Despite being only nine months into 2004, exit value has been confirmed as the highest ever recorded.
According to figures published today by Barclays Private Equity and Deloitte, exit value for the year to date has reached a staggering £13.7 billion compared with a total of £8.8 billion for the whole of 2003.
The 63 secondary buy-outs and a smattering of large-scale trade sales have attributed to this record-breaking performance - both in terms of value and volume. When combined with the raft of new listings (21 completed in the first nine months compared to a quiet 2003 when 9 were completed) the figures speak for themselves.
These statistics complement a more in-depth report, Exit, which has also been published today. Exit, compiled by the Centre for Management Buy-Out Research (CMBOR), takes comprehensive look at the exit environment, providing an assemblage of data on investments made and realised over the last 20 years.
The Exit report shows that the average time to exit steadily increased throughout the 1990s from around 42 months to more than 70 months by the end of 2003. This is longer than the typical target exit period for buy-out investment, normally put at between 36 and 60 months.