North America spotlight
Number of North American buyout deals, 2020–Q3 2025
North American PE deal markets have delivered steady transaction flow through the course of 2025 and remain on track to post the strongest year for activity since 2021. For the first three quarters of 2025, North American deal value reached US$595.2 billion (YTD), beating the US$412 billion recorded across the same period in 2024 and well ahead of the US$265.3 billion figure for the first nine months of 2023. Jumbo deals have boosted headline value, with large-cap transactions such as Sycamore Partners’ US$23.7 billion take-private of Walgreens Boots Alliance and Thoma Bravo’s US$10.5 billion carve-out acquisition of Boeing’s digital aviation division, driving the deal value uplift. Meanwhile, at the end of the third quarter, the largest leveraged buyout in history was announced as gaming giant Electronic Arts, makers of Battlefield and Madden NFL , agreed to sell itself for US$55 billion to a PE consortium comprising Silver Lake, Affinity Partners and PIF. These big-ticket plays have kept the market moving through a period of tariff uncertainty and sticky inflation, ensuring that deal value has increased even though volume has contracted, dropping from 2,914 deals for the first three quarters of 2024 to 2,680 for the same period (YTD) in 2025. Sector watch The technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sector has been the single biggest contributor to the value uptick, accounting for almost half of the total for the year so far with transactions worth US$288.7 billion, up from US$195.7 billion for the first three quarters of 2024. The AI boom has been a huge driver of TMT activity. Large-language model AI developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic have secured multi- billion-dollar funding rounds, while AI-powered applications for industries ranging from mining to defense have been growing at pace and attracting PE interest. Momentum behind AI shows little sign of slowing, with rapid technological advancement and strong government backing for initiatives like the Stargate Project, a US$500 billion initiative to accelerate the construction of AI infrastructure, set to continue driving investment and deal activity in the sector. Accelerating AI uptake is also spurring deal activity in the energy, mining and utilities sectors, where buyout deal value has doubled year-on-year to reach just under US$60 billion. Energy deals, such as Blackstone’s US$11.8 billion acquisition of New Mexico power company TXNM, reflect the anticipated surge in demand for electricity for
5,000
929
4,000
1,178
828
971
774
3,000
945
829
886
839
1,186
2,000
1,006
1,009
639
921
900
1,000
447 280 440
1,522
960
973
941
926
0
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
Q1
Q2 Q3 Q4
Value of North American buyout deals, 2020–Q3 2025
900
800
700
ș200.9
600
ș185.7
500
ș149.6
ș77.0
ș259.0
400
ș110.8
ș182.4
ș87.2
ș217.1
300
ș137.8
ș159.3
ș117.1
ș98.1
200
ș131.6
ș73.0
ș79.6 ș23.5 ș59.2
ș191.1
100
ș189.1
ș177.0
ș98.0
ș94.2
0
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
Q1
Q2 Q3 Q4
24
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