DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) -Private equity sales of their investments may recover under Donald Trump’s second term as president to levels not seen in several years, the executive president of buyout firm Ardian said on Wednesday.
“If you went back six months ago, the discourse was all about what’s going to happen (in the U.S. election),” Ardian’s Mark Benedetti said on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“Now that’s behind us, a lot of groups that have been holding back waiting to push the button to sell their asset, are now coming to market to do so.”
Benedetti said the “log-jam” in deals for companies that are not the biggest was likely to be eased in the coming months.
“Does that mean we’re going to come back to the exit pace that we had in 2021? No, but I think maybe back to the previous normal which was the levels we saw in 2018 and 2019,” he added.
The downturn in dealmaking led to record transaction volumes last year in the private equity secondary market – where buyout firms can sell their investment to other funds instead of listing them on stock exchanges or through traditional M&A. Paris-based Ardian said last week it closed a $30 billion fund that was the biggest-ever secondary fund.
Bejul Somaia, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, told the same panel that in the technology sector Trump’s election had revitalised deals, after what he described as “non-existent” activity under the Biden administration.
“This year, and we’re three weeks into it, two of our companies have signed term sheets to be acquired by US strategics at valuations between $1.5-$3 billion and a third is under discussion,” he added.
(Reporting by Iain WithersEditing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes)
