Public versus private The private equity industry has matured quite a bit over the years. The most visible marker is the handful of firms that have gone public, despite the public market’s difficulty in valuing the complex, variable cash flows that are inseparable from the PE model....

Why are add-ons getting so much bigger? Download PitchBook’s Report here. The median add-on size almost doubled in the span of two years. The $41 million median seen in 2016 ballooned to $76 million last year, an 86% difference. At first glance, it looks like platform deal sizes have gone up much more rapidly, but charts

A closer look at foreign investment There’s a tradeoff between welcoming foreign investment and protecting national security. That’s becoming a more common tradeoff to consider in the private equity world, where foreign investors are keen to get involved in direct investments....

MM exits off to a slow start Download PitchBook’s Report here. It’s early still, but middle market exits are off to a historically slow start in 2019. Just $27 billion worth of sales were inked in the first quarter off of 137 exits. On a quarterly basis, both were low marks going back to 2010, when

Core MM had a big 2018 Download PitchBook’s Report here. The US middle market went gangbusters last year, setting records in both volume and dollars. Two of the three segments of the middle market, however, inched down YoY....

Buyout multiples: Steady as they go Coming soon Download PitchBook’s Report here. Despite nine interest rate hikes since December 2015, buyout multiples have remained remarkably steady. The four-quarter rolling median, which helps smooth out that trend over time, has increased by a single turn since early 2016...

SBOs are growing in size Download PitchBook’s Report here. Private equity has three major exit ramps—strategic sales, secondary buyouts and IPOs. They tend to trend independently of one another, which is to say that market dynamics usually favor one or two options over another....

Private equity heads west New York is the epicenter of private equity, as it has been since its beginning. Wall Street was already around when PE got its start, and the important supporting actors—namely lenders and bankers—were all a taxi ride away.The same is true for Silicon Valley and the venture industry,...

Take-privates are cheap sometimes That’s according to Bain & Company, which made a salient point: “Despite the run-up in equity prices, public investors often undervalue companies they don’t understand.” That’s true, and the point is emphasized as public and private equity market multiples continue to converge....

Returns healthy, still under pressure Download PitchBook’s Report here. TVPI multiples—more simply known as investment multiples—remain healthy. Gains from post-vintage buckets (2010-2016) were all boosted by at least 0.08x over the past twelve months, with 2015 vintages leading the way with an overall boost of 0.16x....