private equity

plural private equities

1. countableuncountableCapital stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public.

   That company is closely held; its equity is all private equity.

2. countableuncountableAn investment fund that specializes in buying companies in order to restructure and then sell them with a profit; the industry comprising such firms.

   Although private equity is not inherently villainous, the horror stories from past takeovers give the industry a bad name, especially in cases where it assumes the mantle of landlord or hospital owner.

   4 more examples

   Spain’s La Liga has agreed a €2.7bn (£2.3bn) deal with CVC that could see private equity involved in the running of a large European football league for the first time.

   2021 August 4, Jasper Jolly, “Spain’s La Liga agrees €2.7bn deal with private equity firm CVC”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 14 Aug 2021

   American private equity tycoons are profiteering from the global climate crisis by investing in fossil fuels that are driving greenhouse gas emissions, a new investigation reveals.

   2022 February 15, Nina Lakhani, “Private equity’s dirty dozen: the 12 US firms funding dirty energy projects”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2022

   If trouble is to strike, it will hit an industry that is now hubristic and vast. The amount of money invested, or waiting to be invested, by private-equity funds has swelled from $1.3trn in 2009 to $4.6trn today. This was driven by a scramble for yield among pension funds, insurance companies and endowments during a decade of historically low interest rates in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-09. Many have more than doubled their allocations to private equity.

   2022 July 7, “Private equity may be heading for a fall”, in The Economist, →ISSN, archived from the original on 01 Aug 2022

   Private equity — the industry responsible for bankrupting companies, slashing jobs and raising the mortality rates at the nursing homes it acquires — is making money by gobbling up the rights for old hits and pumping them back into our present.

   2024 March 18, Marc Hogan, “Same Old Song: Private Equity Is Destroying Our Music Ecosystem”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 21 Mar 2024