David Rubenstein, co-founder and travelling salesman for The Carlyle Group, is fond of firing off lists of emerging trends at industry conferences. His latest predictions were made at a speech in Abu Dhabi this week.

1) The private equity industry is shrinking. Deal and fund sizes will be smaller, leverage will remain below its peak and there will be fewer club deals. Large investors will give money to fewer firms. The jury is still out on whether the mega-deals and funds from the boom years will yield strong returns.