The proliferation of new products, ranging from infrastructure and real estate to private credit and growth equity is also increasing competition among the big funds, said Graham Elton, chair of Bain & Company’s Emea private equity business.

“One of the big stories over the last two or three years in the fund space is successful GPs launching into other asset classes...whether it’s by deal size, geography or sector, within the buyout space or getting into infrastructure or some have gone into credit or even real estate. That then leads to increased competition.”