私募公司退出正当时

    私募股权行业花了近10年投资很多企业，但卖出的并不太多。大家或许听到过并购市场如火如荼的盛况，但私募股权的退出速度犹如蜗牛一般。

    随着有限合伙人要求退出，现在是时候收割这些投资组合了。但不是所有的出售都能给有限合伙人带来他们预期的结果。

    首先，让我们来看看这些年来积累下来的投资组合规模。下表列出了目前私募股权基金持有的约7,500家美国公司的投资年份。超过50%的公司已经获私募股权基金持有至少6年，超过10年的也不少。

    The private equity industry has spent almost 10 years buying companies but not too much selling. You may be reading about the robust M&A environment, but in private equity, the exit market is running at a snail's pace.

    It's time to harvest the portfolio, as limited partners demand exits. But not all sales will give limited partners the results they expect.

    First, let's look at the size of the pile that has built up over the years. The table below shows the vintage of the roughly 7,500 U.S. companies currently owned by private equity funds. Over 50% of these companies have been sitting in funds for at least six years, with many well over 10 years.

    这些公司将需要找到新的投资者。但这么大的规模怎么才能消化得了？

    公开上市

    目前在纽约证交所上市的公司约有2,300家，在纳斯达克证交所上市的公司约2,700家，因此“真正”公开上市的公司总计约5,000家。而目前，私募股权基金持有的公司超过7,500家。在IPO好的年份，一年也只有几百宗IPO定价。其中，私募支持的公司或许能占到1/3。就算未来几年IPO猛增（从今年第一季度的一些迹象看，这种情况不无可能），也不能缓解多少压力。

    或许有人会举出在伦敦、温哥华、甚至澳大利亚等其他交易所上市。以前也有这样的例子。但这些市场的流动性依然不足以消化这样的体量。

    寻找战略投资者

    私募股权基金退出时，一个重要的下家群体就是企业买家。但企业集团对收购如饥似渴的时代已经结束。大型上市公司通过几百宗收购来积累市场份额、拓展新业务领域的做法已经基本成为明日黄花，或者至少已经大不如前。

    各家企业已经变得节制起来。事实上，对于大型上市公司而言，出售资产的可能性已经超出了收购资产。而且，企业买家们也越来越不喜欢参与大范围竞价。如果你打算通过一个大规模流程来退出私募支持公司，你基本上可以放弃这种想法了。

    进入二级市场

    再者，是“二级”市场。不要与一只基金卖给另一只基金的“二次收购”混淆。二级基金市场是私募股权行业的又一个层级：基金折价收购其他基金的部分或全部头寸。这些收购可为原有的有限合伙人提供现金，同时为投资组合中的其余公司重新设定时间，留出更多一些时间来实现全面的流动性。

    These companies will need to find new owners. But how is this pile going to be dismantled?

    Go public

    There are about 2,300 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and about 2,700 listed on the Nasdaq exchange, giving us a total of around 5,000 "real" public companies. There are currently over 7,500 private equity-owned companies sitting inside funds. In a good year, there are a couple hundred IPO pricings. Private equity-owned companies might make up a third of those in any given year. Even if the IPO spigot gushes for the next few years -- and there were some indications in the first quarter of this year that this might be the case -- it won't relieve much of the pressure.

    Some may make a case for alternative exchange listings in locations like London or Vancouver, or maybe even Australia. We have heard this before. There isn't enough liquidity in those markets to handle the volume.

    Go strategic

    Corporate buyers will always be a great source of exits for the private equity world. But the days of the acquisition-hungry conglomerate are over. The big public companies chasing hundreds of acquisitions to build market share and enter new categories have largely gone away or have at least slowed down.

    Corporations have become disciplined. In fact, it is more likely that big public companies will be shedding assets rather than buying them. And increasingly, corporate buyers hate participating in broad auctions, so if you are planning to run a big process to exit your private equity-owned company, you can pretty much count them out.

    Go secondary

    Then there is the "secondary" market. Not to be confused with secondary buyouts, where one fund sells to another fund, the secondary fund market is another class in the private equity industry with funds buying pieces of or whole positions of other funds at discounted values These purchases provide existing limited partners with cash and reset the clock on the remaining companies in a portfolio, giving them a little more time to achieve full liquidity down the road.