Private equity investments in the healthcare sector, as a percentage of total PE platform transactions, have effectively doubled over the last 20 years.

Historically, manufacturing was the predominant industry of interest for private equity acquisitions. However, as PE firms increasingly looked for more scalable companies with lower CapEx requirements, over time, manufacturing acquisitions declined as a percentage of the total private equity investments.

Private equity firms currently hold more than 40 portfolio companies in the battery industry. These investments range from…

…Battery Manufacturers:

Lionano (Woburn, MA) manufactures proprietary cathode materials that improve energy density, cost, durability and safety of lithium ion batteries. The company’s other division develops solid state batteries.

September 2018 – Lionano completed a $22 million Series B financing round led by WAVE Equity Partners, Helios Capital Ventures and NXT Ventures.

EaglePicher Technologies (St. Louis, MO) develops specialized batteries and advanced power management systems for defense, aerospace and medical applications.

March 2018 – Vectra Co., a portfolio company owned by certain investment funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, LLC (NYSE: APO), completed the sale of its EaglePicher Technologies business to affiliates of GTCR LLC.

…to Battery Distributors:

The median holding period for private equity portfolio companies is currently 4.8 years, as reported in our recently updated portfolio company holding periods study.

Given this, it is reasonable to assume that portfolio companies held five years or longer might be good candidates/prospects for an exit.

Our M&A Research Database currently shows 218 portfolio companies that will reach the 5-year holding period milestone in the month of June, 2020. A few sample companies are presented below.

The trending private equity investment sectors for April 2020 are highlighted below with a few example transactions.

I periodically update the private equity portfolio company holding periods to track this trend over time. I thought this would be a good time to append another data point to the graph, just before this metric is impacted by the COVID-19 economy.

2020 YTD Median Holding Period = 4.8 years

The trending private equity investment sectors for March 2020 are highlighted below with a few example transactions.

With the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies are suffering economic consequences beyond their control. However, certain industries might experience an increase in demand. Of particular interest, are companies specializing in infectious diseases.

Using data pulled from the PrivateEquityInfo M&A Research Database, I have listed private equity investments in companies working specifically within the area of infectious diseases.

We surveyed private equity firms, investment banks and mezzanine lenders to get a pulse on the overall market sentiment surrounding M&A. We wanted to solicit the wisdom-of-the-crowd to report on current conditions and to capture what industry participants collectively think about likely future outcomes.

300 M&A professionals representing 267 unique firms completed the survey that was open for 24 hours – 78% from M&A investment banks and 10% from private equity firms.

The trending private equity investment sectors for February 2020 are highlighted below with a few example transactions.