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As with median IRR, New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, Indiana Public Retirement System and Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management lead the way with average IRRs of 18.12 percent, 15.01 percent and 14.57 percent, respectively. In fourth place is Regents of the University of California, at 13.37 percent, followed by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada, at 13.17 percent. All told Buyouts maintains performance records, including on buyout, venture capital and related funds, for 35 limited partners.

Hispania Private Equity II led the way in IRR increase by percentage points over a recent one-year period (typically calendar year 2014), according to a database of 2010-vintage fund and older buyout and related funds. Buyouts Insider keeps a continuous record of private equity performance from some of the biggest LPs in the country. The table below shows the top 10 by percentage point gain of the nearly 1,500 funds were analyzed.

U.S.-based buyout and mezzanine fundraising seemingly went on a summer vacation since the last issue of Buyouts. The 2015 total now stands at $143.4 billion, having grown by $3.4 billion since we last went to press. Fundraising is tracking $15 billion ahead of last year.

The plumping of U.S. buyout funds is a trend driven by mega-funds returning to the fundraising market, firms stepping up their fund size on the back of strong performance, and a recovering appetite for private equity by institutional investors in the wake of the financial crisis.

The Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association enjoyed a strong spell of private equity distributions last year in its private equity portfolio, realizing over $899 million. Vintage funds from 2005-2008 did the heavy lifting, accounting for $606.8 million, or roughly two-thirds, of that total. 

For the past four years the H1 fundraising totals average 46.8 percent of what turn out to be the yearly tallies. Using that same formula, the year-end fundraising total for U.S. sponsors of buyout and mezzanine funds projects to shoot far past last year’s healthy total and flirt with the $250 billion mark. 2015 has been a strong year in fundraising and there are no signs of it slowing down, given the record levels of distributions driving the demand from institutional investors and plenty of funds to put their money in. 

In order to gauge the outlook of the M&A market for the second half of 2015, Axial surveyed 100 bankers, investors and lenders. What they found was 81 percent believe the deal flow is being hampered by either high valuations or unrealistic ask prices.

Winding down hasn’t stopped Brazos Private Equity Partners LLP from posting big gains.

The following hires, promotions and appointments are for the August 10, 2015, issue of Buyouts.

U.S.-based buyout and mezzanine fundraising had a strong two-week period, seeing its year-to-date total hit $139 billion. As it currently stands, this year’s aggregate is $19.3 billion ahead of where it was at this time in 2014.