Global private equity investment hits four-year high in 2025
Global PE investment surged to a four-year high of $2.1 trillion in 2025, despite a continued slowdown in deal activity, according to KPMG’s Q4’25 Pulse of Private Equity report.
While the uptick in investment was positive, ongoing global geopolitical uncertainties and a large inventory of aging assets in need of exit kept many global PE investors highly selective over the course of the year.
In contrast, globally deal volume declined for a second consecutive year, falling from 20,836 in 2024 to 19,093 in 2025—well below historical norms. This divergence reflects the clear shift in market dynamics, with PE firms prioritizing fewer, larger transactions over broad-based dealmaking.
In Q4’25 in particular, the global PE market saw ten megadeals valued at $6.5 billion or more, including five transactions in the US alone.
2025 PE investment in Ireland robust
Notwithstanding global headwinds, the picture in Ireland has remained largely positive through 2025, a sign of the resilience of the Irish investment landscape, its attractiveness as an investment location and the strength of Irish private business trading prospects.
This continued private equity appetite for investment in Ireland is evidenced by slightly higher deal volume, with 175 transactions in 2025, up 5% year on year.
Irish deal value, where disclosed, totalled €8.2 billion across 28 deals within that total, a decrease in value of 11% compared with 2024.
However, that headline decline in value reflects reduced disclosure of deal values in 2025 rather than weaker pricing. In fact, average disclosed 2025 deal value increased by 27% to €292 million.
Commenting on Private Equity investment in Ireland, Gavin Sheehan, Partner, Deal Advisory at KPMG in Ireland, said “The continued investment by private equity in Irish businesses across an array of sectors through 2025 highlights the significant prospects and growth opportunities that Irish and international private capital see for Irish enterprises over the medium term.
While not possible to entirely discount the challenges presented by macro uncertainty, given the robust investment levels experienced in recent years and the positive investor sentiment entering 2026 we expect that PE sponsors will likely increase investment this year and favour opportunities where operational improvements, disciplined add-ons and cross border execution can be combined to deliver resilient value creation”.
Irish private equity activity
Private equity investment in Ireland during 2025 saw investment across a broad range of sectors, the busiest being Business Products and Services, Healthcare and Information Technology, with Energy also seeing a number of large deals albeit PE investment was more selective in that sector.
PE activity included:
Energia Group was acquired by Ardian for more than €2.5 billion, reinforcing continued PE appetite for scaled, infrastructure type assets across the island of Ireland.
TowerBrook’s investment in GMC Utilities Group, MML Ireland’s investment in Mitchell McDermott, and Erisbeg’s continued investments through ORS Building Consultants were examples of continued private capital investment in services businesses supporting the built environment.
3i’s investment in WaterWipes, supporting international expansion of a leading Irish consumer brand.
Waterland’s investment in Cruinn Diagnostics, supporting the next phase of its growth strategy.
Presidio, backed by Clayton Dubilier & Rice, agreed to acquire Ergo, extending a cross border buy and build strategy in cloud and managed services.
Cardinal Capital, Renatus and MML Ireland each invested in accountancy services businesses, a very active sector for private equity supported consolidation internationally
2025—Key highlights
Global PE investment rose from $1.8 trillion in 2024 to $2.1 trillion in 2025, despite a decline in deal volume from 20,836 to 19,093.
The Americas accounted for more than half of global PE investment, with $1.2 trillion deployed across 9,118 deals; this total approached the $1.4 trillion peak seen in the Americas in 2021—previously viewed as an outlier year—even as deal volume declined to a five-year low. The US attracted $1.1 trillion of this total across 8,232 deals.
The EMA region attracted a robust $729.9 billion across 8,278 PE deals in 2025. This marked a notable increase from $649.4 billion in 2024, despite deal volume declining from 8,922 year-over-year.
PE investment in the ASPAC region edged upwards, rising from $142.2 billion across 1,318 deals in 2024 to $144.9 billion across 1,162 deals in 2025.
Cross-border PE activity reached a record $1.13 trillion in 2025, surpassing the previous high set in 2021.
Global PE exit value totaled $1.3 trillion in 2025, marking the second-highest annual level in the past decade, trailing only 2021.
The sectors that saw the most PE investment globally in 2025 were Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) at $654 billion, Industrial Manufacturing at $328 billion, and Energy & Natural Resources at $276 billion.
Global PE fundraising was the weakest in recent memory, with just $407.6 billion raised across 543 funds—down from the $608.8 billion raised across 1,025 funds in 2024.
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