Over the past 12 months, private equity firms have been net acquirers of companies, making about 2.5 platform investments for every 1 platform exit. This significant growth in portfolio company ownership is buoyed by more private equity firms in the market and larger funds with more committed capital than ever before.

Contrary to this trend, 245 private equity firms in our database have taken advantage of the recent high valuations (relative to historical standards) and have become net exiters of portfolio companies over the last 12 months. Collectively, these 245 private equity firms exited 492 platform investments and only acquired 137 new platform companies – a ratio of 3.6 exits for every investment.

Instead of providing a general list of the Top 10 Private Equity Firms with the largest, well-known firms, I wanted to identify formidable acquirers that may be lesser-known. To do this, I normalized the number of platform acquisitions (2018 YTD) by the number of deal makers (titles of Vice President and higher) at each firm. The lists below show the top 10 most acquisitive private equity firms, grouped by deal team size.

I periodically update the private equity portfolio company holding periods study to track this trend over time. In March, I reported a slight downward trend in portfolio company holding durations.

With the addition of five more months of 2018 exits (through mid-August 2018), the holding period continues to decline, but now more pronounced.

I recently spoke to Ian Wooden with the investment bank IJW in Montreal, Canada. With some minor edits, the text below captures our conversation surrounding middle market investment banking, cross border M&A and recent trends he sees in the M&A industry.

For the first half of 2018, private equity firms had a strong emphasis on acquiring Technology companies. Here are a few sample transactions:

Private Equity Firms Acquiring Technology Companies – Sample Transactions

For the first half of 2018, collectively, private equity firms acquired Software companies more than any other sector except Manufacturing. Here are a few sample transactions:

The trending private equity investment sectors for July 2018 are highlighted below with a few example transactions.

For the first half of 2018, collectively, private equity firms acquired Manufacturing companies more than any other sector. Here are a few sample transactions:

Reviewing platform acquisitions by private equity firms in the first half of 2018, we see the following ten industries as thematic. The top 2 industries, Manufacturing and Software, were equally represented and dominated the list with more than 2x the number of investments compared to #3 on the list (Technology).

Most readers know that we provide a great M&A research database. However, many readers of our blog are unaware that we also offer a database of investment advisers and have since 2007.

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