Private Equity

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Private Equity Research Consortium (PERC) is an assemblage of academic researchers and industry professionals dedicated to advancing research on private equity and credit. Our core mission is to develop a better understanding of how private capital investments affect both financial results and broader economic outcomes.

PERC, organized through IPC, was established in 2012 by scholars from the business schools at the University of Chicago, Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Oxford, and the University of Virginia as well as other institutions who recognized challenges facing empirical research on private equity. PERC supports academic studies by researchers all over the world by facilitating access to data for scholars. For example, PERC has an exclusive arrangement with Burgiss to provide access to data for academic research. The Burgiss dataset includes 12,700 funds, 10 trillion in assets. It is sourced directly from limited partners and contains full performance histories of cash flows at the fund level. The Burgiss dataset represents the largest and most in-depth dataset of its kind on venture, buyout, and real estate funds available for academic research.

PERC periodically accepts applications from academic researchers for access to Burgiss private equity fund data.

Latest Private Equity Research

What Do We Know About Institutional-Quality Hedge Funds?

February 06, 2024

Using publicly available sources such as trade press and Form ADV filings, we compile a list of 561 “institutional-quality” hedge fund managers that each have at least 1 billion USD in primary hedge fund assets under management. We examine the availability of historical return information for funds operated by these managers and find 152 managers (27.1%) are not represented in commercial databases.

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Loss Avoidance in Private Equity

February 01, 2024

Private equity investors rely on reported fund performance to make informed investment decisions. This paper provides evidence that buyout funds manage multiples of invested capital (MOICs) for portfolio companies to avoid incurring and reporting capital losses. In the distribution of deal-level MOICs, we document an

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The Better Angels of our Nature?

November 17, 2023

This paper studies the investment behavior of angel investors in private and public markets. Their angel investment returns in innovative firms are highly skewed and exhibit pronounced performance persistence that is unlikely to be driven by contemporaneous exposure to economy-wide shocks. Investor fixed effects absorb approximately 45%of the total variation in returns, indicating that accounting for persistent individual differences is critical for understanding this market.

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Advisory Board

Greg Brown

Research Director, IPC; Professor of Finance, Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Scholar, University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Business School

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Keith Crouch

Private Capital Solutions, MSCI

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Robert S. Harris

PERC Director, C. Stewart Sheppard Professor of Business Administration, University of Virginia, Darden School

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Yael Hochberg

Ralph S. O'Connor Professor in Entrepreneurship (Finance); Head, Rice University Entrepreneurship Initiative

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Tim Jenkinson

Professor of Finance, Oxford University, Said Business School

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Steven Kaplan

Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

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David Robinson

Professor of Finance and J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Professor of International Management, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business

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PERC Research Fellows

Reiner Braun

Chair, Entrepreneurial Finance 2, Technische Universität München

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Michael Ewens

David L. and Elsie M. Dodd Professor of Finance, Columbia Business School

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Will Gornall

Assistant Professor of Finance, University of British Columbiam, Sauder School of Business

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Oleg Gredil

Associate Professor of Finance, Tulane University, A. B. Freeman School of Business

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Sabrina Howell

Associate Professor of Finance, New York University Stern School of Business

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Victoria Ivashina

Lovett-Learned Chaired Professor of Finance, Harvard Business School

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Arthur Korteweg

Dean's Associate Professor in Business Administration, Associate Professor of Finance and Business Economics, University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business

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Josh Lerner

Schiff Professor of Investment Banking, Harvard Business School

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Vrinda Mittal

Assistant Professor of Finance, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

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Stefan Morkoetter

Professor of Finance, University of St.Gallen

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Adair Morse

Professor of Finance, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

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Ludovic Phalippou

Professor of Financial Economics, University of Oxford, Saïd Business School

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Antoinette Schoar

Koerner Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management

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Berk Sensoy

Hans Stoll Professor of Finance, Vanderbilt University, Owen Graduate School of Management

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Morten Sorensen

Associate Professor of Finance, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

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Ilya Strebulaev

The David S. Lobel Professor of Private Equity; Professor of Finance; Director, Stanford Venture Capital Initiative, Graduate School of Stanford Business

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Per Stromberg

SSE Centennial Professor of Finance and Private Equity, Stockholm School of Economics; Adjunct Professor of Finance, Booth Business School, University of Chicago

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Michael Weisbach

Ralph W. Kurtz Chair in Finance, Ohio State University, Fisher College of Business

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Ayako Yasuda

Professor of Finance, UC Davis

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