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Episode 420 · 2026-11-06 · 1:20:52 · Original in Finnish

Private Equity Investors | Marko Junkkari | Neuvottelija 420

Originally published as “Pääomasijoittajat | Marko Junkkari | Neuvottelija 420”

Helsingin Sanomat journalist Marko Junkkari interviewed about 60 people, from London's mega-funds to Finnish buyout houses, for his book Pääomasijoittajat (Private Equity Investors, Otava 2026). The episode unpacks why the end of zero interest rates froze exits, what continuation funds and zombie funds are, and how the GP–LP structure, management fee, hurdle rate and carried interest work in practice. Junkkari explains how he got Sponsor, Intera and Vaaka to publish their fund returns, and goes through the stories of CapMan, EQT, DevCo Partners and Tesi and the two generations of Finnish venture capital. At the core is a tension: why Finnish pension insurers put tens of billions into American mega-funds while domestic funds stay small and scale-up funding is missing. The episode ends with the solutions on offer, from Tesi's Finland Club to the Swedish model in which individuals direct part of their own pension savings. According to Junkkari the book was commissioned by the industry; Sami Miettinen is himself an LP investor and investment banker. Not investment advice.

Guest: Marko Junkkari · Host: Sami Miettinen

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Key moments

  1. 00:00 — Opening montage: exits, continuation funds and pension insurers
  2. 01:25 — Marko Junkkari as a guest for the third time
  3. 02:12 — Kurt Björklund, Finland's most successful private equity investor
  4. 03:19 — Mega-funds versus small Finnish funds
  5. 04:03 — London's mega-funds and KKR's pre-interview
  6. 05:54 — Björklund's motorway analogy of the industry's cycles
  7. 07:17 — Zero rates ended and exits dried up
  8. 09:46 — Department stores, continuation funds and debt on debt
  9. 11:08 — Basic terms: GP, LP and the fund life cycle
  10. 14:08 — US scale and the disappearance of listed companies
  11. 15:12 — Why private equity has beaten the stock market
  12. 16:42 — Bridgepoint, A-Katsastus and Finland's buyout gap
  13. 18:49 — The industry's history in Finland and EQT's rise
  14. 21:32 — Sami's regret: the Nordic Capital job
  15. 22:42 — Fee model, hurdle rate and carried interest
  16. 24:46 — Ari Tolppanen and the book's scope
  17. 27:20 — The private equity investor's entrepreneurial risk and zombie funds
  18. 29:56 — Buyout fund returns and Sponsor's first fund
  19. 32:43 — Intera's rise to a 450-million fund
  20. 34:08 — Bocap and Taaleri's deal-by-deal funds
  21. 35:27 — DevCo Partners and single-asset funds
  22. 38:41 — Vexve and the ball-valve success story
  23. 40:28 — Eqvitec's wind-down and the pension insurers' disappointment
  24. 41:50 — Venture, growth and buyout distinguished
  25. 42:37 — The dot-com crash killed the first venture generation
  26. 45:33 — Timo Ahopelto, CRF Health and the birth of Lifeline
  27. 47:27 — The second generation, Slush and the startup miracle
  28. 50:02 — MB Funds and Kotkamills' board machine
  29. 52:44 — CapMan's buyout series broken by the financial crisis
  30. 54:32 — CapMan in real estate, infrastructure and salmon transport
  31. 57:54 — Pia Santavirta and Tesi's strategy battle
  32. 1:01:04 — Tesi's fund investments and direct investments
  33. 1:04:51 — The scale-up funding gap and the Finland Club
  34. 1:08:31 — Pension billions to US funds and the size of Finnish funds
  35. 1:12:29 — The Swedish model and individual choice as a solution
  36. 1:15:28 — Sami's book review and editorial freedom in commissioned work
  37. 1:18:48 — Next, an investment banking book?
  38. 1:19:52 — US midterms in the Inner Circle

Summary

Who he is. Marko Junkkari is a Helsingin Sanomat journalist and nonfiction author, on Neuvottelija for the third time. His book Pääomasijoittajat (Otava, 8 October 2026) is based on about 60 interviews, from Permira’s Kurt Björklund and KKR’s European leadership to Finnish buyout houses, venture investors and the state investor Tesi.

Disclosures. According to Junkkari the book is commissioned work: the investment company of Intera Partners founder Tuomas Lang paid a fee, and other private equity firms and the Finnish Venture Capital Association committed to buying copies; he says he had a free hand. Sami Miettinen is an investment banker, an LP investor in private equity funds and a member of the association’s communications working group. Not investment advice.

Why the industry is braking. Björklund’s motorway analogy: when someone brakes hard, the whole queue slows. The end of zero rates left funds holding companies bought at high valuations, exits and distributions to LPs dried up, and LPs stopped committing to new funds. The largest firms do well; many mid-sized ones struggle. Continuation funds, in which a manager sells a company to itself, and slowly withering “zombie” funds are two symptoms of the same jam.

How a fund works. A limited partnership in which the GP calls committed capital as targets are found, holds companies for 3–7 years within a 10+2-year fund life, charges about 2% a year and takes 20% carry above a 6–8% hurdle. Control and leverage explain why private equity has historically beaten the stock market.

Finnish returns in public. Sponsor Capital agreed to publish its fund returns, and Intera and Vaaka followed; MB Funds declined. Intera closed a €450 million fund, the largest Finnish buyout fund, in the week of recording. DevCo Partners’ reported 6–7x multiples remain unverified claims.

Pension billions. Miettinen criticises Finnish pension insurers for putting tens of billions into American mega-funds and proposes the Swedish model in which individuals direct part of their contribution. Junkkari answers that Finnish exposure is already large on the listed side and that Finnish funds are too small for billion-a-year allocators. The dispute stays open. The conversation continues in the members’ episode Neuvottelija Sisäpiiri 170 on the US midterms.

Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Pääomasijoittajat | Marko Junkkari | Neuvottelija 420. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.

In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form, fact-checked write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.

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People and topics

Guests: Marko Junkkari

Topics: Investing & Markets Ownership, Capital & Tax Finnish Economy & Policy

AI and agent resources

Source and content status

Provenance: Finnish source: Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the publisher's own description and chapter marks, translated one for one, and checked against the publisher's own Finnish caption track. The captions carry no speaker labels, so speakers were inferred from the conversation; quotations are translated for sense, not verbatim. No English caption track exists, so no transcript is published here. The book's details and Intera Fund V were checked against the publisher and dated news; the speakers' other figures (DevCo multiples, pension allocations, Oura's Finnish ownership, MB Funds' new fund) were not checked and are flagged in the AI articles.. English subtitles: not available on this page; this is an episode summary, not a curated transcript. QA coverage 100% (transcript timecoded). Original episode: neuvottelija.fi. Imported 2026-11-06 · last reviewed 2026-11-06. Passages the source audio left genuinely ambiguous are marked [unclear] rather than guessed.