TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kaplan,Steven
AU  - Schoar,Antoinette
TI  - Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence and Capital
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9807
PY  - 2003
Y2  - June 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9807
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9807.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Steven N. Kaplan
Booth School of Business
The University of Chicago
5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/702-4513
Fax: 773/702-0458
E-Mail: steven.kaplan@chicagobooth.edu

Antoinette Schoar
MIT Sloan School of Management
100 Main Street, E62-638
Cambridge, MA  02142
Tel: 617/253-3763
Fax: 617/258-6855
E-Mail: aschoar@mit.edu
AB  - This paper investigates the performance of private equity partnerships using a data set of individual fund returns collected by Venture Economics. Over the sample period, average fund returns net of fees approximately equal the S\&P 500 although there is a large degree of heterogeneity. Returns persist strongly across funds raised by individual private equity partnerships. Better performing funds are more likely to raise follow-on funds and raise larger funds than funds that perform poorly. This relationship is concave so that top performing funds do not grow proportionally as much as the average fund. Finally, market entry in private equity is cyclical. Funds (and partnerships) started in boom times are less likely to raise follow-on funds, suggesting that these funds subsequently perform worse. Several of these results differ markedly from those for mutual funds.
ER  -