Private equity entered 2024 with substantial capital available but a large inventory of unsold companies. The following private equity statistics describe fundraising, buyout activity, portfolio aging, exits, and liquidity using the measurement periods reported by Bain, NB Crossroads, and TPG.
Contents
- Industry scale and capital
- Fundraising and investor demand
- Dry powder and unsold companies
- Portfolio age and investment performance
- Deals and buyout activity
- Exits and secondary liquidity
Industry scale and capital
The private capital industry held more than $20 trillion in assets under management globally, according to the Bain Global Private Equity Report 2024. That broad private-capital measure provides context for the size of the market, although it is wider than buyout funds alone.
Private equity fundraising reached $1.2 trillion in new capital during 2023. Buyout funds accounted for $448 billion of that total. These figures are reported for calendar year 2023 in the Bain Global Private Equity Report 2024.
The market also showed substantial concentration. As of January 2024, 14,500 funds were on the road seeking $3.2 trillion in capital, according to the Bain Private Equity Outlook 2024. Only $1 was closed for every $2.40 targeted at that point. Bain described that supply-demand imbalance as the worst in more than a decade.
The largest managers represented a growing share of the investable market. The number of portfolio companies held by the 25 largest buyout firms doubled over the decade ending in the 2024 reporting period. This statistic measures portfolio-company count, not assets or fund count, so it should not be read as a doubling of the entire industry’s assets.
One manager-specific data point comes from TPG’s 2024 annual filing: TPG Capital reported $43.5 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2024. That figure applies to TPG Capital and that measurement date, rather than to the global private equity industry.
Fundraising and investor demand
Global private equity fundraising totaled $422 billion through May 15, 2024, according to the Bain Private Equity Midyear Report 2024. Based on that pace, Bain projected roughly $1.1 trillion for full-year 2024. The projection was 15% below the 2023 fundraising total.
Buyout funds had raised $199 billion through May 15, 2024. Bain projected $531 billion of buyout fundraising for the full year, which would have been 6% above the 2023 buyout total of $448 billion. The midyear figures are partial-year results and the full-year numbers are projections, so they are not interchangeable with completed annual totals.
Fundraising was also concentrated among the biggest closes. The 10 largest buyout funds closed in 2024 took in 64% of total capital raised. EQT X, the largest of those funds, accounted for 12% of total capital raised. These percentages describe the 2024 fundraising distribution cited in the Bain Private Equity Midyear Report 2024.
| Fundraising measure | Amount or share | Period and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Total private equity fundraising | $1.2 trillion | 2023, global |
| Global fundraising | $422 billion | Through May 15, 2024 |
| Projected global fundraising | About $1.1 trillion | Full-year 2024 estimate |
| Buyout fundraising | $199 billion | Through May 15, 2024 |
| Projected buyout fundraising | $531 billion | Full-year 2024 estimate |
| Ten largest buyout funds | 64% of capital raised | 2024 |
Dry powder and unsold companies
Buyout funds held $1.2 trillion in uninvested capital in 2024, as reported in the Bain Global Private Equity Report 2024. The Bain Private Equity Midyear Report 2024 measured $3.9 trillion of available dry powder across the industry in mid-2024, including $1.1 trillion of committed but uncalled capital in buyout funds.
The distinction between uninvested capital and broader available dry powder matters. The first figure is specific to buyout funds in the annual report; the second is an industry-level midyear figure. They use different scopes and reporting contexts, so they should not be added together.
Buyout portfolios contained 28,000 unsold companies in 2024. Those companies represented $3.2 trillion of unrealized value, according to the Bain Global Private Equity Report 2024. Bain separately described the same $3.2 trillion as a record backlog of unsold companies in its 2024 discussion, and another Bain report said the backlog was four times the level by value seen during the global financial crisis.
The backlog was large relative to earlier market conditions. Bain reported that the 2024 deal backlog was about 1.5 times the buyout dry powder level seen in 2018, while buyout deal value in 2024 was expected to roughly match 2018 levels. These are comparisons of market conditions and expected value, not a claim that the same companies or funds were involved.
More than 40% of unsold companies were four years old or older in 2024. At the same time, 54% of unsold assets had been held for three years or less. Because the two percentages use different age groupings, they describe overlapping parts of the portfolio rather than a complete age distribution.
Portfolio age and investment performance
Older holdings became more prominent. Companies held for five years or longer grew 18% year over year in 2023. Companies held for four years or longer made up 46% of unsold assets, the highest level since 2012. Both figures come from the Bain Global Private Equity Report 2024.
The reported MOIC distribution shows why holding period matters. Among companies acquired six years ago or more, 36% were at breakeven or below, while another 34% were marked at 1.0x to 2.5x MOIC. MOIC means multiple of invested capital; a value at or below 1.0x indicates that the marked value was no higher than invested capital before considering the specific treatment of fees and other fund-level effects.
For companies held four years or longer, 70% were doing just OK or worse under Bain’s categorization. More specifically, 29% were at or below 1.0x MOIC and 41% were above 1.0x but below 2.5x MOIC. These figures describe marked portfolio-company outcomes in the cited report, not realized returns paid to investors.
The 2006 vintage of buyout funds was singled out as a benchmark cohort in Bain’s liquidity discussion, the Bain Cash Became King Again 2024 report. A vintage refers to the year in which a fund generally began investing, so a vintage comparison is not the same as a comparison of individual company acquisition dates.
Deals and buyout activity
Global buyout deal count was down 4% on an annualized basis through May 15, 2024, according to the Bain Private Equity Midyear Report 2024. Despite the lower count, global buyout deal value was on pace to finish 2024 at $521 billion, an 18% increase over 2023.
The average buyout deal size rose to $916 million in 2024 from $758 million in 2023. These amounts are reported averages for the Bain midyear comparison, while the $521 billion figure is a full-year pace rather than a completed annual total.
North America showed a similar divergence between value and count. North American buyout deal value was on pace to increase 67% in 2024, while North American buyout deal count was on pace to fall 4%. The regional figures are estimates based on the reporting period and should not be read as final year-end results.
The United States invested $516 billion in private equity markets in 2024, according to the NB Crossroads Private Markets Fund IV Holdings LLC N-CSR filing. Public-to-private deal value in the United States fell to $147 billion in 2024 from $154 billion in 2023. The U.S. figures use a filing source and scope that are distinct from Bain’s global buyout estimates.
Exits and secondary liquidity
Global buyout-backed exit value was on pace to reach $361 billion in 2024, 17% above the 2023 total. Bain nevertheless described 2024 as shaping up to be the second-worst year for exit value since 2016. These statements can coexist: the projected increase from 2023 did not imply a return to the strongest years of the longer period.
The total number of buyout-backed exits was tracking flat on an annualized basis in mid-2024. The initial public offering channel had reopened enough to produce large exits, including EQT’s $2.6 billion Galderma IPO. That example is a named transaction, not an estimate of total IPO exit value.
Secondary funds raised 92% more capital in 2023 than in 2022, and secondary funds were growing faster than any other asset class in 2023, according to Bain’s 2024 reports. Secondary transactions provided about $120 billion in annual liquidity. Bain also compared that annual liquidity with more than $20 trillion of global private-capital AUM, showing the scale difference between the secondary channel and the wider asset base.
The $120 billion figure is therefore a measure of annual liquidity provided by secondary transactions, not a measure of all private equity exits. It also does not mean that 120 billion dollars of the industry’s total AUM changed hands every year. The reported figures instead point to a market with substantial capital and unrealized value, alongside a comparatively smaller liquidity channel.