Good morning. Luisa Beltran here, filling in for Sheryl who is off for a few well-deserved days of vacation.
Mergers have slowed in the past year due to high interest rates, the war in Ukraine, and inflation. The IPO market also remains mostly closed. But there’s still an option for CFOs seeking a lifeline, or a possible exit, for their companies: private equity firms.
There were more than 18,000 PE funds in 2021, according to data from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (She introduced legislation that year to reform the private equity industry.) And PE firms currently have $1.5 trillion in dry powder, or capital available to invest, according to Preqin.
For my latest in Fortune, I set out to find the most powerful players today in private equity. I found that while many household names are still very much in charge, there is (finally) a new generation rising to prominence. I highlighted many well known executives from the sector like Jon Gray from Blackstone or KKR’s Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall, as well as several dealmakers who are well-known in the industry but still relatively unknown outside of it. There’s Hadley Mullin, senior managing director of TSG Consumer Partners. (TSG this week invested in Trinity Solar, a home services platform.) Or Ramzi Musallam, the CEO and managing partner of Veritas Capital. (In May, Veritas, along with Elliott Investment Management and Patient Square Capital, agreed to buy Syneos Health for $7.1 billion.) And GTCR Co-CEOs Collin Roche and Dean Mihas. (In July, GTCR agreed to buy 55% of WorldPay for $11.7 billion.)
And while deals overall are down, there's no question the industry is still massive. As I wrote in Fortune, “Private equity firms are also big employers. Last year, 12 million people worked at companies owned by buyout shops, or at the PE firms themselves, earning $1 trillion in wages and benefits, according to a report from professional services firm EY that was prepared for the American Investment Council. (The AIC is a lobbying group for the private equity industry.) Some of the most well-known companies, including Airbnb, Uber, and Dunkin’, have been backed by private equity firms.”
CFOs seeking options for their companies—or anyone curious who is rising to power in PE—can check out the full list here.
Luisa Beltran
Luisa_Beltran@fortune.com
