Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

MacArthur: Average PE carve-outs returned 1.5x over past decade, trailing industry

Hugh MacArthur · Hugh MacArthur – Private Equity's Challenges and Opportunities (EP.453) · Jun 23, 2025 · at 52:22

Hugh MacArthur, Chairman of Bain & Company's Global Private Equity Practice, analyzes private equity performance metrics across deal types.

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“Now in the last decade or so, the average carve out is earning more like one and a half times and trailing the rest of the industry.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Over the last decade, the average private equity corporate carve-out has returned around 1.5x MOIC, trailing the broader industry.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim accurately reflects private equity industry benchmark data published by Bain & Company in its Global Private Equity Report 2025 (released March 3, 2025). Analysis of DealEdge/Bain deal-level data demonstrates that for deals completed and exited post-2012 (the decade preceding the claim), PE-backed corporate carve-outs generated an average multiple on invested capital (MOIC) of approximately 1.5x, trailing the broader buyout industry average of approximately 1.7x MOIC.

Bain & Company Global Private Equity Report 2025 ('PE-Backed Carve-Outs Used to Be Reliable Winners. So What Happened?') documented that average PE carve-out returns compressed to ~1.5x MOIC post-2012.
The same dataset showed broader buyout transactions averaged ~1.7x MOIC over the post-2012 period, confirming that carve-outs trailed the overall industry.
Top-quartile carve-out performance post-2012 (2.5x MOIC) also lagged top-quartile performance across the broader buyout industry (2.7x MOIC).

Checked against

[1] bain.com [2] prnewswire.com [3] aurelius-group.com [4] privateequityinternational.com [5] collateral.com [6] wangadvisory.com [7] prnewswire.com

Hugh MacArthur Bain Global Private Equity Report carve-outs return MOIC Bain private equity report corporate carve out MOIC 1.5x carve-outs MOIC private equity returns 1.5x

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

carve out private equity

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MacArthur: Average PE carve-outs returned 1.5x over past decade, trailing industry

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