Street Talk

Forget auctions, bilateral deals are all the rage in PE land: Freehills

Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

Jun 4, 2025 – 5.00am

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Private equity sellers are prizing certainty and speed over maximising competitive tension among bidders as deal uncertainty plagues the sector.

Broad competitive auctions with multiple bidding parties are routine for private equity seeking to offload their biggest assets. But new analysis from Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer on private equity M&A in 2024 shows 78 per cent of deals were bilateral – involving direct, exclusive negotiations between a seller and a pre-identified buyer, excluding other bidders.

Sarah Thompson has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones.

Kanika Sood is a journalist based in Sydney who writes for the Street Talk column.

Emma Rapaport is a co-editor of the Street Talk column. Prior to that, she was a markets reporter at The Australian Financial Review.