John Mercury comments in Lexpert on private equity funds in Canada and the dry powder in the market that’s searching for the right opportunities. John says that over US$218 billion in private equity capital was raised in North America in 2018, and that’s not even a final number.

John speaks about U.S. PE interest in Canada, saying:

“I’ve seen a lot of term sheets so I think we have to be measured in how we view this. I hear about US$150 billion has been raised by energy funds in the last little while and it needs to be spent on energy investments.”

The bottom line, he says, is there is a lot of pent-up dry powder that needs to be spent over the next year or two.

“There is huge pressure on the providers of capital to deploy that capital into the right opportunities. Don’t underestimate that. So notwithstanding our current challenges, particularly in energy, there’s a lot of PE money ready to look at doing deals in Canada quickly. They’ve done it before and made money.”