Private companies’ growth strategies for 2025 and beyond

CEOs at private companies certainly think they are well prepared to make the most of new opportunities. Indeed, nearly three-quarters of our respondents say they feel prepared to capitalize on major growth opportunities today. Interestingly, those categorized as Traditional Private companies indicated the highest level of preparedness (79 percent) versus Emerging Giants and Recent IPOs (68 percent and 68 percent, respectively).¹

Across industries, healthcare and life sciences companies believe they are the most prepared, while financial services and consumer and retail companies believe they are the least prepared.

More than three-quarters of private company leaders say they expect an increase in their M&A deal activity over the next 18 months, despite current higher interest rates. In part, that may be because some private equity houses are sitting on significant amounts of “dry powder” that they are keen to deploy. Many portfolio company CEOs likely expect to see a bolt-on acquisition in the near future.

At the same time, our survey shows that the group of companies categorized as Recent IPOs are much more likely to forecast an increase in their deal activity—potentially seeing it as a way to fast-track further growth and expansion of their businesses and/or to acquire disruptive AI technology.

Be a “game changer”

More than half (53 percent) of the private company leaders in our survey say they are either “strong disruptors” or “game changers” in their industry.²  However, that means different things depending on the type of private company you lead.

• Traditional Private companies consider themselves the strongest disruptors with 29 percent describing themselves as game changers and 30 percent as strong disruptors.³ Private companies often have greater flexibility to innovate and pivot quickly with fewer constraints and public market expectations.
• Recent IPOs also consider themselves disruptive with 42 percent saying they are strong disruptors and about 15 percent saying they are game changers.⁴ Adjusting to new regulatory and reporting requirements and shareholder expectations are likely to be constraining resources and tempering their risk taking and disruptive efforts.
• Emerging Giants consider themselves the least disruptive, with just 7 percent calling themselves game changers and 36 percent strong disruptors.⁵ While this may be surprising given these are private companies that plan to go public the soonest, they are still in the growth phase, so there may be resource constraints or lack of market influence to be game changers yet, as they look to build up their capabilities.