Global private equity and venture capital deals with a valuation of one billion dollars are more are experiencing their slowest-ever year since 2019, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
For the year until July 13th, there have been 33 deals at $99.47 billion. During Q2, deals were down 62.4% at $37.34 billion.
Fintech gets the prize for the biggest deal with GTCR’s agreement to acquire online payments platform WorldPay Ltd. from Fidelity National Information Services Inc. for $12.70 billion.
The tepid economy and rising interest rates do not help. S&P says that deal flow has been impacted by a substantially slower syndicated loan market and the low number of overall exits.
Brenda Rainey, at Bain & Company’s private equity practice, said the loan market is around 60% in volume this year versus last year.
“Private debt has certainly stepped in to fill some of that void, but there’s a limit to the size of transactions that they can support individually.”
Rainey added that 2023 is on track to be down in exit value by more than half versus 2022.