货币政策与私募股权收购：追踪联系

by Fernando Avalos, Boris Hofmann and Jose MariaSerena Monetary and Economic Department January 2026 JEL classification: G21, G32, F32, F34 Keywords:private equity,buyouts,monetary policy,credit spreads, equity risk premium BISWorking Papers are written by members of the Monetary and EconomicDepartment of the Bank for International Settlements, and from time to time by othereconomists, and are published by the Bank. The papers are on subjects of topical This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). ©Bank for International Settlements 2026. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may be ISSN 1020-0959 (print)ISSN 1682-7678 (online) Monetary policy and private equity acquisitions: tracing the links Fernando Avalos†Boris Hofmann‡This version: 19 January 2026 Abstract Private equity funds play an increasingly important role in financial systems.Yet,the impact of monetary policy on their activity has been little explored so far.Inthis paper, we analyse the transmission of monetary policy through private equity(PE) deals, focusing on the impact on:(i) the volume of private equity deals; (ii)the use of leverage; and (iii) the pricing of those deals.We find that contractionarymonetary policy shocks to the short end of the yield curve tend to dampen private Key words: Private equity; buyouts; monetary policy; credit spreads, equity risk premium JEL: G21, G32, F32, F34 1Introduction Over recent decades, financial intermediation in the United States and other advancedeconomies has increasingly migrated from banks towards non-bank financial intermediaries(NBFIs). The steep growth of so-called ”private capital markets”, whose activity has boomedduring the past two decades, represents one of several trends related to this shift in financial intermediation. This comprises private credit funds directly lending to smaller and riskier The ecosystem of private equity is comprised of a complex network of specialised invest-ment funds, mostly raised from large institutional investors and managed by a differentiated class of alternative asset managers (AAMs).2Initially focused on investments in upstart newfirms during the post-war 1940s, and more mature firms since the 1960s, these AAMs haveexpanded to traditional high-yield lending and the financing of an ample variety of ”real upstart companies (ie venture capital), which represent a large share of this ecosystem. Forsimplicity, we generally refer to them as private equity deals or transactions.A commonthread of all these activities is the pursuit of capital gains by means of increasing the intrin- Previous work has investigated the impact of financial conditions on private equity ac-quisitions. Axelson et al. [2013] find that the capital structure of leveraged buyouts (LBOs), and in particular the share of debt used in them (ie the leverage), depends on economy-widecredit conditions and not the specific cross-sectional features of the target firms.Haddad We build upon these previous insights by relying on an empirical model that is anextension of Haddad et al. [2017].Our dataset is more comprehensive, and includes notonly LBOs, but an assortment of minority-stake acquisitions, mostly related to venture, seedand incubator investments, and also so-called ”growth investments” in relatively established consider monetary policy surprises affecting the long end of the term structure of inter-est rates, reflecting in particular news about central bank balance sheet policies, such as The results show that a monetary policy tightening – at the short end of the termstructure – significantly diminishes the volume of private equity deals, as well as reduces theuse of leverage and the pricing of targets. We relate these differential effects to the diverseways in which surprises transmit through credit and valuation channels of monetary policy. Our paper contributes to several strands of the literature. First, to the large body ofresearch on the ”shadow banking channel” of monetary policy. That is, how changes in policyshape credit market outcomes through different aspects of non-bank financial activity and intermediation. In general, researchers have found that non-bank lenders respond differentlythan banks to monetary contractions. Non-banks affect the transmission of monetary policy exposure to bond markets, and other NBFIs in loan markets, such as direct lenders. Closerto ours, the papers by Adra et al. [2020] and Fischer and Horn [2021] study the impact ofmonetary policy on merger and acquisitions (M&A). They find that policy affects a widerange of outcomes in this activity. Aggregate activity falls after a tightening monetary policyshock, and the credit channel – defined as the availability of financing in good enough terms Second, our findings add to research on the impact of financial conditions on privateequity activity.Axelson et al. [2013] emphasise the importance of credit conditions whileHaddad et al. [2017] document the key role of