20%+ gross irr?
Interviewing at a special situations fund that claim they do 20%+ gross irr (no fund level leverage). Strategy is focused on liquid credit with some but limited equity ups. Is this just the fund being “Optimistic” in its marketing or actually achievable? Pension documents show net irr of 9-10% for the same manager.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, achieving a 20%+ gross IRR in a liquid credit-focused strategy with limited equity upside and no fund-level leverage is highly optimistic. Here's why:
Market Realities: In the current environment, distressed and special situations funds are not consistently realizing 20-30% IRRs unless they are involved in middle-market control distressed situations. Most opportunities in liquid credit are in cuspy/stressed leveraged loans and bonds, with limited active restructuring opportunities. Even the best-performing distressed funds have been averaging much lower returns (e.g., 7% for top performers in recent data).
Gross vs. Net IRR: The pension documents showing a net IRR of 9-10% for the same manager suggest that the gross IRR claim might be inflated for marketing purposes. The gap between gross and net IRR often reflects fees, carry, and other fund expenses, which can significantly reduce the actual returns to investors.
No Fund-Level Leverage: Without leverage, achieving such high gross IRRs in liquid credit is even more challenging. Leverage is often a key driver of enhanced returns in credit strategies, and its absence limits the upside potential.
In summary, while 20%+ gross IRR is theoretically possible in niche or highly opportunistic scenarios, it is unlikely to be a consistent or realistic expectation for a liquid credit-focused strategy without leverage. The net IRR figures from the pension documents provide a more grounded view of the fund's performance.
Sources: Credit Hedge Fund opportunities, Fund-Level Revolvers, What kind of returns are LPs targeting in opportunistic funds these days?, Rough mental return calculations?, Q&A: Currently at a Credit Hedge Fund
Special situations fund can achieve those IRR, i have seen it at Goldman for example. However they are short term deals, and structuring them requires to very specific derivatives or insurance products that a regular shop would not be able to access. Time horizon is usually 3yrs, with a mezzanine kind of deal structure, options to sell back the equity to the client etc all the while being able to hedge it all. A deal i know of for example: Special situations finances the vessels (offtake secured) + the shipyard to build it + arranged for the ECA loans, all wrapped in a beutiful Marsh and Opic policy.
What do a few short tenor high IRR low MOIC really do for you as an LP. Not much
First those are rolling transactions so special situations allways have a deal pipeline. Second: from the example i gave you: Shipyard which is brownfield is financed using mezzanine etc, then once its completed, its a finished income producing asset that can be refinanced easily. Who gets the refinincing deal? The special situation deal maker. Firm wise, its an excellent transaction. On the back office level, the transaction is much more hedged than you would assume. But this is definitely not an undertaking that small shops can take. Otherwise its just masking the risk premium one way or another
The other perspective is that rolling transactions are still subject to an investment and harvest periods. So my duration adjusted capital deployed and related tenor vs. capital commitment have to be considered from an KP perspective.
The shipyard example - not all refi deals would meat your cost of capital bogey as the company graduates to a lower cost of capital. And if I want that yield as an LP I can go elsewhere.
That would be my issue if I had to allocate to such funds. Not saying it's a bad strategy, just depends on LP goals.
No one is delivering unlevered 20%+ gross in liquid credit without taking an obscene amount of risk
I mean special situations and distressed investing is pretty risky stuff…
Thanks guys. I figured it’s probably just creative marketing given pension disclosed returns of the same fund (albeit net not gross) are less than 50% of their marketed level
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