private equity

noun

plural private equities

1

: investment in a company that does not trade on a public stock exchange : interest in a private company

… the proportion of the pension fund parked in private equity grew from nearly 21% of the portfolio in 2014 to about 28% earlier this year.

—Alex Baumhardt

—often used before a noun

private equity investments

2

: investment groups that pool the money of investors in order to acquire ownership shares in private companies

Private equity likes to acquire firms with debt, merge some of them together, find efficiencies, expand and then sell the company or go public on the stock market—in hopes of making a profit for investors.

—Kelly Yamanouchi

Examples of private equity in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

BlueFive Capital is a private equity firm led by Hazem Ben-Gacem, a former executive at alternative investment firm Investcorp. —Anniek Bao, CNBC, 24 Apr. 2026

Often, private equity investors kept the sale proceeds as profits while the hospitals were burdened with new rent costs. —Jordan Rau, Miami Herald, 23 Apr. 2026

In 2025, Phlur was acquired by the private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, with Lim retaining the creative director title and an ownership stake. —Etan Vlessing, HollywoodReporter, 23 Apr. 2026

In 2022, Real Madrid made private equity giant Sixth Street a partner in the Bernabéu project, trading a share of stadium revenue over 20 years for €360 million ($425 million) to put toward construction. —Kurt Badenhausen, Sportico.com, 22 Apr. 2026

Authorities allege that Bang gave early shareholders false assurances in 2019 that a stock market debut was not on the horizon, inducing them to sell their stakes to a private equity vehicle connected to his associates. —Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 21 Apr. 2026

History says beware The idea that private equity could generate outsize returns started with the huge Yale University endowment fund in the 1980s, pioneered by then-manager David Swensen. —Terry Savage, Chicago Tribune, 21 Apr. 2026

That’s why OpenAI and Anthropic both have major sales channels being built around private equity firms. —Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 21 Apr. 2026

Historically, private equity was the practical expression of a philosophy that saw profit as the sole purpose of business, and debt as a neat way to make managers deliver it. —Hettie O'Brien, The Dial, 21 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1959, in the meaning defined at sense 1