At The Deal's Fifth Annual Private Capital Symposium Marc Kramer, managing director at Fenway Partners Inc., James Epstein, partner at Pepper Hamilton LLP, and Steven Rattner, managing director at DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, spoke about the middle-market valuations.
"I think sellers are understanding that the type of multiples they could sell at in '06 were unprecedented, unrealistic and probably not going to happen again in the near future," Rattner said.
"I would say there are still a lot of private equity firms that are sellers in this market, and while their outward communication may be, 'We would like to wait until the market strengthens and there is more liquidity,' I think the honest perspective is, 'We would be willing to take a little less in this environment then we would have maybe 12 months ago,' " Kramer said.
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