PAI has sought to appease its anxious investors by promising to shrink its new €5.4bn ($7.9bn) buy-out fund, which was frozen after its top two chiefs announced surprise plans to leave continental Europe’s biggest private equity group.

The moves, discussed at a meeting between PAI and its biggest backers in Paris last week, underline how investors are pushing to cut back the world’s biggest buy-out funds in response to the shrinking private equity market.