Best performing MF PE firm EU for carry?

Hi All,

Was curious to know what is the best PE firm on a carry for VP metric in Europe ?

I know this is a random,non Gaussian, likely fat tailed distribution across funds within the same firm, but curious to know if anyone had insights on such metric.

This excludes culture / WLB considérations which are super important ofc but have been widely discussed here already.

Thanks for your thoughts !

14 Comments
 

Good question. From what someone who is an LP here suggested, BX, KKR and Apollo had actually 'meh' returns over the last decade. I don't know enough about WP and H&F being from Europe (and in MM) to comment, but if anyone does, I'd be curious. 

I think this is what I'm alluding to regarding those funds which are focused more on amassing assets to generate more stable fee income (i.e., as Blackstone, KKR etc. have done) and it looks like perhaps EQT and CVC are going that way, vs. those who are focused on generating more lumpy carry / returns via realisation of investments. 

 
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Would say headquartered in EU and / or having a sizeable (MF like) EU-focussed fund (and not US fund with EU team and potential focus like BX), if that makes sense.

This was a thought based on the first answer quoting CVC and EQT (was not clear to me why).Thanks for your thoughts - did not know Permira was performing that well.

If I had to guess the ranking myself, would consider :

1) Sizeable EU fund

2) Number of investment professionals >= VP

3) Fund size

4) Past performance and potential fwd performance range based on industry exposure + historical perf + management change ?

I guess a similar question to my initial post, and this is me being curious more than sharing a life goal, is : as an EU PE professional, where would you go in 2024 to optimise your 10 year fwd earning, if carry is not a myth ?

 

I did provide the first answer. Both have separate European, sizeable funds even if they do invest globally. 

CVC because DPI has actually been consistent. I (think) decent for EQT - but have less up to date figures. 

Permira has performed reasonably before. But that's probably changed over the last few years, so your last question is the right one regarding who will perform best over a 10 yr forward, and that's really difficult. I'd say it may not be MF's but UMM players (like CapVest) where the growth trajectory is good and still a focus on returns via carry rather than fee income. 

CVC, EQT etc. all have larger funds than previously and so you'd expect returns to come down, and that seems to be the case from TVPI metrics but also they seem to be transitioning to the asset manager style model - where fee income > carry. 

Just my thoughts, and I'd welcome others too. 

 

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