In the field of finance, private equity (PE) is capital stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. Private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms rather than the companies that they invest in.
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc.. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Financial services are economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of service sector activities, especially as concerns financial management and consumer finance.
Investcorp is a global manager of alternative investment products, for private and institutional clients. Founded in Bahrain in 1982, the firm has offices in United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, India, China, Japan, and Singapore. Investcorp's principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, but it also has a growing base of institutional clients in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Providence Equity Partners L.L.C. is a specialist private equity investment firm focused on media, communications, education, and technology investments across North America and Europe. The firm specializes in growth-oriented private equity investments and has invested in more than 170 companies globally since its inception in 1989.
Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of March 2024, the firm had raised and advised funds of approximately $77 billion (USD). Apax Partners is one of the oldest and largest private equity firms operating on an international basis.
Cinven Limited is a global private equity firm founded in 1977, with offices in nine international locations in Guernsey, London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Hong Kong that acquires Europe and United States based corporations, and emerging market firms that fit with their core businesses, and necessitate a minimum equity investment of €100 million or more. As of 2023, it has €39 billion in assets under management.
A private equity fund is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity. Private equity funds are typically limited partnerships with a fixed term of 10 years. At inception, institutional investors make an unfunded commitment to the limited partnership, which is then drawn over the term of the fund. From the investors' point of view, funds can be traditional or asymmetric.
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is an American global alternative investment firm with assets across credit, private equity, and real estate strategies. The firm is based in New York City, and run by Steve Feinberg, who co-founded Cerberus in 1992, with William L. Richter, who serves as a senior managing director. The firm has affiliate and advisory offices in the United States, Europe and Asia.
In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.
Robert W. Baird & Co. is an American multinational independent investment firm and financial services company. It is the principal U.S. operating subsidiary of Baird, an international, employee-owned financial services firm providing investment banking, capital markets, private equity, wealth management, and asset management services to individuals, corporations, institutional investors, and municipalities.
RLH Equity Partners is a private equity firm based in Los Angeles that focuses on making investments in growing services businesses. Sectors of particular investment interest to the firm include business services, healthcare, and government services.
Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts on several core target industries including media, financial services, professional services and information services. The firm tends to avoid asset intensive or other industrial businesses. H&F is based in San Francisco, with offices in New York and London.
Thoma Bravo, LP, is an American private equity and growth capital firm based in Chicago. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring enterprise software companies and has over $130 billion in assets under management as of 2023.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
Paul Capital is a private equity investment firm made up of a fund of funds, secondary investments and a healthcare direct investment business. The firm has more than 100 employees and manages more than $7 billion across its three distinct investment platforms.
Vista Equity Partners is an American private equity firm that invests in software, data, and technology-enabled businesses. With over $100 billion in assets under management (AUM), it is one of the largest private equity firms in the world. Vista Equity Partners has invested in hundreds of technology companies, including Citrix, SentinelOne, and Marketo, and has achieved many accolades in the space, most recently being named as 2023's Global Technology Private Equity Firm of the Year by Private Equity International.
Hillhouse Investment is a global private equity firm with an East Asian heritage. Hillhouse was founded by Lei Zhang in 2005 with initial seed capital from the Yale University endowment and invests across East Asia, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. Hillhouse has Asian offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai with additional international offices in New York City and London.
MCI Capital SA - private equity fund listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange established in 1999 by Tomasz Czechowicz with assets under management (AUM) of 2.8 billion PLN and permanent capital of 1.8 billion PLN [ca. 400 m Euro) as of December 31, 2021. According to Wall Street Journal MCI is one of Poland’s leading private equity companies.
XMS Capital Partners(XMS) is an American independent, privately owned, global financial services firm providing investment banking, asset management, and merchant banking services worldwide.
