Volumes of European private equity exits and buyouts 2009-2013, by deal size

Private equity buyouts (primary and secondary) are those investments that target companies, which are traded publicly, in order to make them private.
Private equity investors realize the return on investments through exit strategies. Several methods are avaialble for investors to exit their private equity investments: Initial public offering (IPO) of the company on the stock exchange and subsequently selling the shares of the company to the public is one of them. Other ones include for example a trade sale or a secondary buyout.