Maturity wall myth

Last year was very much defined as the big M&A slump. An historically unprecedented rise in the federal funds rate halted a lot of deal activity. Simply put, debt was just too expensive to make buyouts work.

So naturally you’d expect a pile up of private equity portfolio companies coming dangerously close to debt maturities, whether in 2024 or 2025. Typically, a borrower wants to think about refinancing years in advance, especially if debt markets are favorable. Alternatively, they can explore sale processes, but that in many situations has proven hard to do.