PATRICE RASSOU: The shrinking JSE and keeping up with the Kardashians
In 2021, the total value of companies being bought out globally passed the $1-trillion mark for the first time after a hiatus in 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis. This dwarfed the previous record of $800bn in buyout deals just more than a year before the global financial crisis in 2007. With interest rates at record lows in the developed world, it is no surprise that most of these transactions happened in North America and Europe.
The technology sector was dominant, accounting for more than a third of all buyouts. One of the largest transactions in 2021 was the $30bn buyout of US medical equipment supplier Medline by a private equity consortium. With the world still swimming in liquidity after enormous quantitative easing by global central banks, funding for such deals remained relatively easy. A more eye-popping number is that global private equity firms had $3.4-trillion of unspent capital — a record surpassed in 2022 so far. No wonder we even have celebrities getting in...
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