piotrk

When the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest pension fund in the United States, announced in mid-September it was divesting from hedge funds the decision sent waves through the private equity community—see accompanying chart. A survey by secondary buyer Coller Capital conducted shortly after the decision found nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of investors believe that large investors will reconsider their own commitments to hedge funds in light of CalPERS’s action.

U.S.-based financial sponsors saw a lull in exit activity in Q4 by number of M&A exits, but the dollar amount outpaced Q3 despite nearly 50 fewer deals. 

It is not looking good for those hoping for a quick rebound in oil prices.

Energy and power fundraising continues to soar despite a recent drop in oil prices.

U.S.-based buyout and mezzanine firms raised an estimated year-to-date amount of $200.2 billion through December 11. That figure is up from $168.7 billion at this time a year ago and has surpassed 2013’s total by nearly a full $10 billion.

The North American private equity benchmark created by Cambridge Associates for the Institutional Limited Partners Association beat the average internal rate of return achieved by the ‘all funds’ category, both short and long-term, as of June 30. Among the poorer performers, the funds of funds and secondaries categories are seated below the ‘all funds’ average for each benchmark term. The table shows pooled net IRRs for benchmarks based on data from some 3,001 unique funds. 

Although not always true, in the case of private equity returns, bigger certainly is better when it comes to the global PE horizon IRR. The accompanying graph shows IRR by fund size. No matter the year mark, the mega-sized funds of $1 billion-plus sport the biggest return.