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For private equity

The returns moved. From the deal to the operating company.

For twenty years a good entry multiple and cheap debt did most of the work. That market is gone. What remains is the harder kind of value creation: getting the portfolio company itself to sell more, profitably, quarter after quarter. If that number is your job, whether you carry it yourself or through six CEOs at once, this briefing was written for you.

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12% is the new 5%
The EBITDA growth a 2.5x now demands, more than double the 2015 bar. Bain, Global PE Report 2026.
16,000 companies
Buyout-backed businesses held past four years, 52% of the global inventory and a record. McKinsey, 2026.
Low-double-digit
The earnings growth Goldman Sachs says historical returns now require, with little help from multiples.
The shift

Financial engineering built the last decade of returns. It will not build the next one.

Bain put a number on what every deal team already feels. A 2015-vintage deal could reach a 2.5x with roughly 5% annual EBITDA growth, because multiples and leverage covered the rest of the distance. The same return today needs 10 to 12 percent, year after year, from operations. Nobody underwrites multiple expansion with a straight face anymore.

McKinsey's read is blunter. Operational value creation is now the primary source of alpha, and more than half of the world's buyout-backed companies have been held past four years. That is sixteen thousand businesses waiting for an exit story their current growth rate does not support.

Inside the operating company, the shortest path to that growth runs through the revenue engine. Not a rebrand. Not another platform purchase. The selling system itself: process, leadership, talent, and lately, AI leverage. That is the work we do for a living, and it is what this zone is about.

EBITDA growth required for a 2.5x, five-year return 2015 deal ~5% 2026 deal 10-12% More than double the operating performance, from the same company, in the same hold period.
Source: Bain & Company, Global Private Equity Report 2026. Bain frames it as "12 is the new 5."
Choose your seat

The plan assumes growth. Somebody has to produce it.

Three people end up owning that line, and they need different things. Find your seat; the briefing opens right here, no form, nothing to download.

The evidence shelf

Read what the fund's own advisors are reading.

We did not invent the thesis on this page. Bain, McKinsey, and Goldman Sachs wrote it in their own flagship research this year. Five pieces, each one opens at the source, none of them gated.

Bain & Co Global Private Equity Report 2026 The flagship annual. The "12 is the new 5" EBITDA math, and why winners now build value-creation systems, not slogans. Bain & Co Welcome to a New Era in Private Equity The era essay. Why the conditions that amplified returns for two decades have ended, and what replaces them. McKinsey Global Private Markets Report 2026 The state of the industry. Operational value creation as the primary source of alpha; 52% of buyout inventory now held past four years. McKinsey Private Equity: Clearer View, Tougher Terrain The PE chapter in depth. Leadership quality and continuous operating work across the hold, not a 100-day sprint that fades. Goldman Sachs Private Markets Outlook 2026 The allocator's view. Low-double-digit earnings growth as the new bar, and AI as a genuine revenue lever rather than a cost story.
Playbooks

The four conversations every portfolio eventually has about revenue.

We have sat through each of these more times than we can count, on the selling side and the buying side. Here is what we would tell you if you called us first. Each opens in place, about four minutes.

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Who is behind this

We are not neutral. We are transparent.

This zone is written by two operators who sell into the market it covers. Carlos owns Performance Edge and the Sandler franchise in Miami. Steve owns Swanston Growth Advisors. Together we own Revenue Bench, and this site. Every appearance of those firms is labeled, the ranking method is published, and if a competitor fits your portfolio company better than we do, the directory will say so. That is the deal that makes the advice worth reading. How we keep it honest →

Carlos Garrido, co-founder of Best Sales Training and principal of Performance Edge
Carlos Garrido
Principal, Performance Edge. Two decades building sales systems for founder-led and private-equity-backed companies. Vistage Chair, Miami.
Steve Swanston
Principal, Swanston Growth Advisors. Assesses sales talent, diagnoses hiring and performance risk, and coaches sales leaders to high performance.
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