A $3tn exit backlog, broken distribution cycles, and AI will separate genuine operators from managers who rode two decades of cheap money, the veteran investor warns. For the better part of two decades, private equity rewarded financial ingenuity. Bernard Sabrier believes that era has ended, and that much of the industry has yet to adjust.

Sabrier, Vice Chairman of Sagard, Chairman of Sagard MENA and Sagard Private Equity, spoke at Private Equity Insights DACH 2026 in a fireside chat moderated by Octavius Mihaies, CEO of Bargold Partners. Sabrier argued that today’s liquidity crisis is the prelude to a lasting paradigm shift.

The managers who emerge from it, he suggested, will look very different from those who thrived when money was almost free. “I’m pretty convinced we will not see zero interest rates again,” he said.