“You’ve seen the S&P down 20%, the Nasdaq down 30%, some tech companies down 50%, 70%-plus,” Mr. Kleinman said. “It doesn’t mean these are bad companies, it just means that the starting point of the valuations didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Private equity has been among the biggest winners in finance over the past decade as investors have deployed hundreds of billions of dollars into the asset class in a search for yield. The influx of capital combined with readily available leverage led to a deal-making frenzy and forced asset prices to record highs.
With rising interest rates and the increasing likelihood of a recession, high prices paid previously for assets are likely to start eating into returns.
“I do think private valuations will fall,” Mr. Kleinman said. “The private equity industry has to return back capital to investors. The prevailing market prices when you go to sell those companies will determine what that shake out looks like.”
The tougher economy will also make it more difficult for private equity firms to sell their assets or list them on public stock exchanges in the near term as investors adjust pricing expectations, according to Nikos Stathopoulos, a partner, chairman of Europe and member of the management committee at BC Partners.
“Everyone is in a bit of a wait-and-see mode to see what impact this will have, mainly on valuations,” Mr. Stathopoulos added in a separate Bloomberg TV interview. “As in everything you have to adjust the valuation expectations of the buyers and the sellers and they have to converge at some point and that sometimes takes time.” Still, he said BC Partners is continuing to look for investments in areas such as health and telecommunications that it views as more protected from consumer trends.
