IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/9454.html

The cash flow, return and risk characteristics of private equity

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Ljungqvist
  • Matthew Richardson

Abstract

Using a unique dataset of private equity funds over the last two decades, this paper analyzes the cash flow, return, and risk characteristics of private equity. We document the draw down and capital return schedules for the typical private equity fund, and show that it takes several years for capital to be invested, and over ten years for capital to be returned to generate excess returns. We provide several determining factors for these schedules, including existing investment opportunities and competition amongst private equity funds. In terms of performance, we document that private equity generates excess returns on the order of five plus percent per annum relative to the aggregate public equity market. One interpretation of this magnitude is that it represents compensation for holding a 10-year illiquid investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Ljungqvist & Matthew Richardson, 2003. "The cash flow, return and risk characteristics of private equity," NBER Working Papers 9454, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9454
    Note: AP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9454.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gompers, Paul & Lerner, Josh, 2000. "Money chasing deals? The impact of fund inflows on private equity valuation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 281-325, February.
    2. Paul Gompers & Josh Lerner, 2006. "The Venture Capital Cycle, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262572389, December.
    3. Gompers, Paul & Lerner, Josh, 1996. "The Use of Covenants: An Empirical Analysis of Venture Partnership Agreements," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 463-498, October.
    4. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1997. "Industry costs of equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, February.
    5. Steven N. Kaplan & Antoinette Schoar, 2005. "Private Equity Performance: Returns, Persistence, and Capital Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1791-1823, August.
    6. Alexander Ljungqvist & William J. Wilhelm, 2003. "IPO Pricing in the Dot‐com Bubble," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 723-752, April.
    7. Tim Loughran & Jay Ritter, 2004. "Why Has IPO Underpricing Changed Over Time?," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 33(3), Fall.
    8. Philippe Jorion & William N. Goetzmann, 1999. "Global Stock Markets in the Twentieth Century," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 953-980, June.
    9. Michael Ewens & Charles M. Jones & Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, 2013. "The Price of Diversifiable Risk in Venture Capital and Private Equity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(8), pages 1854-1889.
    10. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Annette Vissing-Jørgensen, 2002. "The Returns to Entrepreneurial Investment: A Private Equity Premium Puzzle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 745-778, September.
    11. Cochrane, John H., 2005. "The risk and return of venture capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 3-52, January.
    12. Gompers, Paul A., 1996. "Grandstanding in the venture capital industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 133-156, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jean-Noël Barrot, 2017. "Investor Horizon and the Life Cycle of Innovative Firms: Evidence from Venture Capital," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 3021-3043, September.
    2. Rin, Marco Da & Hellmann, Thomas & Puri, Manju, 2013. "A Survey of Venture Capital Research," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 573-648, Elsevier.
    3. Groh, Alexander P. & Gottschalg, Oliver, 2009. "The opportunity cost of capital of US buyouts," IESE Research Papers D/780, IESE Business School.
    4. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Lerner, Josh, 2010. "The Financing of R&D and Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 609-639, Elsevier.
    5. Alexander Peter Groh & Oliver Gottschalg, 2008. "The Opportunity Cost of Capital of US Buyouts," NBER Working Papers 14148, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Douglas Cumming & Grant Fleming & Armin Schwienbacher, 2009. "Style Drift in Private Equity," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5‐6), pages 645-678, June.
    7. Alperovych, Yan & Hübner, Georges & Lobet, Fabrice, 2015. "How does governmental versus private venture capital backing affect a firm's efficiency? Evidence from Belgium," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 508-525.
    8. Andrew Metrick & Ayako Yasuda, 2011. "Venture Capital and Other Private Equity: a Survey," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 17(4), pages 619-654, September.
    9. Douglas Cumming & Grant Fleming & Armin Schwienbacher, 2009. "Style Drift in Private Equity," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5‐6), pages 645-678, June.
    10. Espenlaub, Susanne & Khurshed, Arif & Mohamed, Abdulkadir, 2014. "Does cross-border syndication affect venture capital risk and return?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 13-24.
    11. Fang, Lily & Ivashina, Victoria & Lerner, Josh, 2015. "The disintermediation of financial markets: Direct investing in private equity," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 160-178.
    12. Boyan Jovanovic & Balàzs Szentes, 2007. "On the Return to Venture Capital," NBER Working Papers 12874, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Bottazzi, Laura & Da Rin, Marco & Hellmann, Thomas, 2008. "Who are the active investors?: Evidence from venture capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 488-512, September.
    14. Jia, Ning & Wang, Dan, 2017. "Skin in the game: General partner capital commitment, investment behavior and venture capital fund performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 110-130.
    15. Alexander Ljungqvist & Matthew Richardson & Daniel Wolfenzon, 2020. "The investment behavior of buyout funds: Theory and evidence," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(1), pages 3-32, March.
    16. Shumiao Ouyang & Jiaheng Yu & Ravi Jagannathan, 2020. "Return to Venture Capital in the Aggregate," NBER Working Papers 27690, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Alperovych, Yan & Hübner, Georges, 2011. "Explaining returns on venture capital backed companies: Evidence from Belgium," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 277-295, September.
    18. David T. Robinson & Berk A. Sensoy, 2012. "Do Private Equity Managers Earn Their Fees? Compensation, Ownership, and Cash Flow Performance," NBER Working Papers 17942, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Arthur Korteweg & Stefan Nagel, 2016. "Risk‐Adjusting the Returns to Venture Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1437-1470, June.
    20. Peter Iliev & Michelle Lowry, 2020. "Venturing beyond the IPO: Financing of Newly Public Firms by Venture Capitalists," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1527-1577, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9454. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.