The corona crisis is throwing the leading international conference of the private equity industry out of sync: The SuperReturn in Berlin will take place next year from June 14th to 17th, as the operator announced in response to a FAZ request.

It is usually held in the German capital at the end of February.

This year it was postponed several times due to the Corona crisis - first to June, then to September and finally again to November.

The distance to the next usual appointment in February 2022 would then be short.

Klaus Max Smolka

Editor in business.

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This year's event - next week - is unusually sold out. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the organizer has set a maximum of 2000 participants. But that was the usual number of guests a few years ago; Only the most recent SuperReturn in February 2020 attracted more than 3000 visitors. Considering that the pandemic continues to generate uncertainty, the demand shows the hunger of private equity actors for physical meetings and networking opportunities - although, to its own surprise, the industry has coped well with its deals via digital long-distance meetings in the past year and a half to negotiate. Many participants come to Berlin primarily because of the chancemeet many other private equity professionals in just a few days - and make a chance acquaintance here and there in the aisles and at events around the fair.

Exciting conference program

It starts next Tuesday with “Summit Day”, which includes several thematic special summits, including the “German Private Equity Summit”.

From Wednesday to Friday there will be debates on the “main days”.

A third of the SuperReturn participants recently came from the group of institutional donors: These are, for example, administrators of family assets, pension and state funds.

The most recent physically held conference in 2020 took place in the last few days before the crisis fully gripped Germany.

Financial investors acquire stakes in companies, try to increase their value and typically sell them on after three to seven years.

The conference program will cover topics such as the relationship between private equity firms and donors and the competing role of “spacs”, ie listed companies that are also on the hunt for takeovers.

The mega and fashionable topic ESG - ecology, social affairs and corporate governance - is also discussed.

Globally, private equity is sitting on trillions of euros of committed funds that want to be invested.

For years, the question has been raised whether a bubble here continues to inflate - but so far the prices for takeovers have continued to rise, unaffected by the Corona crisis.