UK PE houses are rapidly building their integration and value creation muscles. But are they flexing them enough to capture all of the value that is on the table? Building on themes highlighted in KPMG’s UK Private Equity Landscape report 2026, this article explains how PE leaders could be unlocking additional value through upfront synergy assessment and post-deal integration.
It’s becoming harder and harder for PE houses to run up multiples with financial engineering alone. One of the key drivers we have seen in recent years is PE looking to the synergy potential of an integration to bridge the valuation gap. Look at the roaring success of the bolt-on model in the UK these days (accounting for 60%-70% of the UK PE deal market); the whole thesis is about creating value through integration.
The fact is not lost on PE houses. As our colleagues noted in KPMG's UK Private Equity Landscap report 2026, the quest for value creation has driven a significant increase in sophistication at many PE houses over the past few years. This includes putting considerable effort into bulking up their ‘integration muscles’, through hiring operational and value creation talent into internal teams and building long-term relationships with expert third party professionals to upskill these teams and turbo-charge their internal capabilities.
We see lots of PE houses with amazing integration teams who are laser focused on pre-deal synergy assessment to identify value and swoop in after the deal closes to rapidly unlock all sorts of value by integrating systems, processes and operating models – sniffing out and executing on synergy opportunities wherever they can find them. But are their talents really being fully leveraged?
