Why this search matters
Public-company divestitures are one of the cleanest sourcing channels in PE — corporates regularly carve out non-core businesses, and those carve-outs have known sellers, public timelines, and visible advisor processes. They're also a distinct slice of M&A with different deal mechanics (separation work, transition services agreements, stranded-cost adjustments) than PE-to-PE or strategic-to-strategic deals.
Use this search for:
PE carve-out sourcing. The cleanest way to monitor the carve-out pipeline as it actually happens.
Strategic acquisition targets. Carve-outs are often bought by competitors of the divesting parent — useful for corp dev sourcing in your own sector.
Sell-side advisory pipeline. Sell-side mandates on public-company carve-outs go to specific banks (separation specialists). Tracking active and recent activity tells you who's winning the work.
Vendor and service-provider BD. Carve-outs drive demand for a specific service stack — separation consultants, R&W insurance brokers, IT carve-out specialists, HR transition consultants, virtual data rooms. Tracking active divestitures is the highest-intent target list for these vendors.
Step 1
Navigate to the Transaction Search page.
Step 2
Once on the Transaction Search page, expand the search interface by selecting the More Options link.
Step 3
In the Exit Situation dropdown, select Divestiture.
Within the Seller Type section, select Public under Company type.
Select Search.
Step 4
Results show every transaction where a publicly-traded company sold or carved out a unit, sorted most-recent-first by default.
Additional filters to try
Add a Target Sector filter to focus on divestitures within your sector of interest.
Add a Country filter under Seller to narrow to US public companies, EU, etc.
Add a Deal Value filter (where disclosed) to focus on a specific size band — e.g., $100M–$1B carve-outs are a different mandate type than sub-$50M ones.
Add a Buyer Type filter (PE Firm vs Company) to isolate who acquired the carved-out asset — sponsor-led carve-outs vs. strategic competitive acquisitions tell different stories.
Add a Year range to focus on a specific window — divestiture activity tends to cluster around macro conditions (rate cycles, activist seasons).
Going further
For likely divestitures from PE-owned platforms (the parallel universe to public-co carve-outs) — see Shed. Scores inherited add-ons from recently-acquired platforms by divestiture likelihood.
For active acquirers most likely to buy a specific carve-out — use Buyer Match. For a target you're shopping, ranks likely strategic and PE buyers.
For market-level divestiture trends over time — use Analytics with Exit Situation = Divestiture as a filter.