Perspectives
18 November 2025
Tom Amster, Global Head of Macquarie Capital’s Financial Sponsors Group, discusses his outlook for private equity (PE) M&A on Octus’ podcast, 'Industry Insights: Exclusive Interviews.'
In the episode, Tom speaks about the evolution of PE, current trends shaping the global market and his outlook on dealmaking for 2026.
Tom is optimistic that the pent-up demand to deploy and return capital will create opportunities for PE firms to transact throughout 2026. Current market dynamics – such as heated competition between private credit and syndicated markets, rate cuts and a favorable regulatory environment – will create tailwinds for increased M&A activity.
Distinguished returns and a track record of excellence have heralded in a decade of differentiation. The best performers are meeting or exceeding their hard caps while those that haven’t met their return and distributed to paid-in capital (DPI) targets are facing down funds.
Competing financing sources have bolstered the buyout markets, with firms looking – nearly equally – to private credit and syndicated loans for the best financing terms for their acquisition targets and existing portfolio companies. Private equity players are the beneficiaries of this competition, resulting in aggressive pricing to support acquisitions and recapitalisations.
Sovereign wealth funds have played an increasingly significant role in private equity by investing directly alongside general partners. This trend will only continue as access to co-invest has become an integral lever to secure limited partners' (LP) commitments.
Continuation vehicles (CVs) have helped to bridge the liquidity gap over the last few years, allowing sponsors to hold their best companies longer while creating DPI. Although LPs pushed back on the concept initially, the market has found equilibrium. CVs are here to stay and will join M&A, IPOs and recapitalisations as the four primary pillars of returning capital to LPs.
Following years of subdued activity, sponsor-backed IPOs have returned. In 3Q25, issuance of sponsor-backed IPOs reached $US12.8bn, well above the $US9.9bn recorded a year earlier, marking the strongest third quarter for IPOs since 2022, according to Dealogic data.1 Most recently, Macquarie Capital acted as a lead, active bookrunner on McGraw Hill’s IPO and financial advisor to Apollo and Vistria in connection with the IPO of Phoenix Education Partners.
Tom Amster is Global Head of the Financial Sponsors Group for Macquarie Capital and a Senior Managing Director. He joined Macquarie in 2017.
Tom has more than 25 years of investment banking experience. He has worked across multiple industry verticals and has led the execution of transactions across the full spectrum of mergers & acquisitions, equity, debt, and derivative transaction.
