Fortune says US private equity deals fell 13.6%. PitchBook puts the quarterly fall at 30.4%

PitchBook shows deal value rebounding 20.9% from a weak Q2 but remaining below an exceptional Q3 last year. Exit value rose by half. Figures close to Fortune's appear only in a nine month comparison; fundraising remains weak.

Fortune's report carries a headline saying US private equity deal value fell 14.1% in the third quarter. Its body gives deal value down 13.6% and exit value down 14.1%. The report still stands uncorrected.

PitchBook's own post on the same quarter reads differently. Deal value rebounded 20.9% on the second quarter and is still down 30.4% on a year earlier. Exit value rose 50.4% on the quarter.

Both sets of numbers can be rebuilt from PitchBook's public series, because they measure different spans. The quarter is a rebound that still sits under an exceptional third quarter a year ago. Nine months is a longer comparison, and that is where a fall close to Fortune's figures appears.

PitchBook's First Look dashboard puts US deal value at $230.4bn for the quarter. That is up 20% on the second quarter, the rebound the post reports.

The same public series has the third quarter of 2025 at $336.0bn. On that release the fall on the year is 31%, a point wider than the 30.4% in the post.

The base explains the gap. Last year's $336.0bn is the third highest quarter in a series that starts in 2021, and it was the outlier. Any fall from it looks steep.

Quarterly deal value ran between $169bn and $296bn through 2022 and 2023. At $230.4bn the latest quarter sits in the middle of that range. It looks weak against last year only because last year was exceptional.

PitchBook's breakdown describes deal activity as modestly improved, with more megadeals but most transactions still in the middle market. Its post counts 28 transactions above $1bn, worth $82.8bn together. Those large deals carry the value.

The dashboard puts the deal count at 2,466, up 5.8% on the second quarter. Only 1,728 of those deals are reported so far. The rest are PitchBook's estimate, so the count can still move.

Exits point the other way. The breakdown's public chart shows $152.2bn of exit value in the quarter. That is 42% above the $107.2bn of the third quarter of 2025.

Against the $101.1bn of the second quarter, the rise is about 50%. That agrees with the 50.4% in the post.

The two PitchBook releases disagree on size. The First Look, published on 1 October, put the quarter at $165.1bn and the second quarter at $109.3bn. Six days later the breakdown had $152.2bn and $101.1bn.

Against $107.2bn a year earlier, the rise is 54% on the first release. It is 42% on the second. So the size of the gain depends on which release is read.

The exit count behind both is 405, up 11% on the second quarter. Of those exits, 145 are estimates, so the figures are still moving.

The first quarter of 2026 was already marked down between the two releases, from $152.3bn to $145.5bn. Every release shows exit value up by more than two fifths on the year.

The levels give the context. Quarterly exit value stayed under $100bn through 2022 and 2023, so $152.2bn is well clear of the trough.

It is still below the $226.7bn of last year's fourth quarter, and below every quarter of 2021. Exits have recovered from the trough but not from the peak.

Fortune's figures match only a longer span. On the First Look series, nine month deal value is $724.0bn against $844.7bn a year earlier. That is a fall of 14.3%, close to Fortune's 13.6%.

Nine month exit value is $426.7bn against $498.5bn, a fall of 14.4%. That is close to Fortune's 14.1%. Fortune gives no span, and only the nine month comparison lands near either figure.

That nine month measure also moves with the release. The breakdown's later series gives nine month exit value of $398.8bn, a fall of 20%. A year to date fall of 14% in one release and 20% in the next sits beside a quarter that is up by more than 40%. A headline depends on the span and on the day the series was pulled.

Concentration matters more than the total. PitchBook's post puts very large exits at 73.3% of the year's exit value. It says corporate strategics, the operating companies that buy businesses, supplied nearly 60% of the third quarter's. Cash from a handful of strategic sales lands with the few funds that held those companies, not across the industry.

Fundraising is the weak line on any span. The First Look has $222bn raised across 348 funds through three quarters. That pace is 10.3% lower on the year in capital and 31.5% lower in funds.

PitchBook expects the first year under $300bn since 2020 and the lowest fund count since 2017. The count is the sharper signal. Close to a third fewer funds reaching a final close, while the capital figure falls by a tenth, means the money is going to fewer and larger vehicles.

Fortune quotes PitchBook's Kyle Walters calling slower growth in private equity assets, about half the historic 12% a year, "the new norm". It describes fundraising as harder for the past 18 to 24 months because limited exits have reduced distributions, the cash returned to investors.

KKR took 30 months to reach its $300bn fundraising goal. PitchBook's December outlook forecast the ten largest funds taking more than 40% of capital raised.

Exit cash reaches that queue slowly. Distributions have to land with investors and be recommitted. With the cash concentrated in a few very large sales, the biggest managers are first in line for it. A mid sized manager raising in 2027 competes for the same cheques against a shorter list of funds in market.

To finish the year at $300bn, the fourth quarter has to raise $78bn. The first nine months averaged $74bn a quarter. Fortune lists geopolitical uncertainty and the possibility of rate rises as the risks to that quarter.

PitchBook published this quarter's First Look the day after it closed. On the same timing, the fourth quarter edition in early January 2027 will show whether the year under $300bn arrives.