This paper addresses the problem to accurately determine buyout opportunity cost of capital for performance analyses. It draws on a unique and proprietary set of data on 133 US buyouts between 1984 and 2004. For each of them, we determine a public market equivalent that matches it with respect...

We use a contingent claims analysis model to calculate the idiosyncratic risks in Leveraged Buyout transactions. A decisive feature of the model is the consideration of amortization. From the model, asset value volatility and equity value volatility can be derived via a numerical procedure. For...

This paper measures the risk-adjusted performance of US buyouts. It draws on a unique and proprietary set of data on 133 US buyouts between 1984 and 2004. For each of them we determine a public market equivalent that matches it with respect to its timing and its systematic risk. After a...

This paper addresses the problem to assess the effect of leverage on the cost of capital for buyout performance analyses. It draws on a unique and proprietary set of data on 133 US buyouts between 1984 and 2004. For each of them, we determine a public market equivalent that matches it with...

Using a dataset of 1328 mature private equity funds, we find that performance estimates found in previous research and used as industry benchmark are overstated. We show that in commonly used samples, accounting values reported by mature funds for non-exited investments are substantial and we...

The accurate selection of private equity fund managers is as crucial for the performance of one's private equity portfolio as it is challenging. Data paucity, few benchmarking possibilities and the long time lag between commitment decisions and performance outcomes makes private equity fund due...

The performance of private equity funds as reported by industry associations and previous research is overstated. A large part of performance is driven by inflated accounting valuation of ongoing investments and we find a bias toward better performing funds in the data. We find an average...