higher. So you can think of it like a delayed performance effect on our fee basis from performance.
And with regards to realizations, this is a strong year for realizations, and therefore would be a strong year from a performance fee perspective. I expect this to be one of the strongest years in history from a performance fee perspective. And there was a certain pull-forward effect from transactions that were originally scheduled to take place there. This is a message that we're reiterating from our prior call. To be honest, we didn't see consensus really move based on that message, and so we're just being more explicit here in how we're guiding, giving you a more clear number that we see getting pulled forward. That's the purpose of that communication.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And the next question comes from the line of Mate Nemes from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, and thank you for the presentation. Two questions, please. The first one would be on partnerships and specifically BlackRock. Could you comment on the timing of that one and when you could expect meaningful inflows starting to show up? That's the first one. And the second question would be a quick follow-up on the performance fee guidance. It's very clear what you're saying on pull-forward effect, but I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about what sort of market conditions you have in mind when saying that this could be in the lower part of the 25%-40% guidance range. Does that require any further improvement in market conditions, or what you're seeing or what you saw in Q4 transaction activity is very much sufficient? Also, are there larger, lumpier potential realizations that can sway quite materially those performance fees in 2026?
Thank you.
With regards to the partnership with BlackRock, I think it's progressing very well. I think we have a strong relationship and believe that their attributes combined with our attributes make a very strong offering here. We expect for that partnership to launch in Q1, and I would expect additional insight in the coming weeks and months with regards to who we're partnering and when that's likely to take place. But yeah, more to come in the coming weeks on that. I do expect for that to have the potential to generate meaningful inflows, but we haven't given any specific guidance on that. With regards to market conditions for exits, we never assume an improving market environment. We believe that the current environment will remain.
Now, if you had asked me 18 months ago, would I expect to see $10 billion enterprise transactions taking place? I would have said probably not, right? So from my perspective, we've already seen marked improvements in exit conditions, and this is a market environment that we feel very comfortable transacting in, operating within. And so no, there's no dramatic changes that are needed to take place. This is simply a normalization of exit activity between 2025 and 2026. There's no change in environment that's assumed for that.
Thank you. I will now hand the call back to the room for the web questions.
Thank you. We have some online questions from Daniel Regli from Zürcher Kantonalbank. I think, Daniel, your first question on the BlackRock partnership we have covered. So I'll go to the second question, which is timeline for inflows from US 401(k) and how large we expect this opportunity to be. That's question one, and question two is exit environment in 2025. How do we expect this to impact fundraising in 2026?
Maybe I start with the question regarding the 401(k) plans. I can report that there is a good dynamic in the markets. We're in discussions with partners to create solutions. Keep in mind, though, that those solutions are complex in terms of building them, setting them up. So I would expect a gradual increase throughout 2026 as opposed to a jump here.
And with regards to how the positive exit, I guess, momentum that we have built in 2025 is expected to increase or improve fundraising, I think clients always love getting capital back. I think that's clearly the case. And so it's obviously easier to sit down with a client that you just sent a lot of money back to than it is to sit down with a client that is starved for liquidity. And so I do think it can improve the sentiment. But please do keep in mind that many of our clients today are in structures where we're steering towards their NAV targets, right? Custom mandates, custom solutions. The traditional fund side of our business, where they need to get capital back in order to commit to the next structure, is a relatively small part of our overarching business today.
That phenomenon that you might hear about from others that are more traditional players, it's present clearly across the industry, but it's probably a little bit less present in the Partners Group client base than you might find in other places. With that, it looks like there are no more questions. We'd like to thank you all for your participation. Thank you for your interest in our company. We look forward to hosting some of you in our London office in March. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.