Middle Market Weekly Outlook

Axial
September 14, 2015

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M&A activity is breaking records left and right, but private equity deal volume is down. What’s the deal? In Forbes, columnist Jeff Golman explores the effect of today’s sky-high valuations on PE activity.

Meanwhile, with regulations prohibiting investment banks and insurers from getting into the hedge fund business, private equity firms are picking up the slack. Business Insider documents the latest evidence of “how the leveraged-buyout business is transforming into multi-strategy money management.”

Opinions

Healthcare is driving a large portion of M&A activity
Private equity firms have sticker shock
Increasing AUM is the name of the game for PE firms
M&A is blowing up, and it’s not over yet
The value of U.S. M&A just hit an all-time record
What PE professionals want to change about PE
The summer of M&A
How working with an independent sponsor is different

Transactions

Main Street Capital Corporation invests in M.H. Corbin, Inc.
M/C Partners and J.P. Morgan invest in Everstream Solutions
EDF Invest and Ardian to buy Géosel Manosque for $296.4 million
Praesidian backs Privet Capital’s buy of Pyser-SGI Group
River Associates to buy Action Fabricators
Värde Partners buys Trimont Real Estate Advisors
Carlyle invests in Metropolis Healthcare
Joe’s Jeans sells Joe’s brand to Sequential Brands, Global Brands for $80 million
Envision Pharma buys Alligent Biopharm Consulting
Shore Capital invests in Florida Autism Center
KKR to acquire stake in UK hedge fund Marshall Wace
CPPIB buys 21.5% stake in Homeplus for $534 million
Graycliff Partners invests in Super Color Digital
Octopus completes investment in Healthcare and Services Technology Group
Praesidian Capital exits John’s Incredible Pizza
Blackstone to buy Strategic Hotels & Resorts and Strategic Funding LLC for $6 billion
Cambridge Capital blank check company merges with Ability Computers
Tesco sells South Korean arm to private equity group for $6.1 billion

This week in history… Workers begin construction on a new New York Stock Exchange building downtown. The building, which took two years to complete, is still in use today. (1901)