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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 35 No. 1 2021

Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting

Erik Stafford

Abstract

The contributions of asset selection and incremental leverage to buyout investment performance are more important than typically assumed or estimated to be. Buyout funds select small firms with distinct value characteristics. Public equities with these characteristics have high risk-adjusted returns relative to common factors. Adding incremental leverage to a publicly traded stock portfolio increases both risks and mean returns in this sample. Direct investments in private equity funds earn lower mean returns than a replicating strategy designed to mimic these key economic features of their investment process with public equities and brokerage loans.

DOI
10.1093/rfs/hhab020
Volume
35
Issue
1
Pages
299-342
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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