I recently wrote some thoughts on the economy on my personal blog:

Economic Thoughts on Tariffs, Debt, Social Security and The Fed

I thought our audience here at PrivateEquityInfo.com would be interested as well.

QUICK SUMMARY

1. Tariffs on Chinese goods could trigger an increase in interest rates for U.S. Treasuries (potentially inflation and a recession).
2. The U.S. Debt load has garnered near unstoppable negative momentum and would be compounded by an increase in interest rates.
3. Social Security concludes its final surplus year in 2019, applying further interest rate pressure on U.S. Treasuries.
4. The Federal Reserve has considerably less maneuverability compared to 2008.

Our Private Equity Database is specifically designed for middle market investment bankers to quickly identify those PE firms that will most likely have an interest in acquiring (or investing in) his or her client’s company. The single best way to determine this is to find PE firms that A) consistently makes acquisitions and B) have acquired similar portfolio companies already.

The trending private equity investment sectors for November 2019 are highlighted below with a few example transactions.

Charles Schwab recently announced plans to acquire Ameritrade for $26 billion. The combined entity will have 24 million customer accounts holding ~$5 trillion assets.

While most people are familiar with Charles Schwab and Ameritrade for their enormous retail brokerage businesses, most do not know these firms also offer prime brokerage and custodial services to institutional investment funds.

Our research database tracks 53,711 institutional investment funds (hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds, real estate funds, etc.). These funds often use third-party providers as prime brokers and custodians.

This data study reports on the prime brokerage and custodial services offered by Schwab and Ameritrade.

The top 25 private equity firms collectively hold $1.8 trillion in assets under management (AuM). The table below show the firms, ranked by AuM.

The trending private equity investment sectors for October 2019 are highlighted below with a few example transactions.

As a generational segment, Baby Boomers (now 55 – 75 years old), have a significant impact on the demographics of the U.S. population and on the markets that serve them.

As this population segment ages, there is an expected increased demand for elderly care and related services. According to Morningstar, the average age of admittance into a nursing home is 79. With the oldest baby boomers currently at 75 years, coupled with a ~5-year median holding period for private equity portfolio companies, I thought we should see an increased investment appetite for elderly care operators and related service providers from private equity firms. As it turns out, we do.

In advance of the Energy Game Change Conference, which includes a Women in Alternatives networking event, we reviewed all senior-level deal team members employed by U.S.-based private equity firms to understand female leadership representation across all the firms compared to those that specifically invest in energy-related companies.

The trending private equity investment sectors for September 2019 are highlighted below with a few example transactions.

In advance of the Rice Energy Finance Summit, I explored private equity investment trends in the energy sector using data from our M&A research database. The chart below compares PE investments in oil & gas versus renewable energy, as a percentage of total PE platform investments (add-on investments excluded).