[The performance of private equity funds as reported by industry associations and previous research is overstated. A large part of performance is driven by inflated accounting valuation of ongoing investments and we find a bias toward better performing funds in the data. We find an average net-of-fees fund performance of 3% per year below that of the S&P 500. Adjusting for risk brings the underperformance to 6% per year. We estimate fees to be 6% per year. We discuss several misleading aspects of performance reporting and some side benefits as a first step toward an explanation]

The performance of private equity funds as reported by industry associations and previous research is overstated. A large part of performance is driven by inflated accounting valuation of ongoing investments and we find a bias toward better performing funds in the data. We find an average net-of-fees fund performance of 3% per year below that of the S&P 500. Adjusting for risk brings the underperformance to 6% per year. We estimate fees to be 6% per year. We discuss several misleading aspects of performance reporting and some side benefits as a first step toward an explanation.

This paper addresses the problem to assess the effect of leverage on the cost of capital for buyout performance analyses. It draws on a unique and proprietary set of data on 133 US buyouts between 1984 and 2004. For each of them, we determine a public market equivalent that matches it with respect to its timing and its systematic risk. We show that under realistic mimicking conditions, the average cost of capital is below the commonly used benchmark S&P 500. Thereby, we control for two important aspects: for the risks taken by lenders in the buyout transactions (which affects the sponsors’ risks), and for the corresponding cost of debt (which lowers the return of the public market equivalent). Only with borrowing and lending at the risk-free rate is the average cost of capital close to the average index return. This finding is particularly important as existing literature on that topic tends to rely on benchmarks without a proper risk-adjustment.

[Using deal-level data from transactions initiated by large private equity houses, we find that the abnormal performance of deals is positive on average, after controlling for leverage and sector returns. Higher abnormal performance is related to improvement in sales and operating margin during the private phase, relative to that for quoted peers. General partners who are ex-consultants or ex—industry managers are associated with outperforming deals focused on internal value-creation programs, and ex-bankers or ex-accountants with outperforming deals involving significant mergers and acquisitions. The findings suggest the presence, on average, of positive but heterogeneous skills at the deal-partner level in large private equity transactions.]

We document the wide dispersion of private equity investment returns and examine performance determinants using a newly constructed database of 7,500 investments worldwide. One in 10 investments does not return any money, whereas 1 in 4 has an internal rate of return (IRR) above 50%. Quick flips are associated with the highest returns. Performance does not appear scalable: Investments held by private equity firms in periods with a high number of simultaneous investments underperform substantially. Results are consistent with the theoretical literature on organizational diseconomies linked to firm structure. Private equity firms’ actions do not appear to be mechanical or easily scalable.

International audience