Private equity-owned businesses drive growth and jobs in 2017

UK private equity-owned companies are driving growth against a backdrop of uncertainty as they boost revenues by 12 per cent in the last year.

The research, published today by accountancy and business advisory firm BDO LLP, reveals that the UK’s private equity-owned companies (from a sample of 902 portfolio companies where private equity firms together own between 50.01 per cent and 100 per cent) have seen revenues increase by 12 per cent from £37.4bn to £42bn in the last year.

These private equity-owned companies are also boosting the UK labour market. Now employing 311,833 people in the UK, these businesses have grown their workforces by 8.5 per cent in the last year from 287,488 and 26 per cent in the last five years from 248,299.  

Driving growth across the whole of the UK, 41 per cent of these high-growth companies are based outside London and they contribute a third (33 per cent) – £13.6bn – of the overall revenue of these companies in 2017.