EQT AB (publ)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to EQT's Q3 announcement. Today, we're thrilled to announce the acquisition of Stockbridge, a leading U.S. real estate investment manager. And during the quarter, we also closed the Kohler Capital transaction, all while fundraising momentum, deal flow, and value creation remained strong. But before handing over to Per, let me ask again that we limit questions to two in today's Q&A so we have time for everyone's questions. So over to you, Per. Next slide, please.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Let me start today with some reflections on the PEI ranking published last week. After the acquisition of Kohler Capital, EQT is now the third largest private markets firm globally. We are by a distance the largest non-US firm. And we're the only firm in the top 20 without a private credit platform. In today's environment, this is an important differentiator. In a volatile and uncertain world, we are the performance-focused, trusted, reliable and strategic partner for investors. We're the global provider of international alpha. Thanks to the breadth of our platform, we can deliver unique opportunities and differentiated solutions. Through our AI infrastructure fund, we provide access to the value creation in the world's second largest developer of data center capacity in 2026, EdgeConnex. In the Scale Up Europe fund, we provide access to the most attractive startups in Europe. The Scale Up Europe fund puts EQT really at the heart of the European growth ecosystem. It also helps us position EQT as the natural partner for global asset allocators that want to get access to private market opportunities in Europe. In our private equity strategies, we can give investors exposure to the demographic and economic growth in Asia. 60% of the economic growth in the world is coming from Asia, but only 5% of the capital raised for private markets funds are invested there. Thanks to joining forces with Kohler, we can engage with clients on their strategic asset allocation considerations. We can provide clients with the most attractive liquidity solutions and we can help them stay invested in their winners and support them in rebalancing their portfolios. Today, with the acquisition of StockBridge, we're taking another step in the development of EQT and in making EQT an even more attractive partner for clients. As we stated in our first half update, broadening the thematic focus areas and growing our real estate platform is a strategic priority for us. performance in equity real estate remains strong, and we want to be able to offer investors access to more alpha in this asset class. We'll come back to Stockbridge shortly. Today, we're really in a stronger position than ever before. I've never been more excited about what we're building. In a tricky environment for our industry, we continue to produce attractive deal flow and good returns for investors. Thanks to our strong local presence in our target geographies, we can unlock attractive investment opportunities in our prioritized sectors, and we find those opportunities both in the public markets and in the private markets. And we deliver the most compelling co-invest program globally. Over the last 12 months, we doubled our fund-based investments to 30 billion euros. At the same time, we sent back 29 billion euros to clients. Over the past 24 months, distributions amounted to 58 billion euros. We will keep on investing in our value creation toolbox, in our AI capabilities and our capital markets expertise so that we can maintain the attractive value creation momentum in our portfolio, and that we can maintain those top-quartile DPIs in our key funds. On the back of our strong track record and the strong performance we've generated, our fundraising momentum is excellent, and we are taking market share. Over the last 12 months, global fundraising volumes for the industry are down 13%. During this... ...strategies to scale up Europe Fund and the AI Infra Fund. including Kohler Capital, our fundraising outlook for this cycle is now 140 billion euros, which is up from the original guidance of 100 billion euros. This puts us in a position where we will have significant dry powder to invest in an environment where competition for deals is lower, and where public market valuation multiples for many of our where we will have significant dry powder to invest in an environment where competition for deals is lower and where public market valuation multiples for many of our target sectors are attractive in a long-term perspective. Next slide, please. We closed the acquisition of Kohler Capital end of August and the combination is off to a good start. The secondaries market is one of the fastest growing areas of the private markets industry. Deal volume in the first half of 2026 is up 20% year on year. There are a number of forces behind this structural growth trend, including increasing client demand for liquidity solutions and private market investors wanting to stay invested with their best assets for longer. Our colleagues from Kohler EQT give us access to these capabilities and to arguably one of the longest and most consistent track records in the secondaries industry. ACROSS THE MOST RECENT FLAGSHIP FUNDS, COLOR HAS DELIVERED FIRST QUARDIAL NET RETURNS. In the short term, at CollarEQT, we're focused on the launch of the fundraisings for the new generation of the private equity and credit secondary funds, on capturing the attractive growth opportunity that we're seeing in the insurance segment, where we really see strong demand for the structuring solutions that CollarEQT can offer. and we're focused on accelerating the product build-out both for our institutional clients and for our wealth clients. We remain confident in the target that we've communicated to double Kohler's fee-based assets under management in less than four years. Next slide, please. The latest product addition to the EQT platform is the ScaleUp Europe Fund. In this strategy, we're off to an amazing start. Deal flow is above even our most optimistic assumptions. And it's clear that Europe doesn't have a startup problem, but it has a scale-up challenge. This strategy is perfectly designed to address this challenge and to capture this opportunity. And the fund has already announced seven investments, including iSci, Europe's leader in radar satellite intelligence, Tandem, a leading European clinical AI platform, and Mistral, the leading European sovereignty AI platform. The pipeline that we see going forward remains deep across geographies, the targeted subsectors, and I expect the investment pace to remain healthy. Demand from investors globally for this fund is very encouraging, and we expect demand to significantly surpass the 5 billion euro target fund size. Next slide, please. Post being awarded the mandate to manage the scale-up Europe fund, EQT has become the preferred partner for talented founders and entrepreneurs. Most of them now want to have EQT and the scale-up Europe fund as a shareholder. And this is really also what we're seeing in the attractive deal flow that I just spoke about. In addition to this, there's also a broader positive halo effect across all of EQT and the entire EQT platform. The win of this mandate to manage the Scale Up Europe Fund and the way we're delivering on this strategy has really elevated EQT's standing globally. Thanks to our track record, EQT being a true European success story, and post the endorsement from the European Commission EQT is now seen as the partner of choice for founders and global private market investors. Entrepreneurs in Europe are looking for a partner that can give them access to relevant sector expertise, operating capabilities, and really the support to help them win globally. Investors from around the world are turning to EQT for access to the most attractive European investment opportunities and access to the most attractive alpha in Europe. We're the only platform in the industry investing into Europe across ventures, growth, life sciences, buyouts, secondaries and infrastructure, making us the natural partner for investors looking for exposure to this part of the world. Next slide, please. Let me next turn to the AI Infrastructure Fund. This is another example of a recently launched strategy where we see excellent momentum. In the quarter, NAV grew more than 20% to $11.5 billion, up from $9.4 billion at the end of Q2. Just below half of that increase came from capital raising and the rest from value creation. We see continued strong growth ahead in NAV. To put the current NAV into perspective and to give everyone a better sense for the potential size that this strategy can achieve over time, EdgeConnex today has a total equity value of around $50 billion, so approximately four times the fund's current NAV. Over time, we expect the AI Infra Fund to continue to acquire shares in EdgeConnex from selling shareholders. Next slide, please. Let me Since our entry in 2020, EdgeConnex has grown into one of the largest data center platforms globally. When ICT Infrastructure 4 acquired EdgeConnex, it was a regional data center operator with around 200 megawatts of contracted capacity. In 2026, EdgeConnex is the second largest developer of data center capacity globally. And actually ahead of every other private markets owned platform. Today, EdgeConnex has more than 90 data center sites across 26 countries on five continents. and 96% of contracted capacity is serving hyperscalers, investment-grade counterparties that have entered into long-term contracts with EdgeConnex. Since our investment, contracted recurring revenue has grown more than tenfold, and the equity value has increased from around $1.5 billion to $50 billion. We expect continued strong growth for Edge Connects as of the end of 2025. Edge had around 1.3 gigawatts of contracted capacity. We expect to end 2026 at around 3.5 gigawatts of contracted capacity. In other words, the business has nearly tripled in scale in a single year. EdgeConnex is truly a unique asset. It's the only global independent pure play operator. And thanks to the integrated investment strategy that we have applied in equity infrastructure over the last years, EdgeConnex can bring power, fiber, and capital from across the equity infrastructure platform to the hyperscalers. And this is really a differentiated proposition. EQT remains the largest shareholder, so we control this business. And with the open-ended AI infrastructure fund that we have set up, we can really keep scaling this business and also this strategy for years to come. Next slide, please. Yeah, and now we'll turn to our real estate business and the acquisition of StockBridge. EGT Real Estate is a top-performing platform with an excellent long-term track record. Since acquiring Exeter in 2021, we have doubled fee-based AUM and more than doubled fee-related EBITDA. Today, we're investing one of the largest sector-specific real estate funds in the US and in Europe. Thank you very much. and to strengthen our team and broaden our offering. Stockbridge brings top-performing, diversified, open-ended core funds and complementary thematics to equity real estate, and it will strengthen our existing team for the industrial core plus and value-add strategies. Stockbridge brings a 20-plus year track record and a team that's also culturally well aligned with equity. So with this transaction, we're building a stronger equity real estate platform with a broader and even more attractive offering for clients and a more well-positioned larger business that will be driving profit growth and margin expansion over time. It's 100% cash deal, and we believe that we have sourced this transaction at attractive terms for shareholders. Next slide, please. Thanks to Stockbridge, we will be broadening the EQT real estate strategies into new thematic focus areas. Stockbridge has an excellent track record in alternative living. We're also creating a more scaled and diversified platform. Post-closing, the industrial segment will represent around 75% of assets under management and living will increase to around 20% of the business. And we will have a stronger offering of core and core plus products. In total, the combined platform will have around 600 full time employees and $42 billion of fee based AUM up from 25 billion today. I'm really, really excited to welcome Stockbridge and the Stockbridge team to EQT and look forward to the collaboration. I'll now hand it over to Gustav, who will provide you with more details on this transaction.

Thank you, Per. And good morning, everyone. We're very excited about expanding our real estate business and we think that we've found a great partner in Stockbridge. They have around 185 employees across six offices and manages over 16 billion US dollars of fee paying AUM on behalf of around 180 institutional clients. They've built the business across four main areas. First, alternative living. Stockbridge has realized 15 billion US dollars in value in manufacturer housing at a net IRR of close to 20% and a net MOIC of over 4x in one of the best real estate track record that exists in the market. Secondly, the open-ended core, which is an established and high-performing product with $4 billion of fee-paying AUM and has delivered top 5% performance over the last one year, three years, and five years compared to PEARS. Thirdly, the industrial outdoor storage, an attractive niche within logistics where Stockbridge has a scale presence with over 2 billion US dollars of fee-paying AUM, highly complementary to IKT Real Estate's existing logistics offering. And fourth, separate managed accounts with around US$10 billion of VPing AUM that are both diversified and sector-specific across this risk spectrum and represents important relationship with strategic clients seeking targeted returns. Next slide, please. We see a number of clear value levers in this. First, by adding Stockbrit's industrial outdoor storage expertise to EQT's logistics capabilities, we can continue to expand our leading industrial platform. Secondly, we're building out the alternative living side and broadening our thematic focus beyond logistics. Stockbrit's longstanding track record in alternative living gives us a unique platform to build out. Third, growing the core platform. We will aim to scale Stockbridge's open-ended core products through EQT's global client network and deal sourcing capabilities. This is something that we've done before. In the last US real estate fund, the first flagship fund raised after we acquired Exeter, around 15% of the commitments came from EQT source clients. And in BPA 9, the same statistics was close to 25%. And fourth, we're planning to fully integrate the two real estate businesses and create a stronger business together with significant platform benefits across operations, analytics and AI. Next slide, please. So let me now turn to the financial contribution. For 2027, we expect Stockbridge to have fee-paying AUM of 17 to 19 billion US dollars. management fees of 120 to 130 million US dollars and fee-related EBTA of 35 to 45 million US dollars. In the coming years, we expect fee-related EBTA for the stock business to grow by 15 to 20% annually. Next slide, please. Finally, let me also talk about how we structure the transaction to ensure alignment of interest and a focus on long-term growth. This is 100% cash acquisition with a base consideration of 375 million US dollars. 50% of the base considerations will be reinvested by the sellers in equity shares with similar type of lockups as we've seen in our other transactions. On top of this, there is also an earn out of up to 175 million US dollars subject to certain performance targets. As Per mentioned, we believe that we sourced this transaction at fairly sensible terms where the base considerations represents a high single digit multiple of the 2027 fee related EBTA that you saw on the previous page. We expect this transaction to close in Q1, 2027. Next slide, please. So, turning to fundraising, where we see strong momentum across the platform. During the third quarter, net inflows and value development added another 42 billion euros to the fee-paying AUM. This includes 34 billion euros from Kohler following the closing of the transaction. The key funds had net inflows of 11 billion euro during the quarter, which is largely attributable to the addition of Kohler and hence Kip9. We expect EQT11 to be activated in the next few months and hence that EQT11 will be included in the fee generating AUM by year end. On the back of the deals done in 2026, including Intertech, as well as the performance of EQT 10, we're seeing continued good momentum for EQT 11, while recognizing that the fundraise will continue throughout 2027. As previously communicated, we expect to activate Infra 7 around year end and have an early close in December with the first close in H1 2027. On the back of continued strong performance for infrastructure, we see very promising fundraising dialogues. And finally, on the key funds, the fundraising for KIPP10 is expected to be launched early 2027. Across other closed-ended strategies, we're currently in the market with around 10 funds. We've already secured commitments of more than 3 billion euros for the Scale Up Europe fund, For ColorEQT, we've launched a fundraising for CCO3. The fund charges fees on invested capital and is yet to be activated. And we've held the final close of the healthcare growth fund at 1.4 billion euros in line with the target. On the institutional open-ended side, the AI infrastructure reached an NAV of $11.5 billion at the end of Q3, an increase of more than $2 billion during the quarter. About half of it was related to strong value appreciation, and the rest was related to capital raised. All capital raised was used to sell down in EdgeConnex in Infra 4 and Infra 5. During the quarter, we activated our open-ended active core fund. The fund charges fees on NAV and contributed with around $0.7 billion to fee-paying AUM at activation. As of Q3, just above 10% of our fee-paying AUM is now charged on NAV and hence growing with the performance, up from around 1% just 12 months ago. Lastly, our private wealth evergreens. I'll come back on these in a moment. I also want to explain a change in how we're going to present ColorEQT's fee-paying AUM from year-end. In contrast to the legacy EQT funds, ColorEQT funds stepped down in fee rate and not in capital base. To align the presentation of the fee-paying AUM across EQT, the step-down in fee rates will instead be reflected in the fee-generating AUM base going forward. On this basis, Kohler EQT's fee-paying AUM is 33 billion US dollars compared to the reported 38 billion euros as of the end of September. And our previous guidance of 40 billion US dollars per year end is hence instead going to be 35 billion US dollars. Given the lower fee-paying AUM, the average fee rate will instead be higher as the management fees received are the same. So this is purely a technical change in order to align reporting. And in the appendix of this webcast presentation, you will find an illustrative case on how this is done. Next slide, please. So let me zoom in on the insurance side. This is one of the most interesting and fastest growing pools of capital in private markets. Insurance capital is expected to grow by close to 10% annually to reach above 10 trillion US dollars by 2035. At the same time, insurance companies operate in highly regulated environment. And to participate at scale, you need fixed income exposure and strong structuring capabilities. On a standalone basis, EQT has been structurally limited in this area. Through Collar EQT, which brings deep insurance relationships and a dedicated team with in-house structuring expertise. Insurance clients account for close to 25% of Kohler-EQT's client commitments compared to less than 10% for EQT as a whole. And since 2024, Kohler-EQT has raised almost 9 billion US dollars from insurance, including a 2.7 billion US structured product during the third quarter. This is a core growth area for Colorado EQT going forward, but also for EQT as a whole, given the possibility to create combined primary and secondary insurance solutions. Next slide, please. We continue to see strong inflow across the Evergreen platform. Interest has been particularly strong in our US-focused Evergreen infrastructure vehicle, which passed US$1 billion in NAV during the quarter after being launched in early 2026. This is a clear sign of continued strong investor demand for infrastructure exposure. Q3 is a seasonally less active quarter given the summer holiday period. Net inflows still amounted to around 0.9 billion dollar euro during the quarter compared to 1 billion euro during Q2. Across those six months, September was the strongest single month. Redemptions is included in the net inflow and remained limited at around 1% of NAV during the quarter. And during Q3, we've also launched EQT Nexus Asia, a new Asia-focused private equity evergreen vehicle. And with that, I will hand over to Olof. Next slide, please.