Interesting data from Prequin showing that the average time to exit for PE firms has dropped slightly in 2015 to 5.5 years, although it is still significantly longer than in 2008 when it was 4.1 years.
Although there was a record number of exits in 2014 from private equity portfolios, i.e. 1,686 exits worth $442bn, there remain a lot of companies in private equity portfolios from the boom years of 2006/2007 still to exit. We see a lot of activity in secondary buyouts, and we expect that to continue in the current strong market conditions.
Average holding time for companies sold in 2015 is 5.5 years, Preqin reports Preqin said this positive trend could be attributed in part to the increasing prominence of partial exits in recent years. Partial exits accounted for 33% of all exits in 2014, compared with just 21% of all private-equity-backed exits in 2006 and 19% in 2008. European companies sold this year had the longest average holding period, 5.7 years, compared with 5.3 years for North America companies sold in 2015
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2015/05/19/private-equity-firms-selling-companies-faster
