Buy-and-build correlates to more secondary buyouts PitchBook is publishing a new analyst note next week that does a deep dive on add-ons. One of the more striking findings is a correlation between additive platforms and how they eventually exit. The more add-ons a portfolio company undergoes, the more likely it will be acquired by another…

Quantifying style drift An upcoming PitchBook analyst note takes a look at GP style drift. It’s an important topic but a frustrating one for LPs. Quantifying the drift is tricky. Our framework assigns style scores to the PE firms themselves over time, instead of at the fund level. We broke the style definitions into three…

A good word for private equity Download PitchBook’s Report here. A quick break this week from the usual hard numbers and trendlines. PitchBook is working with the American Investment Council on a series of PE papers, and our latest is out today. In the healthcare space, PE firms are doing a lot of good in two…

The middle market had a huge fourth quarter Download PitchBook’s Report here. PitchBook’s latest Middle Market Report is now live, and the fourth quarter sure delivered. Our analysts estimate deal flow more than doubled between Q3 and Q4, from 667 deals to 1,428 deals to close out the year. Dollars invested came close to doubling as…

Introducing PitchBook’s Capital Call at Risk metric PitchBook is rolling out a new framework for our LP clients to prepare them for worst-case capital call scenarios. We’re calling it the Capital Call at Risk (CCaR) metric, which is based on the Value at Risk (VaR) framework popularized by JP Morgan in the 1980s…. Subscribe to

More nuance around first-time funds Download PitchBook’s Report here. Past PitchBook research has found statistical outperformance for first-time PE funds compared to follow-on funds. That note was one among many studies that arrived at the same conclusion: first-time funds tend to do relatively well, for a variety of reasons. PitchBook just released a follow-on note (so…

Big bumps in IRR data PE returns bounced back in a big way in mid-2020, according to PitchBook’s upcoming Global Fund Performance Report. After cratering by -8.32% in the first quarter, IRRs were above 9% in both Q2 and Q3. The third quarter mark of 9.81% is preliminary data, but it would be the highest…

A good year for the Big Five Download PitchBook’s Report here. The Big Five public PE firms—Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, Ares and Carlyle—had a good 2020 across several metrics, according to PitchBook’s latest analyst note. All five firms posted YoY fee-related earnings (FRE) growth, with Blackstone notching the highest gain. In terms of annual financials, four of…

Private debt is becoming top-heavy Download PitchBook’s Report here. Private debt funds have grown much larger over the past two years, according to PitchBook’s latest Global Private Debt Report. Larger funds naturally dominate the charts – by dollars raised, $1B+ funds accounted for almost 80% of all debt fundraising in 2020…. Subscribe to Read MoreAlready a

Big slide in fundraising masks a busy year Download PitchBook’s Report here. Fundraising for direct lending vehicles hit a five-year low in 2020, according to PitchBook’s latest Global Private Debt Report. The five-year angle is for dollars raised; in terms of fund closings, the 33 that wrapped up last year were the fewest since 2012, and…