Thank you for the question.
The development of private equity globally has been marked over the course of the last couple of years. I just want to provide a bit of context. The short answer to your question is yes, we are looking at this. We are monitoring the developments, all major developments, in global financial markets. The development of private equity is a major development in global financial markets. For example, in the U.K., because of the amount of equity that was retired through private equity buyouts and share buybacks by companies, the market capitalization of the FTSE 100 did not increase over the last two years.
The activity of private equity in Canada is substantially less than the comparable activity of private equity globally. Further, Canadian companies have been more active. We have had net foreign purchases, if you will, on a private equity basis, over the course of the last several years. For example, last year Canadian firms bought something in the order of $13 billion--invested $13 billion--on a private equity basis, outside Canada, versus total investment in Canada of private equity, both of Canadian and foreign firms, in the order of about $8 billion.
So it is a global development. Two other figures I will give you support your point. There was $400 billion in private equity raised last year, globally, in U.S. dollars. The expectation is that a further $500 billion will be raised this year. So it's something that is a topic of conversation internationally. We participate in those discussions. We are looking at the situation.