Leadership & talent

• Finance hiring shifts from title to stage
• 65% of PE firms saw CEO turnover during the hold
• Selection shifts from exit history to judgment
• Step-up CEOs are tested on owning a result
• A 22% EBITDA gain preceded £6m of revenue leaving
• Only 20% of operating professionals came from operating companies
• Portfolio ops teams have doubled since 2021
• Talent drives about 9% of the investment case
• PE-backed CFOs are expected to operate as CFOOs

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AI

• Capital should follow evidence, not pilots
• Required EBITDA growth is now 10 to 12%
• Time saved becomes value only if costs fall
• Set baseline and ROI before deployment
• A $1M AI bill at 15x can mean $15M less at exit
• Brookfield names deployment as the AI bottleneck
• AI ops titles at PE firms rose from 5% to 24%

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Deal market & capital

• Add-ons reached 885 against 289 platform buyouts
• Middle market made up 61.9% of US buyout value
• Higher borrowing costs raise the EBITDA growth bar
• Average hold periods have reached 6.6 years
• Charlesbank took a $700 million law firm stake
• KKR agreed to pay $5.1 billion for Gen II
• Sequence proposed a $7.7 billion take-private of Baldwin Group

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Operations & value creation

• 72% of PE firms rank operations as the top value lever
• Most operating partners cover more than five portfolio companies
• Operational roles are 10% of staff against 56% in investment
• Plans built for investment committees extend holds
• Only 26% assess pricing in most diligences
• Change management is the most under-invested line
• Private companies cut Scope 1 intensity faster than public peers

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Vendor & firm news

• Accordion acquired Stride, adding about 50 AI engineers
• Flux Partners launched for PE-backed HR strategy
• SpendHQ signed two PE firms for spend visibility
• NetSuite targets PE-backed multi-entity reporting
• OneGuide introduced Embedded Ops as a fifth model
• Provex Advisory opened a series on product leadership
• PE ownership of advisory firms shifts senior attention

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Thanks to Mark Jansen, Francisco Lara, Marla Capozzi, Camille Fetter, Rand N. McMullin, Tarek A., Scott Peters, Clark R. Beecher, Anthony Gorman, Alicia Motomura, Paul Stansik, Jim Bailey, Shannon Talbot, Ed Weeks Jr, George Wanyoike, Alex Eck, Dr.-Ing. Wilhelm H. Többen, Alejandro Mainetto, Nilesh Thakker, Thomas Blanchard, Scott Kosch, Lee McCabe, Jennifer G. Bates, Asif Rahman, Bryan Cascarano, Christian Christodulopulos, Vinay Raman, Borja del Olmo, Barry Toren, Gustavo Alba, Terry Dawson, Jake Seymour, Sherif Dweek, Chandan Mahajan, Lauren Cohen, Jan-Willem Adrian, Alan Gonsenhauser, Michael Mendolia, Shafique Barabhuiya, Srikaanth Raghavan, Eddie Rogers, Ofer Hermoni, Ted Belinky, Dr. Olga K., Jonas Roessel, Derek Bluestone, Elizabeth C., Mac K., Christina Skipper, Mario Peshev, George de los Reyes, Tim Dunn, Kristy Nittskoff, Kyle Roemer, Sean McPartlan, Scott Curry, Erik Boender, Elijah Podavalkin, Paul Press, Dave Clement, Jay Ruckelshaus, Christopher J. Conti, Nate Saperia, Matthew Dionne, Brian DeLucia, Dave Mangot, Nicolas Van Den Steen, Joe DiMento, Brad Haller, Rocio Wu Dianoux, Steve Budd and everyone else who contributed insights to this edition. Find the full list of posts and voices on LinkedIn: