By The Numbers: Washington State Investment Board's Buyout Portfolio Performance
It's earnings season in private equity land, and by that I mean the time of year when the dozen or so pension funds that disclose their return data update their quarterly numbers. The latest round of updates generally brings the return figures current as of September 30 2010. We don't have the resources at sister magazine Buyouts to compile all the numbers and generate overarching statistics, as we do once a year in the fall. But I thought it still would be interesting to produce statistics for one of the oldest and largest PE portfolios in the country--that managed by Washington State Investment Board. So, below follow some statistical highlights for the state's buyout portfolio, as of September 30. The performance numbers (including median, bottom-quartile, top-quartile return data for small, mid-sized, large and mega-firms) were generated using only numbers from the 85 vintage 2005 and older buyout funds in the portfolio to avoid the J-curve effect:
