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...

Investors increasingly look for private equity managers to provide opportunities for co-investing outside the fund structure, thereby saving fees and carried interest payments. In this paper we use a large sample of buyout and venture capital co-investments to test how such deals compare with...

Using a unique proprietary data set of 1980 realized and unrealized buyouts completed between 1986 and 2010, we examine entry and exit pricing in buyouts and its influence on private equity (PE) sponsors' returns. We find that besides leverage and operational improvements, EBITDA multiple...

Using a unique proprietary data set of 460 realized buyouts completed between 1990 and 2005, we examine the risk appetite of private equity (PE) sponsors in different states of the PE market and analyze key determinants of deal-level equity risk. We develop a new approach to mathematically model...

The paper analyzes the value creation drivers and operational alpha in private equity based on the proprietary data. The paper provides empirical evidence that operational improvements are the key to successful generation of value for investors

This paper investigates the relationship between leverage and returns in private equity buyout transactions. In contrast to the predictions of traditional capital structure theory, we find that transactions financed with large amounts of debt are associated higher transaction prices and lower...

This article examines the impact of private equity (PE) fund-level dynamics on the PE fund's general partner's (GP) divestment decisions and whether these decisions are to the detriment of the PE fund's limited partners, indicating a moral hazard problem. We use a unique sample of 1,112 buyout...