Pitchbook's research on the US private equity market shows that the % of debt used in deals is starting to increase due to the larger size of deals and that PE is focusing on companies with proven sales growth.<\/p>\n
The EBITDA multiple in the <50MM$ operations has been approximately 5 times.<\/b><\/p>\n
During 2012, the multiple used to calculate the price of transactions has remained stable between 4 and 5 times EBITDA for transactions below 50MM$. The statistics reflect a very high multiple disparity depending on the size of the transaction. For example for deals larger than 500MM$ the multiple fluctuated between 10 and 15 times. A much higher multiple than for smaller transactions and with much more variation between quarters. For sizes between 70 and 100MM$ the multiple has been between 7 and 8 times EBITDA.<\/p>\n
In 2012 almost more than two thirds of the operations had a multiple greater than 5 times EBITDA.<\/p>\n
75% of the transactions were for companies with growth in turnover in the period prior to the acquisition.<\/b><\/p>\n
PE firms focused their attention on investing in companies with strong revenue growth and stable prospects in Q4 2012. More than 75% of the companies acquired in Q4 had increased revenues in the past 12 months, and more than three quarters of respondents forecast revenue growth in the coming year as well.<\/p>\n
The EP used almost the same amount of equity and senior debt during 2012.<\/b><\/p>\n
The average amount of debt in PE transactions rose from 46% in Q3 to 57% in Q4 after declining throughout the first three quarters of the year. According to the \"PitchBook 2013 Annual Private Equity Breakdown\", there was a significant spike in the number of decisions in Q4 2012, especially in large transactions of $ 1 billion and above. Because of this, the increase in the average debt used is not surprising due to larger transactions using higher levels of debt.<\/p>\n
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Diego Guti\u00e9rrez Zarza<\/p>\n