Europe’s economic loss has appears to have been the private equity sector’s gain.

As the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (Jan. 12), private equity (PE) firms boosted their activity in the region during 2024, taking advantage of Europe’s economic downturn to purchase big companies at lower valuations.

The total value of buyout deals in Europe worth more than $1 billion rose at more than double the rate of the rest of the world, the report said, citing data from Dealogic. Roughly $133 billion in major deals were made in Europe during 2024, up 78% from 2023, the report said. That’s compared to the 29% uptick for the rest of the world, to $242 billion.

The FT argued that these numbers are the latest signs that PE firms are making the most of the glut of cheap companies in Europe.

Among last year’s big transactions were a $6.9 billion consortium agreement for investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown and a $5.5 billion deal by Thoma Bravo to take the British cybersecurity company Darktrace private.

A tough economic outlook — with tepid growth forecasts, political upheaval and geopolitical threats — combined with the strength of the dollar has encouraged U.S. private equity funds to target some parts of Europe, Neil Barlow, a partner at law firm Clifford Chance, told the FT.

“Certain more stable economies within Europe, such as the U.K., the Nordics and Germany [have become] a focal point for private capital providers,” Chance said.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a report last week by Reuters found optimism among Wall Street investment bankers for an uptick in dealmaking within equity capital markets this year, with a number of companies planning to go public.

Private equity outfits have struggled to sell or list portfolio companies in the last two years, the report said, as steep interest rates and rocky market conditions hampered dealmaking.

“Many of the companies owned by private equity firms have become sizable,” Arnaud Blanchard, global co-head of equity capital markets for Morgan Stanley, told Reuters. 

“Sponsors know it may take a while to complete a full exit, so they are becoming active now, early in the cycle.”

Among the companies said to be preparing initial public offerings (IPOs) for this year are payments/buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Klarna, and artificial intelligence (AI) cloud company CoreWeave, and FinTech Chime.

“Momentum may be on the side of FinTechs in the current year,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “First there’s the momentum of the overall markets, which may be readying for the incoming presidential administration, which some investors and executives expect to be arguably ‘business friendly’ in terms of regulations, crypto and taxes (which, of course, impact profits, and profits in turn impact valuations).”