Davis Polk partner Hilary Dengel was quoted in Buyouts from the Women in Private Equity Roundtable, where she joined her panelists in discussing the dealmaking environment, competition in private equity, and the outlook moving forward.

Hilary said she has been focused on what happens to capital structures as hold periods lengthen. She explained, “We have seen a lot of repricings in the last 12 months. Deals that were done in 2022 and 2023, when the markets were choppy and margins and spreads were higher than people would have liked, have been repriced and repriced again. I have seen a number of portfolio companies reprice three times in the last 24 months.”

She also noted that in many deals, over 90 percent of debt investors are rolling over their positions.

“I have also seen a number of div­idend recapitalizations, as that be­comes another way to return capital to investors when the exit market is not strong,” she said. “And the other trend we have seen, particularly in the early-stage company space, is founders and investors holding on for longer pre-IPO, partly because of choppiness but also because people want to see those companies grow for longer.”

Hilary pointed out that many of her clients are trying to source deals outside of traditional auction processes. She said, “A lot of the focus among PE spon­sors that I represent is on making sure that once they really want to invest, they are able to position themselves to win. Whether that means pre-empting an auction or finding a target on their own, that is the priority.”

Looking forward, Hilary said, “I am hopeful that the M&A pipeline continues to open up. We have seen some good developments in 2025, notwithstand­ing some of the uncertainty caused by tariff announcements. Despite the ups and downs, people are moving forward with deals. An interesting factor now is the number of financing structures availa­ble to accommodate activity. There are a lot more players – we have gone from a lot of deals being done in the broad­ly syndicated market to private credit filling a hole, and now both of them working together on a lot of transac­tions. We are seeing convergence of the players in the space, of deal terms and of structures being done, creating a lot of interesting opportunities out there to finance deals.”

“Roundtable: Choppy waters ahead,” Buyouts (November 3, 2025)

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