Can Investors Time Their Exposure to Private Equity?
50 Pages Posted: 13 Sep 2018 Last revised: 25 Jan 2020
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Can Investors Time Their Exposure to Private Equity?
Can Investors Time Their Exposure to Private Equity?
Date Written: January 22, 2020
Abstract
Private equity performance, both for buyouts and venture capital, has been highly cyclical: periods of high fundraising have been followed by periods of low performance. Despite this seemingly predictable variation, we find modest gains, at best, to pursuing realistic, investable strategies that time capital commitments to private equity. This occurs, in part, because investors can only time their commitments to funds; they cannot time when commitments are called or when investments are exited. There is a high degree of time-series correlation in net cash flows even across commitment strategies that allocate capital in a very different manner over time.
Keywords: Private equity, venture capital, commitment strategies, buyouts
JEL Classification: G11
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation