Trends & Research

Senior debt strategies are largely protected from low GDP growth and shifts in inflation, unlike investments in equity and bonds, a report has claimed.

Private equity assets reached $640bn, accounting for 18% of total alternative assets under management worldwide, according to Willis Towers Watson. Direct private equity funds under management rose 6 percent to some $640 billion in 2015 as the global appetite for alternative assets continued to grow, research by advisory firm Willis Towers Watson has found. “There’s […]

The ultimate performance of a fund is determined as early as its fifth year, according to a study of 700 PE vehicles by Pantheon Ventures.

State Street Corporation’s GX Private Equity Index saw a negative return of 1.37% for Q3 2015, down from a 4.22% gain in the previous quarter.

Cambridge Associates examined more than a thousand private equity funds in the US and found that PE managers fundraised $18.3bn and distributed $39.1bn to LPs in Q2 2015.

Venture capital firms raised $28.2bn through 235 funds in 2015, down from 2014 but still high compared with previous years, according to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association.

Deal value in Europe has increased by about €10bn a year since 2013, hitting the highest levels since 2007 in 2015, according to the Centre for Management Buy-out Research.

The amount of debt PE firms borrowed in 2015 in the US fell by nearly 29%, while debt ratios for Q4 dropped to their lowest level since 2011.

Cambridge Associates’ research on venture capital investing spanning 17 years found firms outside the industry’s top 10 created significant value.

Two thirds of PE deals in the first 11 months of this year were add-on acquisitions driven by high valuations and competition in the upper markets driven by mega deals, according to PwC.