Industry Performance

This report demonstrates the returns generated for investors by our members to 31 December 2020.

The industry return, measured by the since inception internal rate of return since 1980 is 14.6% p.a. The equivalent measure since 2011 is 19.6% p.a.

These annual returns are equivalent to investors nearly doubling their money, getting a 1.9x return on capital invested over the past decade and 1.8x capital invested since 1980, including the value of unrealised investments as at 31 December 2020.

However, not all funds generate superior returns, and our detailed analysis shows the range of returns to be wide, with some funds ultimately being unprofitable. This underlies regulation requiring that investors be sufficiently experienced or well-advised before investing in private equity or venture capital funds.

The overall resilience of investment returns following the unprecedented turbulence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic gives investors’ confidence that private capital as an industry can continue to deliver in times of disruption.

The Performance Measurement Survey Report 2020 can be found here and the 2020 Performance Measurement Survey Summary flyer can be found here. For those interested in analysing the data, an excel spreadsheet with all the numbers from the survey report can also be found here.