Plenty of business owners assume that private equity buys businesses.
But increasingly, PE also assembles them.
UK PE completed 797 buyouts in the first half of 2026, according to Private Equity Wire. But 602 of those were add-ons, up 11% on last year, while new platform investments fell to just 195.
KPMG's own snapshot tells the same story: bolt-ons now account for 62% of mid-market deals, up from 56% a year ago.
That's not a slowdown in dealmaking. It's group building at industrial scale. A platform gets chosen, then acquisition after acquisition gets bolted onto it.
Which means every owner in the £5M-£75M range is now on one side of this trade. The platform. The bolt-on. Or not on the list at all.
Two of those positions can be prepared for. The third happens by default.
By Gavin Gibbons
Get the newsletter
