A smoking hot PE market and this week's LMM activity

Week of July 26th LMM Highlights

Daniel McKeon

Jul 30, 2021

Happy Friday everyone! EY recently released its 2Q 2021 PE Pulse Report and the numbers are staggering.

The first half of 2021 saw the most active six-month period on record for private equity
More than $580b in deals were announced in the first half, while 2021 is on track to be the first trillion-dollar deployment year
Megadeals have returned driving PE acquisition values in comparison to 1H 2020
PE buyside and sellside deals account for 29% of total M&A activity - a new all time high

There’s no surprise that M&A activity in the Outsourced Business Services (OBS) sector had a remarkable quarter, as a rising tide lifts all boats. Corporate Advisory Solutions, which focuses on tech-enabled, OBS businesses recently released a 2Q market insights reports and the results are quite impressive.

ARM sector players have endured interesting shifts in the political and technological landscape and have proven to be resilient and innovative despite headwinds induced by lawmakers. CAS predicts that the industry would further consolidate in the second half of 2021.
In Q2 2021, the CRM sector experienced a surge in M&A activity in both deal value and volume. CAS sees exciting trends in technological transformation and expansion of CRM into the emerging cannabis industry.
CAS witnesses the RCM sector undergo extensive technology enablement to resist pressing margins, improve staff education and adapt to patients’ everchanging preferences.
While FinTech experiences revolutionary shifts with the decentralization of finance, the Debt Settlement sector proves its resilience against the downward pressure from lawmakers and regulators who threaten to suppress its growth.

Private equity markets are clearly on fire and show no signs of slowing down. Let’s move to this week’s lower middle market activity.