68 Comments
 
"MANalyst"

I think Audax Group has a bright future ahead of themselves.

I would agree that Audax is a decent shop. Haven't heard the best things about work life balance though

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

Please acknowledge that the aforementioned list is lacking in depth and quality, and sarcastic tone is meant to reflect the general, excuse my french, **bullshit ** that this topic reflects.

In all seriousness, I think this topic has recently been discussed extensively. This new generation of interns come in and post ambiguous, generic topics that have been extensively discussed, without any regard for the search function. The value-added members of this forum, who actively want to help, are slowly becoming turned off because these new members do not want to contribute, but just make generic topics, and debate in a factless environment to no end. As a result, this messaging forum is degrading in quality and will eventually lose what made it so great.

Play the long game - give back, help out, mentor - just don't ever forget where you came from. #Bootstrapped
 

There are a lot of funds out there that do well, but aren't frequently mentioned on WSO. Examples: Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Platinum Equity Onex Corporation Advent Hellman & Friedman EQT etc etc

Good yearly study: http://peracs.com/2016/12/2016-hec-dowjones-private-equity-performance-…

PEI300: https://www.privateequityinternational.com/pei/pei300/

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

Gilde Buyout Partners used to be high up on that list, too, with most of their investments being in BeNeLux

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

Or CD&R or Onex for that matter. They're both over thirty years old, hardly "up and coming"

Two funds I'd put forth are Gamut (former Apollo guys) and Peak Rock (former Aurora Rersurgence and HIG guys). Both have raised blowout debut funds and were founded by very smart / respected guys with solid track records. Since they're so new I'd think they have room for advancement if you joined as an associate as well. IMO both would be great places to start a PE career.

 

Well taking CD&R as an example: They will go from $6.4bn fund size to ~$9-10bn with the current fundraising, a close to 50% jump in fund size in ~3 years with very lean team structures. Performance has been great, and they have impressive guys among their partners and avisors (Don Gogel, Jack Welch, Terry Leahy, James McNerney, John Dineen, Helge Lund, ...).

IMO they tick both boxes regarding OP's "impressive management teams and foreseeable future growth" question, and I think the same is true for some of the older / large cap funds that were mentioned.

 

The funds that will have the best outlook going forward aren't even around today. Capital is so plentiful that if you have solid GPs that target a specific enough industry you can raise a fund historically speaking relatively easily. This is going to force to return curve for the big shops down as new comers begin to take away deals.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Both CALSTRs and CALPERs (two massive pension funds in the States) publish all the funds they are an LP in and they show the funds performance (both multiple and IRR) through the latest quarter (there is usually about 2-3 quarter lag but it doesn't really matter as P/E funds are all LT investments anyways).

It's a cool list to see both some of the big name funds and see how they are doing and also listing out a plethora of funds you have never heard of but have absolutely killed it.

http://www.calstrs.com/private-equity-portfolio-performance, click on PDF link "Private Equity Portfolio Performance as of March 31, 2016"

https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/investments/asset-classes/private-equit…

From there you can do start your research on potential funds to your hearts content!

 

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