SuperReturn International 2026: Key highlights

Ropes & Gray attended the 2026 SuperReturn International conference in Berlin last week, which attracted over 6,000 decision makers from the private markets industry from over 80 countries. Despite heightened expectations around LP liquidity and increasing fundraising concentration, confidence grounded in operational discipline and differentiated capabilities remains strong and market participants expressed a willingness to look beyond recent volatility, including the so-called "SaaS apocalypse" and geopolitical uncertainties that were largely unanticipated at last year's conference.

Below, we highlight four key themes that emerged from our conversations and the panels we attended at this year’s conference, many of which align closely with what we are seeing in our advisory work across live transactions. 

• Proprietary Access and Relationship-Driven Deal Origination
• Reduced reliance on Multiple Expansion: Operational EBIT Growth as the Primary Return Driver
• Diligence Reimagined: Value Creation Planning from the outset
• Machine-Augmented Judgment and the Talent Imperative

Proprietary Access and Relationship-Driven Deal Origination

Proprietary deal flow and privileged access to management teams emerged as a key differentiator for top performing GPs. Many GPs stressed their ability to source off-market opportunities through deep, longstanding relationships. These themes represents a natural evolution from the founder- and family-led deal conversations of prior years: the emphasis has shifted from identifying attractive deal types to building the institutional capabilities required to access deals like these consistently.

Reduced reliance on Multiple Expansion: Operational EBIT Growth as the Primary Return Driver

If there was one point of clear consensus at SuperReturn 2026, it was this: meaningful multiple expansion is no longer a reliable return generator. With entry multiples elevated, GPs must rely on double-digit EBIT growth through genuine operational transformation.  Leading GPs are embedding operating partners earlier, building deeper management benches, and refining pricing, procurement, and go-to-market strategies. Panelists cited concrete examples, including AI tools that have achieved 1.5 to 2 times sales force productivity, with those gains reinvested in scaling the commercial function rather than cutting headcount. The message was clear: growth, not efficiency alone, will drive value. And the private equity asset class’s core proposition, that skilled active managers can generate superior returns through disciplined operational improvement even when traditional tailwinds have faded, has never felt more relevant.

Diligence Reimagined: Value Creation Planning from the outset 

The traditional diligence model, focused on financing needs and risk mitigation, is giving way to a more holistic view of the investment: mapping out value creation planning from the very start. In today’s competitive environment for the best assets, winning bidders have typically paid full price. Panelists underlined if you have won, you need real conviction in a specific value creation plan that justifies what you paid. In our experience, this is reshaping how transactions are structured from the outset. Value creation theses now inform SPA drafting, financing strategy, management incentive structures, risk allocation, diligence scopes, and execution sequencing. In our work with sponsors, we are also increasingly taking that integrated approach, connecting commercial strategy with deal documentation at every stage of the process.

Machine-Augmented Judgment and the Talent Imperative

Unsurprisingly, AI remained prominent at this year’s conference and the conversation has matured considerably. It has moved from questions of adoption to questions of integration: how do you combine technological capability with exceptional talent to create a sustainable competitive advantage? The emphasis was firmly on machine augmentation of human judgment, not replacement. Companies that embrace AI to fundamentally rewire how they work will grow faster and attract better talent. In live processes, we are seeing sponsors and portfolio companies increasingly seek practical guidance on AI governance frameworks, cost discipline, data readiness, implementation risk allocation, and integration planning.

Panelists drew a clear line between firms using AI as a productivity tool and those building cultures where AI genuinely amplifies professional judgment. There was also a tacit acknowledgement that setting unrealistic adoption goals tends to produce paralysis rather than progress. Notably, while the current chapter of AI in private equity has been about adoption and integration, speakers acknowledged that the next chapter will be about cost and efficiency. Most companies are learning to track the true cost of AI deployment, and understanding that cost base will be essential as adoption scales. 

The concept of “knowledge scale” within GPs came up repeatedly: the compounding advantage that comes from implementing transformation across hundreds of companies globally, learning from each deployment, and feeding those insights back into subsequent investments. Sponsors remain focused on companies where AI integration remains underdeveloped, seeing opportunities to apply their own deployment experience to unlock efficiency gains and accelerate growth. 

Please click here and here for more of our takeaways from the SuperReturn International 2026 Conference.

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