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...

The article reports that calculating the performance of private equity funds with a modified internal rate of return (M-IRR) results in a more accurate performance yield or true return. The problem with the internal rate of return (IRR) method is that IRR overstates the fund's performance and...

Depuis quelques années, la croyance en une surperformance du capital-investissement est alimentée par les articles élogieux sur les rendements de cette classe d’actifs qui paraissent régulièrement dans la presse économique et financière. Les statistiques de mesure des performances...

Investors in private equity funds must get comfortable about the economics of the partnership. In today's market place, are managers being overcompensated, ask Oliver Gottschalg, Bernd Kreuter and Ludovic Phalippou.

We document the wide dispersion of private equity investment returns and examine performance determinants using a newly constructed database of 7,500 investments worldwide. One in ten investments does not return any money, whereas one in four has an IRR above 50%. Quick flips are associated with...