The Mergermarket Private Equity Podcast

Yang Chen, a partner at Ronin Equity Partners, speaks to Mergermarket Funds Editor Tom Cane about the challenges and opportunities in today's market. Topics of discussion include the wider M&A market, supply chain mitigations for mid-market PE firms, driving value creation in family and founder-led businesses, and the family office landscape. Yang also discusses her career trajectory to date,...

Public listings have been a notoriously difficult exit path for sponsors over the past two years but recent months have witnessed a signal change as vendors learn how to navigate new equity capital markets. Mergermarket’s Head of Auctions sits down with ION Analytic’s Global ECM Editor Sam Kerr to take stock of how funds are viewing ECM, structuring listings for the best outcomes and what Donald T...

Mergermarket’s Head of Auctions Rachel Lewis speaks with Debtwire’s Head of Private Capital Josh O’Neill about how the deal financing environment for private-equity buyouts is evolving as we approach the end of 2024. As we head into the final quarter of the year, European buyouts are on par with the total disclosed value seen across the whole of last year - standing at EUR 133bn. The total number...

Funds editor Harriet Matthews speaks to William Barrett, co-founder and managing partner at private capital adviser Reach Capital, about the changing private capital advisory market, how the firm is advising its private equity (PE) clients to navigate primary and secondary fundraises in the current market, and what’s next for the independent placement agent. Investment banks have been building up...

In this episode, funds editor Harriet Matthews and senior private equity reporter Rachel Lewis share insights from the Mergermarket Private Equity and M&A Forum Europe , exploring the outlook for private equity buyouts, exits and fundraising, as well as the outlook for specific markets, including the UK. The Forum, which took place on 21 May at the Landmark Hotel in London, brought together pr...

European funds editor Harriet Matthews hosts fellow funds editors Tim Burroughs (managing editor, AVCJ) and Tom Cane (North America) to discuss the insights they gleaned from the Mergermarket New York Private Equity Forum, comparing and contrasting this with PE activity in other regions, and considering what the themes that emerged mean for the outlook for the industry in the US. European funds ed...

With “cautious optimism” the prevailing sentiment for the start 2024, the Mergermarket private equity (PE) reporting team takes stock of our 1Q 2024 European private equity data, providing insights into how this year could shape up for deal activity, exits and fundraising. 2024 started off more strongly than 2023 in terms of private equity activity, with deal count up by 21% and disclosed deal vol...

With GP-led secondaries becoming a mainstay in the private equity exit toolbox, Mergermarket's funds editor Harriet Matthews and senior private equity reporter Rachel Lewis discuss the outlook for this growing part of the private equity market. In a guest interview, Elena Laleh, managing director at Kline Hill Partners, discusses the secondaries investor’s European and North American strategy, hig...

Mergermarket’s funds editor Harriet Matthews speaks to Pierre-Antoine de Selancy, managing partner and co-founder of net asset value (NAV) lender 17Capital, about the evolution of NAV financing and its use cases in the current market, as well as wider industry reservations about the use of this type of leverage. The use of and interest in NAV financing has been growing in recent years. In times of...

In this week’s episode, Mergermarket's funds editor Harriet Matthews and senior private equity reporter Rachel Lewis explore how private equity (PE) firms are turning to various options in an effort to secure succession between generations of management, with a guest interview from Jon Harvey, Head of Relationship Management at Investec Fund Solutions. As the PE industry matures and grows, with GP...

Joerg Zirener, a partner at One Equity Partners (OEP), speaks to Mergermarket’s funds editor Harriet Matthews about the firm’s mid-market strategy and his outlook for 2024, covering topics including buyer and seller valuation expectations, mid-market value creation levers, and where OEP sees opportunities for dealmaking. Founded in 2001 and with operations in Europe and the US, OEP’s team has made...

Mergermarket's funds editor Harriet Matthews and senior private equity reporter Rachel Lewis discuss what the key themes that emerged from January’s IPEM conference in Cannes mean for the 2024 outlook for the European private equity industry, touching on topics including debt, exits, fundraising, and the secondaries market. With interest rates expected to stabilise this year, private equity is adj...

Tom Ross-Jones, partner at UK-based private equity firm Palatine, speaks to Mergermarket senior private equity reporter Rachel Lewis about the sponsor’s journey with sustainability consultancy Anthesis, setting out how the deal was originated, the value creation initiatives during the investment period, and the exit process. If private equity had its own dictionary, value-creation could easily hav...

As a tough year for the European private equity (PE) draws to an end, Mergermarket’s private funds editorial team gives a market overview and highlights key topics including the resilience of the mid-market, consolidation in the advisor space, and the popularity of co-investments. The last 12 months brought with them the collapse of Credit Suisse and Silicon Valley Bank; a return to higher interes...

Private equity dealmakers in the DACH region have been facing a plethora of challenges in 2022 and 2023 in particular. Funds editor Harriet Matthews discusses the 2024 outlook with HIG Capital’s Holger Kleingarn, and is also joined by Mergermarket’s DACH bureau chief Patrick Costello, who shares his insights on market sentiment and how dealflow is shaping up for 2024. DACH private equity activity...

With corporates looking to divest non-core businesses and private equity investors placing a renewed emphasis on value creation, carve-outs are climbing the agenda for many GPs. Harriet Matthews and Min Ho explore the factors behind current dealflow, with a guest interview with Tristan Nagler, partner at Aurelius. According to Mergermarket data at the time of recording, EUR 190bn worth of carve-ou...

While current sentiment around private equity investment in the consumer sector is mixed due to its exposure to inflation and consumer demand, sponsors are still finding attractive opportunities to deploy. Advent International managing director Nicolas Chavanne joins the podcast to discuss the GP’s approach to investing, how it assesses the market, and how and why it aims to secure optionality on...

Amid a tough fundraising market with tight allocations and a slowdown in distributions, fund administrator Aztec Group’s managing director James Gow and head of innovation Tom Bennett bring their insights into capital raising and discuss the outlook for the year ahead. Unquote Data validates the broader market sentiment, showing that a total of 33 buyout funds based in Europe had closed at the tim...

Funds editor Harriet Matthews hosts senior reporter Gustav Hoejmark-Jensen to discuss the role that emerging managers are playing in green technology investing. Hoejmark-Jensen explores the topic in an interview with Kim Pochon, senior vice president at Unigestion, and Laurits Bach Sørensen, co-founder and senior partner at Nordic Alpha Partners (NAP). Pochon is part of Unigestion’s emerging manag...

With the European private equity market back to business as usual after the summer, Mergermarket 's funds editor Harriet Matthews and senior private equity reporter Rachel Lewis discuss what to expect for the rest of the year, with a guest interview from Chris Boycott, corporate partner at Linklaters. Deal volume for the year to date stands at around EUR 58bn, versus EUR 216bn for FY 2022; meanwhi...

Blackstone senior managing director Alex Walsh speaks to Unquote editor Harriet Matthews about his career in private equity, LGBTQ+ representation and inclusion in the industry, and the outlook on investing in the current market. Walsh began his career in the financial services industry in 2004 and joined Blackstone in 2022, with a focus on private equity consumer and leisure investments. Beyond h...

With private equity exits hitting a post-pandemic low point and dealmaking proving challenging due to financing conditions and valuation gaps, Harriet Matthews and Rachel Lewis discuss the current PE exits landscape, with a guest interview from Equistone senior partner Steve O’Hare. Secondary buyouts (SBOs) in particular have suffered in 1H 2023, with just 41 getting over the line as GPs remain re...

The Unquote team talks about the topics at the forefront of GPs’ and LPs’ minds at SuperReturn in Berlin and what this means for the private equity industry in 2023 and beyond: ranging from value creation, fundraising and private markets consolidation, to Kim Kardashian’s foray into the venture capital world. Hosted by Harriet Matthews, Unquote’s Min Ho and Rachel Lewis digest the key takeaways fr...

Unquote speaks to Fabio Ranghino, partner and head of sustainability and strategy at Italy-headquartered sustainability-focused investor Ambienta, about his current outlook on dealflow and ESG investing, as well as the next stage of the firm’s growth. Over the course of May 2023, the GP kicked off the deployment of its fourth EUR 1.55bn buyout fund with the acquisition of plastic recycling systems...