Post by Permira

In May, Permira brought together 70 investors from over 40 institutions at the Permira Tokyo Summit 2026 to discuss perspectives on private equity and credit in today's market.   In a world full of noise, it was clear that institutional investors in Japan were aligned on a few core themes: 🔹 The old AI playbook no longer holds. AI is creating structural winners and losers within every sector, including the ones LPs have long considered safe. Adoption is no longer enough; what matters to investors is proof of concrete use cases, measurable outcomes, and governance frameworks 🔹 Deeply embedded, proprietary sector knowledge will drive outcomes in the next credit cycle. The managers that prevail will be those that can properly assess whether businesses are resilient or structurally exposed 🔹 The LP perspective on AI. We were privileged to hear from Taro Morimoto of PFA, who shared how PFA is starting to think through the implications of AI for its own manager selection and portfolio monitoring, a sign that LPs are beginning to ask the same AI-related questions of managers that managers are asking of their portfolio companies. Thank you to everyone who joined us in Tokyo.