The Wire · Sponsors · 26 Aug 2026
The three-handed flip: Victory Capital buys First Eagle from private equity again
Sponsor-to-strategic exits after repeated sponsor ownership tend to price at the low end of the band; every prior owner already took the easy margin.
Our read
A business that has passed through several sponsors arrives at the next buyer with its obvious improvements already made. Pricing has been reviewed, the cost base has been rationalized, the reporting is clean, the add-ons that were sitting there have been bought. Each of those was worth something, and each was captured by an earlier owner.
That is why serially-owned assets often clear at the lower half of their band even when the operating metrics look excellent. The metrics look excellent because they were improved. The buyer is underwriting what is left, and what is left is usually organic growth in a mature market.
The exception is a strategic buyer with a cost base to delete or a distribution channel to plug the asset into. Strategics can pay above the sponsor-clearing price without violating their own math, which is why third and fourth owners are so often corporates rather than funds.
For an owner, the useful inversion is this: the easy improvements in your business are worth more to you than to a buyer. Do them before the process, not during it, and price the business on the result — because if you leave them undone, the buyer will value them at their cost to implement, not their benefit.