Private Equity Insights

We analyzed over 13,600 investor portfolios and ranked the largest 250 PE investors in Europe (300+ hours of research) Congratulations to all the leaders: 🥇 CVC (managing a total enterprise value of €70bn across Europe) 🥈 KKR (€66bn) 🥉 EQT Group (€61bn) Other investors in the top 10 include Blackstone (€58bn), Cinven (€45bn), Ardian (€41bn), The Carlyle Group (€33bn), TDR Capital (€32bn), Advent (€32bn) and Bain Capital (€31bn). Collectively, the top 250 private equity firms manage an EV of €1.7tn in Europe. A few other insights from the data: 1. Investors established in the 1990s or before manage 77% of the total EV 2. The top 25 investors manage roughly the same EV as the next 225 combined 3. Europe 250 investors have an avg. EBITDA of €94m and manage 26 companies each 4. German HQ’d investors are underrepresented in the ranking with just 3% of total EV 5. London is home to 50 of the top 250 investors, followed by Paris (32) and New York (21) 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 - Hg (TMT) - CVC (Services and Industrials) - EQT Group (Science & Health) - KKR (Energy & Materials)  - Cinven (Financial Services) - TDR Capital (Consumer) Services, Consumer, and TMT are the largest PE markets by sector. Notably, Hg in TMT and TDR Capital in Consumer predominantly target those sectors, representing 71% and 69% of their portfolio, respectively. Compared to European investors, North American investors overweight TMT, Financial Services and Energy & Materials. They underallocate to Services, Industrials and Healthcare. 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 Hg, Cinven and Astorg stand out with high-growth, high-margin portfolios. CD&R, TDR Capital and PAI Partners rank among the largest employers in Europe given their large retail/consumer portfolio. Waterland Private Equity stands out as a big buyer of family-owned businesses. ________ 𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 Tons of more insights and charts in the full analysis: 💡List of top 250 investors 💡Sector and Regional rankings 💡Portfolio insights (Growth, holding periods, and more) 💡Detailed methodology Get it here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ezekm4MJ #investors #pe #europe #insights

The best defense is a good (funding) offense. Investors, governments, and builders are all in on defense tech. In recent weeks, we saw major deals and announcements including Anduril's oversubscribed $2.5B Series G, Anthropic's release of defense-specific models, and Impulse Space's $300M Series C. 🚀 Defense tech is having a breakout year – on track for a record-breaking year with projected investor participation up 31% YoY to nearly 1,000 unique investors. This surge represents the highest level of investor interest ever recorded in the sector. The momentum is particularly striking given broader venture market headwinds, signaling that defense tech has become a must-have allocation for institutional portfolios. 💸 The investor base is diversifying beyond traditional defense-focused funds, with generalist VCs like a16z and 8VC developing specific theses in the sector. These investors bring Silicon Valley playbooks — rapid iteration, software scalability, and platform thinking — to an industry historically dominated by slow-moving defense primes. This cross-pollination is accelerating innovation cycles from years to months in critical areas like autonomous systems manufacturing. 🌏 Geopolitical tensions and the Ukraine conflict have validated the strategic importance of defense tech, driving both government and private capital allocation. Earnings call mentions of "defense" reached an all-time high in Q1 2025, while major tech companies and the hottest AI startups are forming consortiums to compete for DoD contracts. This mainstreaming of defense tech reduces reputational risk for investors and opens institutional capital pools previously unavailable to the sector. In chatting with Justin Fanelli (CTO, Department of Navy), it is clear that the increased investor and builder is fueled by the government's increasingly innovation-forward appetite. "Investors and founders who have backed this sector and mission have moved the needle for national security, even while we've been slow, reluctant buyers. We are now overhauling the way we buy at scale. We have shifted many buyer orgs from program offices to more flexible portfolios. This is one of several ways we're putting far more emphasis on impact and value. Innovation adoption and commercial-first pushes have already made us more adaptive and resilient. We want a wider base of high performers. What's better than competition to serve those who serve all Americans better? Recent AI and raise news shows there's more room to make bigger impacts. If we nail this, I think it's fair to expect impact and investment will continue to grow." Curious about the defense tech markets and companies seeing the most interest? Explore the data and insights for *free* in the comments.

Private equity (PE) funds are acquiring major stakes in tech firms operating in areas like digital engineering and healthcare, Beena Parmar reports for The Economic Times. Technology was the top sector for PE/VC investments in Q1 2025, with $3.1 billion invested across 41 deals — a 265% year-on-year value increase, according to IVCA-EY data. While Kedaara Capital in January invested $350 million in data, analytics, and AI solutions firm Impetus Technologies, H.I.G Capital acquired Converge Technology Solutions for C$1.3 billion earlier this year. Agiltas PE also purchased Tietoevry Tech Services for €300 million. Around 70-80 new buyers have entered the market, says Shobhit Jain, Head of Enterprise, Technology, and Services at Avendus Capital. He adds that there is an increasing interest in large deals, because sub-segments like cloud and analytics have seen a 20-40% growth, even in large-scale businesses. What's driving this surge in mergers and acquisitions (M&As)? The fact that in today's tech landscape, a purely organic growth model doesn't result in significant, double-digit growth, adds the Economic Times report, citing analysts. Gaurav Vasu, founder and CEO of UnearthInsight, adds that there has been a 200% growth in M&A investments by PE-backed IT services firms. In 2024, PE-VC investments rebounded 9% year-on-year to touch almost $43 billion, according to Bain & Company and IVCA's India Private Equity Report 2025. While consumer tech funding saw a nearly 2X increase during the period, healthcare deal volumes also jumped by almost 80%, driven in part by large medtech transactions, according to the report. What trends will shape India's tech M&As in 2025? Share your take in the comments. Source: The Economic Times: https://lnkd.in/gh2gkB79 Bain & Company- Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA): https://lnkd.in/dXAhvwaq IVCA EY: https://lnkd.in/g7M5UwkZ ✍ : Isha Chitnis 📸 : Getty Images #PrivateEquity #VentureCapital #TechInvestments

🚨Private equity recovery is starting to take shape - according to Bain's latest report 3 key take-aways: _________________________________ 1️⃣ Deal activity is back to life: ‣ Investments: +37% in deal value in 2024 vs 2023, biggest jump in Europe (+54%) ‣ Exits: +34% (deal value), mainly due to acquisitions by sponsors (vs strategics / IPOs) ‣ Valuations (TEV / EBITDA): up in both USA (11.9x, +7%) and Europe (12.1x, +5%) _________________________________ 2️⃣ Fundraising is still facing headwinds: ‣ Funds closed: -23% (deal value), -12% (fund count) ‣ Only 2 strategies did not see a decline: direct lending (+3%) and infra (+0%) ‣ Key driver: LP appetite for new commitments has declined due to lower distributions vs calls in the last couple of years _________________________________ 3️⃣ GPs are focussed on jumpstarting liquidity: ‣ Distributions as a % of NAV fell from 29% in 2014-2017 to 11% today ‣ GPs are getting creative in generating liquidity: minority interests, dividend recapitalisations, secondaries (continuation funds), and NAV loans _______________________ 👋 Follow me Andrea Carnelli Dompe' (PhD) for weekly private markets insights 🔔 Tap the bell on my profile and you'll be notified when I post Source: Bain's "Global Private Equity Report 2025" #privateEquity

Private equity is navigating a fundamentally different landscape. Here are the key takeaways from SuperReturn International 2025 from Bain's experts on the ground: 1. There’s no going “back to normal”—markets are adjusting to a more volatile world with shorter, deeper cycles. 2. Liquidity remains tight; exits are tough and secondaries, while growing, are still underused. 3. Opportunities exist, but high multiples mean GPs must create value without relying on multiple expansion. 4. With fundraising more difficult, GPs need to actively win share to sustain growth. 5. AI is gaining traction in dealmaking, with potential to boost value creation across the deal cycle. 6. Europe is back in focus as shifting macro views and geopolitics chip away at U.S. dominance. 7. Private and public markets continue to converge, with platforms scaling fast and consolidation accelerating.

Private equity has to work harder 😰 to make returns ➡️less financial engineering, more hands-on operational improvements⬅️ "Financial engineering just isn’t working as well as it once did for private equity shops. Some of the biggest, including Goldman Sachs and Blackstone, have added veterans with operations experience from industry giants like Walmart and Honeywell. Others like Brookfield Asset Management and Partners Group are leaning even more into their roots as operators. They’re looking for tangible results such as wider margins and higher cash flow instead of gauzy 'multiple expansion.' It’s a more hands-on approach that includes building five- and 10-year strategic growth plans for the companies they own, and sometimes helping them market and sell their products. 'Helping companies operate well should always be an important initiative,' said Lou D’Ambrosio, the former CEO of Sears Holdings who leads Goldman’s unit devoted to boosting growth at the firm’s private holdings. 'But if several years ago it was a ‘nice to have,’ now it’s a ‘need to have.’' They need it because private equity firms are contending with a drought in the deals market and holding periods as much as three years longer than historical averages. 'That’s created a lot of challenges for that cohort of investments made in 2021, and you can’t assume multiples expansion,' said Andrea Auerbach, head of global private investments at Cambridge Associates, whose team allocates nearly $15 billion to private market managers every year on behalf of pension funds, endowments and other investors. Multiples expansion, in private equity parlance, is when a firm’s value rises far more than the underlying fundamentals. Investors can’t count on that to continue — a McKinsey & Company study found multiples were shrinking as of last year. CAIS Group, which consults on alternative investments, sorted through figures on deals from the Institute for Private Capital and found that boosting revenue growth and margins added almost twice as much value than multiple expansion during the decade following the 2008 financial crisis. It’s a playbook that Partners Group and Toronto-based Brookfield started out with, and others are now seeing the merits. 'The prior era was a bit more transactional and about finding investment opportunities,' said Partners Group’s CEO Dave Layton. 'Our industry is changing. You don’t have the same tailwinds.' Sensing the turn, Partners Group brought on Wolf-Henning Scheider a year ago as its private equity head. He’s an unusual choice — 'our head of private equity has never done a private equity transaction,' Layton said. But Scheider has 'the mindset of an operator, not the mindset of a deal-doer.'" (Bloomberg 25/9/24) (+++Opinions are my own. Not investment advice. Do your own research.+++) #markets #investing #money #wealthmanagement #privateequity Tap the bell 🔔 to subscribe to my profile & you'll be notified when I post. 💸

What has led to a strong pick-up in LBO transactions and recovery in M&A activity in Europe? Total European LBO transaction volume in the 12 months through June'24 was €14.8 billion, surpassing the full-year 2023 tally, according to LCD data. 1. Equity contributions remain high, at an average of 54% over the last 12 months for all buyout transactions tracked by LCD. > Senior debt comprises 32% of all sources of proceeds in that timeframe, while high-yield bond debt accounts for 13%. > Equity contributions are expected to remain at current levels or probably increase as well. 2 Buyout profile: > Public-to-private (P2P) buyout volume has fallen in YTD 2024, as has the volume of buyouts featuring family-owned companies. > There was one large recent take-private deal — the acquisition of Applus by TDR and I Squared Capital, with a roughly €1.7 billion loan and bond financing that cleared the market on July 4. 3. Home advantage: > UK deals have dominated in 1H 2024 as have transactions from technology companies. > There has been an acceleration in sponsor-led M&A European loan issuance, with a total of €11.7 billion in 2Q 2024. > This was the highest quarterly tally since Q4 2021, when sponsored M&A-related loan issuance was €15.9 billion. > LBO volume in 2Q 2024 was €7.6 billion, the highest such total since 1Q 2022. 4. Dividend deals: > The volume of dividends taken out of businesses by sponsors has risen, with €3.9 billion of total loan issuance used to support dividends in 2Q 2024, the busiest quarter since 1Q 2021. 5. For all sponsored transactions, total leverage fell slightly in the year to June 30, to 5.26x (debt to EBITDA), from 5.32x for full-year 2023. > Senior leverage, however, is running above 2023 levels and is the highest since 2021, at 4.93x first lien debt to EBITDA, amid strong demand for debt at this level. European LBO activity ramps up, led by secondary buyouts. Krishank Parekh | LinkedIn | LinkedIn Guide to Creating #LBO #Europe #leveragedloans #volumes

Private equity M&A is set to shrink the sector down to 100 firms, according to Partners Group. The leading European private equity firm, with assets of around $140 billion, expects the private market fund managers of 11,000 or so to shrink to about 100 firms in the next decade. This consolidation is driven by several challenges facing fund managers, which are likely to trigger a wave of M&A activity within the sector. The key challenges facing PE firms include rising borrowing costs, delivering above-market returns, raising money, institutional investing habits, and legal and compliance costs. Many PE firms are facing the need to refinance loans that were arranged during periods of ultra-low interest rates. This could prove catastrophic for highly leveraged and under-performing investments. Raising capital has become increasingly difficult due to the rise in interest rates and competition within the market. Institutional investors favour larger tickets into well established funds, rather than smaller ticket investments. New US reporting requirements are putting pressure and increasing legal and compliance costs for PE managers. As a result, consolidation is likely to ramp up. Recently, CVC acquired a majority stake in DIF Capital Partners for around €1 billion, and Bridgepoint is acquiring Energy Capital Partners for around £835m. PE consolidation presents several challenges such as alignment of investment strategies, portfolio diversification, portfolio risk management, regulatory approvals, financing structures, LP spread and diversification, and most importantly, culture fit and integration. However, as the pressure mounts, some PE firms will look at consolidation opportunities to grow their assets, achieve scale and mitigate some of the risks facing the sector. #privateequity #investing #investment #investmentbanking

𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐩 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐚 $70𝐌 𝐰𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐏𝐄 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰. Last year I got a call from a megafund I've advised before. "Market's gone nuts with these rate hikes. We think there's opportunity." Understatement of the year. Their portfolio company was rock-solid – $500M enterprise value, performing above plan despite macro chaos. But the company's fixed-rate debt was getting hammered, trading at 80 cents on the dollar. Pure market mechanics, nothing fundamental. Most firms would shrug. "Interesting, but so what?" I spotted something different. The fund owned 100% of the equity but ZERO of the debt. Classic artificial separation between capital structure components that only exists because most investors lack either imagination or control positions. Sometimes both. 𝐌𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲: Buy up a chunk of the debt at the depressed price while maintaining complete equity control. Not just a trade, but a fundamentally transformative move that: [1] Instantly transferred value from selling debt holders to our equity position (market dislocation arbitrage) [2] Reduced change-of-control repayment risk on exit (structural enhancement) [3] Created multiple new strategic exit paths (optionality creation) The math was compelling: $6M direct gain from buying $30M debt at $24M, plus another $42M from enhanced exit value due to simplified structure and reduced transaction risk. They executed immediately. Initial 10% debt repurchase, followed by another 15% over six months. Total position up $70M in value. Here's the kicker – most advisors would've calculated the discount to par and stopped there. Basic arithmetic. I showed how this maneuver fundamentally altered their strategic position in ways potential buyers would pay real money for. When you control both sides of the table, you dictate the rules of engagement. Why share this? Because our industry spends too much time on financial engineering and not enough on strategic repositioning. Capital structure isn't static – it's a dynamic tool for value creation. The best GPs don't just squeeze more EBITDA from their companies; they reshape the financial architecture itself. The line between "market opportunity" and "strategic transformation" is where the real money gets made. That's the playground I operate in. Who else has executed similar strategic plays recently? Would love to hear your stories. #PrivateEquity #M&A #ValueCreation #CapitalStructure #StrategicFinance

Emerging trends from Private Equity and Buyout data H1 2023 🔵PE are behind on portfolio exits, holding out for a recovery in subdued valuations 🔵Uncertainty created by debt costs and inflation still affecting deal volume 🔵Minority deals requiring less debt growing in popularity 🔵Buy and build remains preferred value creation route for PE 🔵Stagnant capital markets make trade and secondaries most likely PE exit routes 🔵More established ESG review and monitoring practices increasing complexity to prove credentials Data sources (H1’23): KPMG mid-market review, CMBOR, CB How is this likely to impact the next 12 months? 🔺LP liquidity issues in a heavily congested GP fundraise market will free up with LP distributions from portfolio exits adding more dry powder to stimulate volume and values 🔺High demand for advisory and due diligence = increased costs 🔺Portfolio exit and bolt-on activity will dominate investment team time 🔺All indicators of longer timescales to completion, processes +6 months 🔺Valuation multiples for primary dealflow improving as competition for bolt-ons increases 🔺Ever increasing reliance on management to grow profit and drive exit strategy There’s still plenty of capital to deploy, stimulate dealflow and get things moving. What does this mean if you’re considering de-risking? Well prepared businesses with credible teams and high growth plans can cash-out AND maintain majority ownership in a market where minority deals were less prevalent. See comments for details on how I support founders to target de-risk and Private Equity. #founders #businessowners #entrepreneurs #manda #privateequity