What it does
Trading Partners turns any PE firm or company into a two-sided deal-flow graph. The left column lists every counterparty the entity has bought from (sources). The right column lists every counterparty it has sold to (exits).
The center column profiles the entity itself — total buys, total sells, sector mix, activity over time. Click any partner on either side to pivot into that partner's own Trading Partners view.
Repeat partners — counterparties the entity has transacted with twice or more — get a ★ Nx repeat badge. These are the "inner circle" of any deal-flow graph: a sponsor with multiple repeat sources has a different sourcing posture than one with none, and the same is true on the exit side.
When to use it
Diligence a sponsor before pitching. Knowing a firm has done five deals with Goldman sell-side bankers (or never) reframes the pitch.
Map the relationship surface. A PE firm with twenty repeat exit partners has a fundamentally sponsor-to-sponsor flow; one with mostly strategic exits is a different animal. Read the partner-mix bars to see at a glance.
Read the tier-shift signal. For PE firms, "sold up" (exits to bigger sponsors) is one of the strongest performance signals you can pull from M&A data — it's a market-validated value-creation story. Trading Partners surfaces this as a one-line tile.
Understand a company's M&A posture. For corporates and strategics, the Exit Buyer Mix tile tells you whether a company is carve-out friendly (divestitures mostly go to PE) or industry-consolidation mode (divestitures go to strategics).
Source warm intros and incumbent relationships. A bank or law firm that's already done multiple deals on either side is the incumbent — useful for both BD and competitive intel.
Where to access it
How to use it
1. Search a firm or company
Type a PE firm name, a company name, or a stock ticker into the search box (e.g., Arsenal Capital, KKR, 3M, AAPL). Pick a match from the autocomplete.
2. Read the headline strip
Bought From — N traced of M total acquisitions. The first number is how many acquisitions have a known seller counterparty; the second is the total acquisition count. Sub-line tells you how many distinct parties that traces to, plus a "repeat" count if any party shows up twice.
Sold To — N traced of M total exits. Same structure for the exit side.
Most active sector — the single sector with the highest share of unique target companies across all buys and sells.
Tier shift on exit (PE firms only) — when this firm exits a portfolio company, what tier of sponsor typically buys it? Reads as "X% sold up · Y% same tier · Z% sold down" relative to this firm's own tier.
Exit buyer mix (companies only) — when this company sells or divests, what fraction goes to PE buyers vs. other strategic acquirers?
3. Read the Partner Characteristics band
Two stacked bars below the headline strip, with a Sources / Exits toggle in the corner:
By type & size — Mega PE, Large PE, Middle-Market PE, Small PE, Strategic. Each segment is sized to the share of deals that fell in that bucket.
By geography — 15-region taxonomy (East US, Midwest, West, Canada, UK, Western Europe, Nordic, Asia/Pacific, LatAm, etc.).
4. Walk the three columns
Left — SOURCES · BOUGHT FROM (orange accent). Ranked by deal count.
Center — entity card. Name (linked to mergr.com profile), HQ, website, bought/sold counts, activity sparkline (deals over time), sector mix chart.
Right — EXITS · SOLD TO (blue accent). Ranked by deal count.
Tips
Lead with the headline strip, then drill in. The four tiles answer the most common questions in 10 seconds. The columns are for the second question.
Read repeat counts as relationship signal. A row with no badge is a one-off transaction; a ★ 4x repeat row is the relationship. Use this to prioritize who to call.
Use the size badge to spot stretch deals. If a Mid-Market firm has a Mega counterparty on the exit side, that was likely a moment of significant outperformance — the kind of deal worth understanding in depth before a pitch.
Compare Sources vs. Exits in the Partner Characteristics band.** Sponsors that buy from strategics but exit to PE are running a carve-out → professionalize → secondary sale playbook. The toggle makes this pattern obvious.
Pivot for the second-degree network. Click a top repeat partner to load *their* trading partners — useful for mapping the local cluster around a firm (who's in the orbit).
FAQ
Q: What counts as a "trading partner"?
Any counterparty on a deal where the entity was on one side. On the Sources side, the counterparty is the seller (where the entity bought from). On the Exits side, the counterparty is the buyer (where the entity sold to). Both PE firms and operating companies / strategics count.
Q: Why does "Bought From" show N of M (not just one number)?
Not every acquisition in Mergr has a traced counterparty — sometimes the seller is unknown or unrecorded. The "N traced of M total" format tells you both the verified counterparty count and the total deal universe, so you can read the coverage gap honestly.
Q: What defines a "repeat" partner?
Two or more transactions with the same counterparty. The badge shows the exact count (`★ 3x repeat`). Below 2, no badge.