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GoBuySide recently went out a North American private equity report answering your questions, see if you can get your hands on it
My completely arbitrary range (buyout fund size, NOT AUM):
MF: 7.0Bn+ (Carlyle, Apollo, etc.) UMM: 2.5Bn - 7.0Bn (Centerbridge, Golden Gate, etc.) MM: 500mm - 2.5Bn (HIG, Harvest, etc.) LMM: Sub-500mm
Think that I more or less agree with this. Probably would put UMM starting around $2bn rather than $2.5bn but that’s splitting hairs
HIG's most recent advantage fund (buyouts) is $3bn, so by that criteria it would be an UMM fund. I think AUM can be really misleading (HIG being a great example). They raise huge funds, but invest in $30mm to $300mm companies, which I would argue makes their investment style lower middle market if anything.
This classification is a little more nuanced than I think putting a hard and fast categorization on AUM. I would argue it has more to do with check size than most recent fund size as volume shops (HIG, Mariner, Cerberus) look like UMM/MM firms to someone that doesn't know a whole lot about their investment strategy, but definitely invest in the LMM.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the distinction between different tier of PE is based on check size and size of investment rather than AUM.
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