Performance Perspectives on Prominent Private Equity–Leveraged Buyout Fund (PE-LBO) Families

The analysis of private equity (PE) returns for United States leveraged buyouts (LBO) is all too often conducted at an excessively abstract level. There is frequently a tendency to focus on rather sterile discussions about performance results over a broad data set. This article studies the returns of 59 prominent funds as they appear to us empirically. These fund families are household names on Wall Street, with collective commitments of $498 billion.