David Toll

So, let’s say you want to make more money. What do you do? Here's some advice: Head for the firms with the greatest assets under management. It's simple arithmetic. The more assets under management, the more a firm rings up in management fees and, in the case of buyout firms, deal-related fees (those not handed over to LPs). Bigger transactions also translate to bigger profits when it comes time to doling out carried interest. Firms managing more assets tend to have more mouths to feed, but rarely do firms ramp up their payrolls at the same pace they do their fund sizes. The disparities in compensation, as the infographics below show, are dramatic—and a source of ongoing angst for LPs, who worry that partners will be tempted to raise bigger funds than they can wisely invest.

The state of Connecticut’s tempest-tossed private equity portfolio, lashed by scandals, bad bets and a hiatus from new commitments a decade ago, hasn’t performed as badly as you might think, although at least one secondary sale may mask some of the results. As of March 31 the $2.2 billion portfolio, with investments dating from 1987 […]

Ronald Schmitz recently acknowledged to sister magazine Buyouts that the $900,000 in potential annual compensation offered by Virginia Retirement System factored in his decision to become its next chief investment officer this month. Schmitz had been CIO of Oregon Public Employees Retirement System since 2003. Schmitz joins a parade of investment officers that have stepped down this year from positions at retirement funds in California, Massachusetts, New Mexico and New York. Some, like Schmitz, are staying in the public sector. Others, like Raudline Etienne, former chief executive of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, are heading into the private sector, in her case to join consulting firm Albright Stonebridge Group. Just how big a role compensation plays in any individual departure is almost always impossible to say. Still, the latest edition of the 2011-2012 Holt-Thomson Reuters Private Equity and Venture Capital Compensation Report (North American edition) sheds light on what public pension funds are up against in competing with the private sector for talent--click through for infographic.

The roughly decade-old private equity programs of three New York City pension funds are off to reasonably strong starts. But a major slowdown in commitment pace in the wake of the financial crisis will have implications for returns in the years ahead. The largest of the three, the $42.7 billion Teachers’ Retirement System of the […]

So, who earns more money, buyout professionals or venture capital professionals? The numbers are closer than you might think, based on an analysis of statistics presented in the just-published study, 2011-2012 Holt-Thomson Reuters Private Equity and Venture Capital Compensation Report, North American edition. Partners at the venture capital firms who participated in the study earned a median salary plus bonus of $445,000 in 2011; their counterparts at LBO/growth equity shops, by comparison, earned a fatter median salary plus bonus of $540,000. However, managing general partners at venture firms actually pulled in slightly more than their counterparts at LBO/growth equity firms in median salary plus bonus, $1.1 million to 1.0 million. Click through to see an infographic comparing compensation for these and six other common positions.

I’m a sucker for that Konica Minolta bizhub commercial in which the “elder”—aka “he who speaks of floppy disks”—appears in the final seconds to berate his younger colleagues for having things too easy. (“You’re all soft,” he informs them.) Pretty soon I’m going to become known around my office as “he who speaks of FOIA requests for private equity return data.” […]

You know you’ve entered the world of private equity when spreads on fund performance widen to fantastic levels. A fund that returns 10 cents on the dollar? Sure, some firms have managed it. Multiply your money by more than 8 times? Yep, private equity funds can do that too. And everything in between. Over a […]

Amid the hoopla of The Blackstone Group’s S-1 filing back in early 2007 I don’t recall too many reporters focusing on investment returns. Through year-end 2006, the firm had generated on its corporate private equity portfolio a net IRR to investors of 22.8 percent per year for the previous 19 years. That’s simply an incredible […]

With one of its founders stepping back in a reduced role, Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC has taken in approximately $530 million for its latest credit opportunities fund, a source familiar with the firm confirmed to sister magazine Buyouts. That’s ostensibly well short of its original $1 billion target although the firm has in fact raised close to […]

Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana saw the value of its private markets investments soar in the year ending March 31, 2011. But it wasn’t enough to lift the portfolio above a key performance benchmark over the long haul. According to a report prepared by advisor Hamilton Lane, the program, which has reached $8.8 billion in […]