Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
CEO of Blackstone Group Schwarzman.
- Private equity executives appear to have had a harder time investing in 2019, with fewer deals clinched than the year before despite being loaded up with more and more unused investor dollars.
- And a recent industry report indicates they have every reason to worry about a economic slowdown in the year ahead. But meanwhile, PE firms may also feel pressure to start lowering their standards to deploy investor dollars.
- Overall, private equity firms raised a record of more than $300 billion in 2019, while the deal count for the largest deals - valued at more than $1 billion - fell by 28 percent from the year before.
- Those findings come from an annual report on the PE industry offered by financial information company PitchBook.
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Private equity executives had a harder time investing in 2019, with fewer deals clinched than the year before despite being loaded up with more and more unused investor dollars.
And a recent industry report indicates they have every reason to worry about a slowdown in the year ahead, and that PE firms may even have to start lowering their standards to deploy investor dollars.
Overall, private equity firms raised a record of more than $300 billion in 2019, while the deal count for the largest deals - valued at more than $1 billion - fell by 28 percent from the year before.
Those findings come from an annual report on the PE industry offered by financial information company PitchBook, which prefaced its findings with optimism.
"Despite year-end figures falling slightly short of 2018's mammoth $730.3 billion deal value, we believe the industry remains strong and that a minor [year over year] dip is not indicative of a pullback in PE dealmaking," it said.
But then, the PitchBook report proceeded to detail several factors that depicted a challenging environment ahead, ranging from the U.S.-China trade war, to an upcoming recession.
"Every one of our clients is focused on being prepared for the recession," the report quoted Alison Mass, Goldman Sachs' investment banking chairman, who provided the comments to Bloomberg in a December interview.
Recessionary fears could weigh on dealmaking activity, the report said. But record fundraisings will pressure firms that recently raised capital to "buy anyway" the report said.
The report comes after PE firms have been saddled with trillions of investor dollars they haven't used.
In turn, they have been banding together to buy companies and rumors of mega-deals have run rampant, including a report that KKR had considered taking Walgreens private it what would have been the largest private equity deal ever.
The frothy market hasn't gone unnoticed by attorneys and finance executives, who have observed similarities of the deal-making environment to the run-up to the 2008 recession.
The PitchBook report said that such an awareness of a future recession could limit PE deal flow by firms diverting capital away from cyclical businesses and toward healthcare or technology companies - industries that are considered more recession-proof.
The report pointed to one notable healthcare deal in 2019 when Goldman Sach's bought Capital Vision Services for $2.7 billion.
This also signaled a more crowded competitive landscape for deals, which means PE firms will have a tougher time investing.
"The deal sparked some concern among industry observers that as Goldman expands its PE capabilities, the firm could face conflicts of interest in which Goldman competes against PE firms that its own banking arm advises," the report said.
Overall, the number of PE deals ticked down to 5,133 from 5,345 in 2018, while the volume of PE deals fell from $730.3 billion to $678 billion.
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