When we at PitchBook first contemplated the idea of producing reports about the activities of the U.S. private equity industry over the past decade (2001 – 2010), we were not sure what we would find.
Below are a few particularly interesting data points from this report that highlight some of the decade’s key private
equity investment themes:
• The decade saw 17,361 private equity deals totaling $1.73 trillion of invested capital
• Lower middle-market companies accounted for 81% of the decade’s deal flow
• The median private equity investment multiple peaked at 11.5x in 2008
• The average time between investments dropped from six months in 2002 to 2½ months in 2007
• Add-on deals accounted for 46% of PE buyouts by the end of the decade
• Texas saw more PE deals and invested capital than any other state
• Business Products and Services was the top industry for PE activity