Private equity has a timing problem, and it works in JP Conte’s favor. The median age of companies exited in the first half of 2025 sat around six years, while firms still held roughly eight and a half to nine years of inventory across their portfolios, per PwC.
That backlog is the quiet pressure behind the megadeal headlines. JP Conte, managing partner of Lupine Crest Capital, watches it closely, because aging portfolios eventually become someone else’s buying opportunity.
Why the Backlog Keeps Growing
Sponsors that committed capital in 2017 and 2018 now sit seven and eight years into holds underwritten for four-to-five-year exits. Each quarter a company stays unsold, the limited-partner letters grow more pointed.
Liquidity pressure is what funnels those assets to market. Limited partners want their money back, and that demand pushes sponsors to sell into whatever buyer pool can absorb the inventory. A backlog that deep does not clear quietly, and the longer it sits, the more motivated those sellers become.
Where Patient Buyers Step In
Assets sold under a clock tend to price for the seller’s need rather than the buyer’s appetite. A family office with no redemption deadline can wait for those moments and take quality companies at liquidity-driven prices.
Lupine Crest bought at similar vintages and simply held, which means JP Conte is not forced to sell under the same pressure now squeezing fund-stage owners. That asymmetry turns the exit clock into a source of supply.
The 12-to-18-Month View
A megadeal-heavy stretch sharpens the urgency to clear older holdings, and more middle-market assets should reach the market over the next year to year and a half. Bain & Company’s 2026 report describes the broader recovery as selective, with longer holds and tighter valuations.
Patient capital reads that forecast as runway. JP Conte gets the longest window to pick which assets to take down, and at what price, while sellers race their own deadlines. Buying from a seller on a clock, rather than against a rival with the same patience, is the structural advantage the aging-portfolio cycle keeps handing to family offices.