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https://www.ft.com/content/ec9aa2ae-f56a-4373-8c4b-88effc01a25d
Private equity groups ramped up activity in Europe last year, taking advantage of the continent’s economic woes to snap up big companies at depressed valuations.
The total value European buyout deals worth more than $1bn increased at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, a Financial Times analysis of Dealogic data shows.
Some $133bn of large deals were struck on the continent in 2024, a 78 per cent increase on the previous year. That compared with a 29 per cent increase in the rest of the world, to $242bn.
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https://www.ft.com/content/ec9aa2ae-f56a-4373-8c4b-88effc01a25d
The data are the latest evidence that private equity firms are feasting on Europe’s wealth of cheap companies.
Big transactions included a $6.9bn consortium agreement for investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown and a $5.5bn deal by Thoma Bravo to take private cyber security company Darktrace in the UK, and firms including Brookfield agreeing to take a $3.8bn stake in the French renewable energy developer Neoen.
A challenging economic outlook — with weak growth forecasts, political turmoil and geopolitical threats — and the strength of the US dollar has encouraged US private equity funds to target specific countries within Europe, according to Neil Barlow, a partner at law firm Clifford Chance.
“Certain more stable economies within Europe, such as the UK, the Nordics and Germany [have become] a focal point for private capital providers”, he said.
European stock exchanges, including the London Stock Exchange, have been grappling with an exodus of companies, as businesses relocate their listings to the US or go private with the backing of buyout firms.
The value of European so-called take-private deals which involved a majority stake of more than $1bn jumped by 44 per cent to $52bn last year, the Dealogic data show, with 15 such deals compared with 10 the year before.
European equities have traded at lower valuations than those listed in the US for the past decade. But the gap has been widening, and the Stoxx Europe 600 now trades at a record discount to the US’s S&P 500.
