Private equity firms are rousing from a slumber since the start of 2026 to start actioning listed sell-downs – and with investors continuing to cycle out of US technology stocks, the time seems right for a reopening of the European blocks market.

US tech stocks have had a rough start to the year; the Nasdaq 100 index has fallen 1.9% YTD and is still 4.9% below its most recent high on 29 October 2025.

By contrast, the STOXX 600 has risen 3.6% since the start of the year, is close to a record high, and is up 7.4% since that tech high watermark on 29 October.

This reweighting away from US tech has been driven by fears that AI technology might end up devouring software as a service (SaaS) business models, but this comes alongside rising concern over bubble-like AI valuations.

Consequently, the market is hovering between an existential fear of the impact of AI technology and terror that growth projections in the sector are unsustainable, leading to an inevitable market drawdown.

This grim cocktail seems to point to an almost inevitable, nasty US-tech hangover.

Despite the appeal of European equities as a quaffable alternative, so far this year there have been few listed sell-downs to take advantage of rising buyside demand.

European block volumes of USD 4.5bn as of 12 February, are well below the USD 7.2bn of accelerated sell-downs priced by the same date in 2025.

But this should soon change.

There were early signs of a reopening last week, with a USD 563bn-equivalent sell-down in Swedish-listed NOBA Bank, sold by IPO sellers Nordic Capital and Sampo Oyj.

The deal took place almost a month-and-a-half before the first lock-up since NOBA’s September 2025 IPO was due to expire, driven by international investors hungry for more exposure to the name, according to a banker close to the transaction.

Although 200 investors took part, the book was highly concentrated to the top long-only buyers in the book, most of whom were already investors in the business since IPO.

According to Dealogic institutional holdings data, major international investors T.Rowe Price, Fidelity Management and Research, Wellington Asset Management, Schroder Investment Management and TIAA-CREF, were among the largest shareholders in NOBA Bank after its IPO.

Source: Dealogic

Europe’s slower start in sell-downs can be attributed to several factors, according to bankers speaking to ECM Pulse.

The first is calendar. Christmas in 2025 fell in such a way that buysiders and dealmakers were not back at their desks enough before full year reporting blackouts kicked in during the last two weeks of January; this silent running then put a halt on any trading before results.

In the two weeks that were technically actionable, geopolitical turmoil driven by US President Donald Trump’s threats over Greenland kept some sellers on the sidelines, there has also been the heightened market volatility driven by selling in US tech names.

“Follow on volumes have also been affected by episodic volatility,” one of the bankers said, while also confirming the impact of the Greenland drama on possible deals in the first two weeks of the year. Another noted that he had several trades that had not launched in January due to the brief spike in geopolitical tension.

Sponsor sellers ready to return

Private equity companies are particularly incentivised to get on with listed disposal programmes, given the need to return capital to their LPs, as frequently mentioned by this column over the past year.

Once full-year reporting is out of the way, there is an expectation of a glut of deals from these sellers, as well as corporates disposing of non-core assets, or even opportunistic selling by institutional shareholders in hot sectors.

The largest accelerated bookbuild of the year so far, a USD 680m-equivalent sale in French defence firm Thales by an undisclosed shareholder, represents exactly that sort of deal.

Demand for the few European deals there have been this year, plus the gargantuan levels of interest in the IPOs of Czechoslovak Group and ASTA Energy, show there is plenty of international interest in European equity markets.

“We have definitely had a supply issue, demand is incredible – with appetite to deploy capital very high,” another of the bankers noted. “We expect it to kick off in short-order; 80% of the Stoxx 600 is at, or close to, a record high and roughly 60% of listed Europe was on blackout last week.

“Once that ends the environment for deals should be good.”

As European equity close periods fall away, investors may decide to take proceeds from their selling of US positions and deploy in Europe at scale, especially given that much of the old continent’s listed universe does not centre around high growth tech but more traditional industries not as exposed to AI.

Also, despite a rise in the STOXX 600 vs US tech stocks, there is still a large gap between US and European valuations.

“Potential European blocks are broadly spread across more traditional industries than growth-tech,” noted the first banker. “It is a different kind of asset but at the moment that is just what investors are looking for.”

In a recent fund manager survey from Bank of America, 59% of European fund managers expected the continent’s equities to outperform the US in 2026. Also, a net 25% of investors in the same survey noted they were overweight Europe, intriguingly a net 3% noted they were positionally underweight the US.

When sellers decide to restart their listed disposal programmes, they will likely find an eager investor base waiting for them.