在2010年代，致富的两条可靠路径是出售企业软件的订阅式“经常性”收入，以及私募股权的并购基金；在过去十年里，并购基金每花三美元就有一美元投向科技公司。自2022年央行加息以来，再叠加Claude等AI编程工具的冲击，上市软件公司的估值今年已下跌五分之一，私募股权所持软件公司的贷款也随之大幅下滑。
私募资本管理人正极力淡化软件敞口：TPG承认其并购基金资金的18%在软件业，KKR与黑石对外口径为7%，凯雷为6%，布鲁克菲尔德为“低于1%”，而阿波罗称其私募股权基金对软件的敞口“四舍五入为零”。与此同时，可比估值倍数显著压缩：过去五年，标普500软件公司的估值从过去12个月收入的13倍降至8倍，全体美国上市软件公司从8倍降至3倍，但2019至2022年间25笔最大的软件私有化交易的中位数成交价仍为收入的9倍。
更大的风险在为交易提供资金的债务上：分析师估计美国信贷市场中潜藏着超过5000亿美元与软件公司相关的借款，约16%的杠杆贷款市场与软件交易绑定，其中相当部分装入类似2008年曾引爆市场的CLO。集中度在BDC里尤为突出：黑石的BCRED有26%的贷款投向软件公司（若作为独立银行将为美国第34大），Ares旗下最大的上市BDC有24%的资产投向软件贷款；上月，蓝猫头鹰一只至少29%组合为软件债务的非上市BDC遭遇15%资金赎回，折价扩大与可能“闸门”赎回的风险并存。
In the 2010s, two reliable paths to a fortune were selling enterprise software with subscription “recurring” revenue and private-equity buyout funds; over the past decade, buyout funds spent one in every three dollars on technology firms. Since central banks raised interest rates in 2022, and with AI-coding tools like Claude adding pressure, listed software valuations are down a fifth this year, and loans to private-equity-owned software firms have tumbled.
Private-capital bosses are playing down software exposure: TPG says 18% of its buyout-fund money is in software, KKR and Blackstone cite 7%, Carlyle 6%, Brookfield “less than 1%”, and Apollo says exposure in its private-equity funds “rounds to zero”. Meanwhile, public-market multiples have compressed sharply: over five years S&P 500 software firms fell from 13x to 8x the prior 12 months’ revenue, all listed American software firms from 8x to 3x, yet the median of the 25 largest software take-privates in 2019-2022 was struck at 9x revenue.
The bigger risk sits in deal debt: analysts put software-linked borrowing in America’s credit markets at more than $500bn, with perhaps 16% of the leveraged-loan market tied to software deals and much of it housed in CLOs reminiscent of 2008. Concentration is highest in BDCs: Blackstone’s BCRED has 26% of loans to software (it would rank as America’s 34th-biggest bank if standalone), Ares’s largest listed BDC has 24% of assets in software loans; last month an unlisted Blue Owl BDC with at least 29% in software debt saw 15% pulled out, alongside widening discounts and gating risk.
Source: Private-equity barons have a giant AI problem
Subtitle: Their leveraged bets on the software industry may soon cause big trouble
Dateline: 2月 12, 2026 09:40 上午