The Exit Playbook: Right-timing the exit
Private equity leaders examine the complex decision-making and operational discipline required to time an exit successfully in a constrained liquidity environment. The discussion explores trigger points across value creation milestones, hold-versus-sell portfolio reviews, rigorous 12-to-18-month exit diagnostics, tech and AI defensibility testing, and the debate between fixed-horizon holding versus building businesses for indefinite long-term value.
- Sending broad confidential information memorandums (CIMs) to dozens of bidders produces weak exit outcomes compared to multi-year corporate relationship building. Read →
- Private equity sponsors are taking exit decisions away from individual deal teams and centralizing them into dedicated review committees to accelerate distributions to paid-in capital (DPI). Read →
- Private equity returned barely 10% of net asset value per year to limited partners between 2020 and 2025, according to GTCR partner Michael Hollander. Read →
- Acquirers now subject enterprise software targets to hostile buy-side scrutiny, probing whether frontier AI models or nimble startups can replicate core features. Read →
- Acquirers discount bids when diligence turns into forensic accounting, even if top-line revenue and operating metrics look healthy on paper. Read →
- Neal Kavilitch of Centerbridge defines the exit sweet spot as the exact window where value creation milestones prove viable while tangible operational upside remains for the incoming sponsor. Read →