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European private investors have scaled back their US buyout activity this year amid a broader slowdown in dealmaking, with just two deals accounting for more than a third of deal value.   

There have been 147 US buyouts involving European investors so far this year worth $29.5 billion, according to PitchBook data. Activity is likely to be down at year's end from last year's total of 218 deals totaling $36.6 billion invested, which was nearly on par with 2021's total of 199 deals worth $41.1 billion.
   

The largest European PE buyout of a US company this year was the takeover of talent agency Creative Artist Agency by a consortium led by Groupe Artemis—a family office and PE firm owned by French billionaire François-Henri Pinault—in September. The deal, which also saw participation from Singapore's Temasek, valued the company at $7 billion and is the largest European PE buyout of a US company on record. The buyout provided an exit for TPG, which  bought the company in 2014 for just $1.1 billion.

The next largest buyout of the year was the $3 billion take-private of US communications company Radius Global Infrastructure by an EQT-led consortium that included Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board.

Radius was the first investment by EQT's Active Core Infrastructure Fund, which seeks to increase the firm's existing exposure to digital infrastructure. EQT has stakes in European providers such as Deutsche Glasfaser, and this was the firm's second US-based digital infrastructure buyout in five years following 2020's $2.75 billion EdgeConneX deal.

Featured photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images
 

This article originally appeared on PitchBook News