The value of global private equity exits — including IPOs, secondary buyouts, trade sales and bankruptcies — reached a five-year low of $392.48 billion in 2024, Preqin data shows. Trade sales, including sales to management, was $193.6 billion across 1,177 transactions. Secondary buyouts represented 38% of deal value, IPOs accounted for 12% and bankruptcies made up over 2%.
Key highlights include:
Exit volume increased by over 5%, reaching 2,227 in 2024, up from 2,108 in 2023. This roughly aligns with annual totals across the past five years excluding 2021, when the number of deals exceeded 3,000.
Due to the weak exit market, the average holding period for private equity firms was 6.1 years in 2024, Preqin data shows. This compares with 6.2 years in 2023, but remains higher than the average holding period recorded between 2018 and 2022.
Insight Venture Management and venture capital firm Y Combinator led firms in the number of exits between Jan. 1 to Dec. 9, 2024. Each participated as a seller in 22 transactions during this period, S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows.
In December, Insight completed three trade sale exits that were announced earlier in 2024: the sale of Run:Ai Labs to NVIDIA Corp.; Mastercard’s $2.7 billion purchase of Recorded Future and Visa’s buyout of Featurespace.
Exits are expected to rebound in 2025, a positive outlook that is supported by Preqin data which indicates that exit transaction values steadily increased each quarter throughout 2024.
