“ According to the Financial Times, roughly one-fifth of all private equity exits this year involved firms raising fresh cash from new suckers investors to buy portfolio companies from their own aging funds.

That's a sharp jump from the 12-13% seen in prior years, with Raymond James' Sunaina Sinha Haldea predicting a staggering $107 billion in these incestuous transactions for 2025, blowing past last year's $70 billion.

These so-called "continuation vehicles" let PE barons hand money back to restless limited partners in older funds while keeping control of the assets - and, crucially, resetting the clock on lucrative management fees and carried interest.

It's the ultimate have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scam: cash out the old money, lock in the new money, and keep milking the same cow indefinitely.

"This year is set to break all records," Sinha Haldea crowed, calling it a "popular and effective win-win-win liquidity solution" in a market where real exits remain frozen.

Translation: when you can't find a greater fool outside your own circle, just invent a new fund and pass the hot potato internally.

Jefferies' Skip Fahrholz chimed in that global volume will hit close to $100 billion, confirming the feeding frenzy.“ zerohedge.com - Ft exposes literal definition ponzi scheming private equity