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Last year was a good one for distributions for the Washington State Investment Board. In the twelve months, the pension realized a little over $4.0 billion in year-over-year distributions from its buyout portfolio. 

Europe and Asia private equity and venture capital funds produced surprisingly strong returns for members of the Institutional Limited Partnership Association over the last 10 years, while North American funds have also done well.  

As far as private equity funds are concerned, size does matter. The global PE horizon IRR benchmarks from data provider Pitchbook show that the $1 billion-plus large-sized funds provided the highest returns across all time periods tracked. 

Our regional report on Midwest buyout deals and fundraising shows Illinois and Minnesota are prime destinations.

In a spring survey conducted by Buyouts Insider, 57 secondary buyers weighed in on where they thought secondary deal volume would go for the rest of this year. The largest group (44 percent) thought volume would stay even with 2014. More than a third (37 percent) see it going up and 5 percent anticipates the volume reaching an all time high. 

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, celebrated for the success of its private equity portfolio, hasn’t scored hits with every fund. The accompanying table shows the worst funds in its portfolio by IRR, excluding venture capital funds and vintage 2010 funds and younger that may still be in their J-curve days.

U.S.-based buyout and mezzanine fundraising experienced a comparatively slow two weeks. The total grew by about $3.3 billion, to $105.5 billion. Even though the deluge of fundraising loitered a bit in the past two weeks, this year’s aggregate sits a full $27 billion ahead of where it was a year ago.      

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System enjoyed a strong year of distributions in the year ending September 2014, realizing almost $6.1 billion from its private equity portfolio. 

U.S.-based buyout and mezzanine fundraising had another lively two-week period, with the 2015 total growing by nearly $6 billion, to $102.2 billion. That is almost a full $26 billion ahead of where the tally stood at this time last year.    

The percentage of equity used to finance U.S. leveraged buyout deals has plateaued the last two quarters at 41.7 percent. While that is down from the post-crisis highs, the market still hasn’t returned to the low 30 percent range seen from 2005 to 2007.