Private Equity Activity Falls in April

Private equity activity dipped in April, compared both to the prior month and the prior April. According to data provided by Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB), private equity firms were involved in 124 deals last month, with a disclosed value of approximately $7.8 billion. This dollar amount is off around 8.67% from the $8.53 billion worth of activity in March, and is down a whopping 69.77% from the $25.78 billion of volume in April 2008.

But the numbers do contain a pair of silver linings. First, the dollar volume was higher than four out of the past five months (March being the exception). Second, private equity deals accounted for 6.9% of global M&A, which is the highest percentage since last August. Make that last piece of silver a bit tarnished, given that April’s global M&A numbers were pretty lousy in their own right.