Comment by mschuster91

> I don't get why sellers are selling to PE. Can these services not "IPO"? Why do these companies need to sell?

Shifting private ownership to a publicly traded company is an awful lot of paperwork (especially for accounting) and upfront costs, you need to time it properly, you need to find banks willing to cooperate.

In contrast, selling a private company to a PE is a pretty much straightforward transaction.