A decade to remember

Greg Gille
23 December 2019

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In a fitting end to a decade initially defined by private equity's rise from the doldrums of the financial crisis, preliminary figures compiled by Unquote show that 2019 is already on track to set a new record for the number of European investments.

At a predicted €220bn+, the combined value of these deals is also likely to be the second highest recorded in the past 10 years. And fundraising will have proven to be exceptional this year, too, after the 2018 lull. With around €134bn amassed, European managers came within a whisker of the all-time record set in 2016.

But this traditional end-of-year tally, trying to divine what a 5% increase or decrease might mean regarding the health of private equity [Editor's note: guilty as charged] fails to convey how much has been achieved in the 2010s.

If numbers are all that matter, then it is perhaps more enlightening to note that the 25,847 deals inked across the region since January 2010 represent a 36% jump on dealflow in the preceding decade, with €1.47tn (including leverage) deployed in European businesses to foster their growth. Meanwhile, LPs poured almost twice as much capital (€856bn) into European funds in the past 10 years than they did in the 2000s.

The 2010s haven't just been a period of recovery - they have been a decade of rapid acceleration to reach new heights, especially considering the fact that the market remained pretty dormant for the first third of it.

But it is the more profound ways in which the industry has evolved in the past 10 years that will mostly resonate in the long run. I joined Unquote as a reporter in 2010, back when "unitranche" was an obscure product mostly pushed by French managers dying to get rid of the mezzanine label, and when a "lack of financing options" would be cited by GPs as an existential threat to dealflow for at least two more years. The secondaries market has also blossomed beyond recognition in that time, both in the numbers involved and the creativity on display to match investor appetite with new ways to address the PE liquidity conundrum.

More fundamentally, the strides made in harnessing the power of ESG and the technology-driven data revolution mean that private equity in the 2020s will be a markedly different industry than it was in the aftermath of the global financial crash - from basic workflow and career paths, down to value creation techniques at portfolio level.

Unquote has changed a lot in this past decade, too, to better keep up with your needs and ensure you remain suitably informed in a rapidly evolving industry - and we certainly look forward to continuing to do so for the next 10 years.

I am joined by the whole team in thanking you for your continued support, and in wishing you a restful holiday break. We will be back to our regular news coverage on 3 January, but in the meantime you can find below a selection of must-read stories from the past year.

Greg Gille
Editor, Unquote