Transaction Services Group Partner, Ed Hackert, Quoted in CFO Magazine
"Becoming Attractions, Private Equity Firms Are Hunting For Deals Once Again, Making It An Opportune Time To Sell."
CFO Magazine
By Vincent Ryan
Excerpt:
Will CFOs and their executive management teams forge sensible deals if buyout firms begin to swamp them with offers?
An outbreak of heated bidding isn’t far-fetched. It’s been well documented that private-equity firms hold heaps of capital (“dry powder”) to invest — more than $500 billion in March, according to London-based research firm Preqin. They began to deploy it in the second quarter. Globally, the volume of private-equity-backed buyout deals tripled year-over-year, to $43.3 billion, according to Preqin. Almost half the deals were leveraged. Exits by PE firms numbered 140 and were up 57% in total dollar size, providing much-needed liquidity.
“Private-equity firms are dying for acquisition candidates,” says Ed Hackert, a partner in the transaction services group at Marcum LLP, a large accounting firm. “I’ve met with 25 to 30 PE firms over the last six months that we’ve never done business with,” he says. “They want to leverage our client base to identify potential deals.”
