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

Following the 2008 housing meltdown, private equity firms such as Blackstone bought thousands of single-family homes at bargain prices and turned them into rentals. — Samantha Delouya, CNN Money, 11 July 2026

Netflix, Paramount, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and private equity firms RedBird and TPG are also all among those who have agreed to meetings for an acquisition of Letterboxd, according to a report in Puck. — Brian Welk, IndieWire, 10 July 2026

And staff at both the left-leaning Urban Institute and right-leaning Taxpayers Protection Alliance argue private equity can actually improve the housing shortage by renovating homes that would have otherwise fallen out of the market. — Stephan Bisaha, NPR, 10 July 2026

This announcement came a year and a half after Nuvei was itself acquired by private equity firm Advent International. — Daniel Webber, Forbes.com, 10 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1959, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for private equity

• inequity