Private Equity Performance Research Articles

Private Equity Performance: What Do We Know?

ABSTRACTWe study the performance of nearly 1,400 U.S. buyout and venture capital funds using a new data set from Burgiss. We find better buyout fund performance than previously documented—performance has consistently exceeded that of public markets. Outperformance versus the S&P 500 averages 20% to 27% over a fund's life and more than 3% annually. Venture capital funds outperformed public equities in the 1990s, but underperformed in the 2000s. Our conclusions are robust to various indices and risk controls. Performance in Cambridge Associates and Preqin is qualitatively similar to that in Burgiss, but is lower in Venture Economics.

Private Equity and Venture Capital IndustryPerformance in Brazil: 1990–2013

This article investigates the performance of Brazilian private equity (PE) and venture capital funds between 1990 and 2013. The Spectra-Insper database is used for information about gross returns and multiples. Investment amounts are collected from what General Partners report in Private Placement Memorandum or that are hand collected by the CVM (Brazilian Security Exchange Commission) or other commercial sources. The performance of 46 funds is analyzed. The average IRR of Brazilian funds is higher than the average of U.S. funds over the same period. We observe that Brazilian funds with vintage years between 1990 and 1997 underperform U.S. PE funds on average, but those with vintage years between 1998 and 2008 outperform U.S. PE funds. This pattern may reflect a learning curve in Brazilian PE industry. We find evidence that performance in Brazil has a higher cyclicality than in the U.S., but this may be due to the small sample size rather than the emerging market effect.

Private Equity and Venture Capital Industry Performance in Brazil:1990–2013

Private Equity and Venture Capital Industry Performance in Brazil:<i>1990–2013</i>

Brazilian Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds Performance from 1990 Until 2013

This paper investigates the performance of Brazilian PE and VC funds between 1990 and 2013. We use Spectra-Insper database, with information about gross returns and multiple of money that General Partners report in Private Placement Memorandum or that are hand collected in CVM (Brazilian Security Exchange Comission) and commercial sources. We analyze performance of 47 funds. The average IRR of Brazilian funds is higher than the average of US funds in the period. We observe that Brazilian funds with vintage year between 1990 and 1997 on average underperform US PE funds, and with vintage between 1998 and 2008 outperform US PE funds. This pattern may reflect a learning curve in Brazilian PE industry. We find evidence that performance in Brazil has a higher cyclicality than in the US, but this may be due to the small sample size rather than the emerging market effect.

Valuing Private Equity

We investigate whether the performance of private equity (PE) investments is sufficient to compensate investors (LPs) for risk, long-term illiquidity, management, and incentive fees charged by the general partner (GP). We analyze the LPs' portfolio-choice problem and find that management fees, carried interest, and illiquidity are costly, and GPs must generate substantial alpha to compensate LPs for bearing these costs. Debt is cheap and reduces these costs, potentially explaining the high leverage of buyout transactions. Conventional interpretations of PE performance measures appear optimistic. On average, LPs may just break even, net of management fees, carry, risk, and costs of illiquidity.

Skill and Luck in Private Equity Performance

We evaluate the performance of private equity (PE) funds, using a variance decomposition model to separate skill from luck. We find a large amount of long-term persistence, and skilled PE firms outperform by 7% to 8% annually. But this performance is noisy, with a large amount of luck, so top-quartile performance does not necessarily imply top-quartile skills, making it difficult for investors (LPs) to identify skilled PE firms. Buyout (BO) firms show the largest skill differences, implying the greatest long-term persistence. Venture capital (VC) performance is the most noisy, making good VC firms hardest to identify, and implying the smallest amount of investable persistence.

Skill and Luck in Private Equity Performance

A striking feature of private equity (PE) is that performance is persistent, with many PE firms consistently producing high (or low) returns net of fees. We use a new variance decomposition model to isolate three components of performance persistence. We find a large amount of long-term persistence: the spread in expected net-of-fees future returns between top- and bottom-quartile PE firms is 7 to 8 percentage points annually. This spread is after controlling for substantial spurious persistence, which arises mechanically from the overlap of contemporaneous funds. Performance is noisy, however, and we find little investable persistence, meaning that it is difficult for investors in PE funds to identify top-quartile funds with top-quartile expected future performance.

Unambiguous Performance: Towards a Less Imperfect Way of Measuring, Analyzing, and Understanding Private Equity Performance

In this paper, we elaborate on the particular challenges in understanding and measuring private equity performance. We examine commonly used measures including IRR (internal rate of return), the cash and value multiple, including TVPI (Total Value to Paid-in or Total Value Multiple), DVPI (Distributed Value to Paid-in), RVPI (Residual value to paid-in) and discuss their limitations in assessing true performance. We also explore the Modified IRR (MIRR), which despite not being in wide use, is a suggested complement to conventional IRR. We also propose t various approaches to combining these measures to arrive at a less ambiguous way of analyzing performance. Investors aware of these key concepts and tradeoffs will be in a better position to make appropriate choices and realize the full return potential of the private equity asset class.

The Components of Private Equity Performance: Implications for Portfolio Choice

The Components of Private Equity Performance: Implications for Portfolio Choice

The Public Market Equivalent and Private Equity Performance

We provide a formal and rigorous justification for the Kaplan and Schoar (2005) public market equivalent (“PME”) measure of historical performance of private equity (“PE”) funds. The PME provides a valid economic performance measure when the investor (“LP”) has log-utility preferences and the return on the LP’s total wealth equals the market return. Notably, the PME is valid regardless of the risk of PE investments, and it is robust to variations in the timing and systematic risks of the underlying cash flows along with potential GP manipulations. Formally, we show that the PME is a generalized method-of-moments estimator using the stochastic discount factor implied by Rubinstein (1976)’s version of the capital asset pricing model.

SMBOs: Buying Time or Improving Performance?

On the basis of an empirical analysis of 491 UK recent secondary management buyouts (SMBOs), we find strong evidence of a deterioration in long‐run abnormal returns following SMBO deals. SMBOs also perform worse than primary buyouts in terms of profitability, labor productivity, and growth. We find no evidence for superior performance of private equity (PE) backed SMBOs, compared with their non‐PE‐backed counterparts. It appears that a PE firm's reputation and change in management are important determinants of improvements in profitability and labor productivity, respectively. High debt and high percentage of management equity tend to be associated with poor performance measured by profitability and labor productivity. Notably, none of the buyout mechanisms (i.e., financial, governance, operating) normally associated with performance improvements generate growth during the secondary buyout phase. The results are robust to the use of alternative performance measures, alternative benchmarks, and the possibility of sample selection bias. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Managerial and Decision Economics published by John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

How Persistent is Private Equity Performance? Evidence from Deal-Level Data

The persistence of returns is a critical issue for investors in their choice of private equity managers. In this paper we analyse buyout performance persistence in new ways, using a unique database containing cash-flow data on 13,523 portfolio company investments by 865 buyout funds. We focus on unique realized deals and find that persistence of fund managers has substantially declined as the private equity sector has matured and become more competitive. Private equity has, therefore, largely conformed to the pattern found in most other asset classes in which past performance is a poor predictor of the future.

Private equity ownership and nursing home financial performance

Private equity has acquired multiple large nursing home chains within the last few years; by 2009, it owned nearly 1,900 nursing homes. Private equity is said to improve the financial performance of acquired facilities. However, no study has yet examined the financial performance of private equity nursing homes, ergo this study. The primary purpose of this study is to understand the financial performance of private equity nursing homes and how it compares with other investor-owned facilities. It also seeks to understand the approach favored by private equity to improve financial performance-for instance, whether they prefer to cut costs or maximize revenues or follow a mixed approach. Secondary data from Medicare cost reports, the Online Survey, Certification and Reporting, Area Resource File, and Brown University's Long-term Care Focus data set are combined to construct a longitudinal data set for the study period 2000-2007. The final sample is 2,822 observations after eliminating all not-for-profit, independent, and hospital-based facilities. Dependent financial variables consist of operating revenues and costs, operating and total margins, payer mix (census Medicare, census Medicaid, census other), and acuity index. Independent variables primarily reflect private equity ownership. The study was analyzed using ordinary least squares, gamma distribution with log link, logit with binomial family link, and logistic regression. Private equity nursing homes have higher operating margin as well as total margin; they also report higher operating revenues and costs. No significant differences in payer mix are noted. Results suggest that private equity delivers superior financial performance compared with other investor-owned nursing homes. However, causes for concern remain particularly with the long-term financial sustainability of these facilities.

Private Equity Performance and Liquidity Risk

Private Equity Performance and Liquidity Risk

The Public Market Equivalent and Private Equity Performance

We provide a formal and rigorous justification for the Kaplan and Schoar (2005) public market equivalent (“PME”) measure of historical performance of private equity (“PE”) funds. The PME provides a valid economic performance measure when the investor (“LP”) has log-utility preferences and the return on the LP’s total wealth equals the market return. Notably, the PME is valid regardless of the risk of PE investments, and it is robust to variations in the timing and systematic risks of the underlying cash flows along with potential GP manipulations. Formally, we show that the PME is a generalized method-of-moments estimator using the stochastic discount factor implied by Rubinstein (1976)’s version of the capital asset pricing model.

Private Equity Performance and Liquidity Risk

ABSTRACTPrivate equity has traditionally been thought to provide diversification benefits. However, these benefits may be lower than anticipated as we find that private equity suffers from significant exposure to the same liquidity risk factor as public equity and other alternative asset classes. The unconditional liquidity risk premium is about 3% annually and, in a four‐factor model, the inclusion of this liquidity risk premium reduces alpha to zero. In addition, we provide evidence that the link between private equity returns and overall market liquidity occurs via a funding liquidity channel.

Private Equity Performance: Better Than Commonly Believed

Private Equity Performance: Better Than Commonly Believed

Private Equity Ownership and Nursing Home Performance

Private equity has acquired multiple large nursing home chains within the last few years; by 2007, it owned six of the 10 largest chains. Critics allege that Private equity nursing homes compromise quality of care in pursuit of profits and have called for greater regulatory oversight. Using multiple secondary datasets like OSCAR, MDS and Medicare cost reports, this study examines the quality and financial performance of private equity nursing homes in Florida. Results suggest that private equity facilities deliver superior financial performance with little difference in quality compared to other investor owned nursing homes. Policy and managerial implications are discussed.

Private Equity Performance: Better Than Commonly Believed

This article reexamines the performance of private equity (PE) funds by including data from more recent PE vintages and by using a measure of PE performance that considers the opportunity cost that investors incur between the commitment and capital call dates and the duration of PE investment. The primary results indicate that 1) buyout funds have better standalone long-term risk–return characteristics than public equity markets and they perform counter-cyclically to public equity markets; 2) when venture funds are combined with buyout funds, the resulting mix provides a more attractive alternative to public equity markets than buyout funds alone provide; and 3) venture funds’ higher absolute returns as compared to buyout funds and public equity markets are restricted to a few vintages and a small number of big winners in those vintages. Other findings suggest that a manager’s past PE fund performance is a weak basis for forecasting future PE fund performance and that fund size is positively correlated with performance for venture funds but negatively correlated with performance for buyout funds. <b>TOPICS:</b>Private equity, statistical methods, performance measurement, portfolio construction

Private equity performance under extreme regulation

This study investigates the impact of excessive regulation on private equity (PE) returns and firm performance. History shows that extreme regulation and prohibition reduce the supply of capital and raise returns (e.g., as with drugs and diamonds). However, for value-added investors such as PE funds, extreme regulation also reduces the quality of capital and fund involvement. The net effect on returns is therefore ambiguous and heretofore not studied. With a new unique dataset, this paper empirically examines the performance of PE investments in Italy when leveraged buyouts are strictly regulated. The data show that extreme regulation reduces not only the supply of capital, but also PE returns and firm performance, as well as the likelihood of an IPO exit.