According to new WSJ reporting, U.S. private-equity assets stuck in funds at least a decade old hit an all-time high of $348.5 billion at the end of 2025, 3.5 times the amount in 2015 and more than 100 times that of 2005. As the Journal notes, these funds are no longer raising money or making new acquisitions, in part because fund managers haven't been able to sell their remaining assets. And it's not just today's problem: the net asset value of funds in the seven-to-nine-year-old bucket reached $512.7 billion in 2025, more than two times that of 2015.

The Journal also points to the scale of the broader backlog. The estimated value of unsold portfolio companies totaled $3.91 trillion as of September 2025, locking up 74% of all North American private-equity assets on balance sheets, up from $922.8 billion a decade earlier.

As one fund manager told the Journal, describing the skeleton crews now running some of these aging funds:

In some cases, it's three guys and a Labrador running the last few assets of the fund.