Dow Jones Ranking Reflects Dominance of US Firms in Private Equity

The Large Buyout Performance Rankings, compiled by HEC Paris strategy professor Oliver Gottschalg, also shows that the number of European firms in the Top 10  has risen to four, four times more than in 2023. These include Vitruvian Partners and Permira (London) and Astorg (France). The ranking is based on all buyout funds raised between 2009 and 2018. Other firms making the Global Top 20

85% of the top 20 firms in the 2023 Large Buyout Performance Ranking are US based. That’s according to the HEC Paris Business School and DowJones ranking developed by Professor Oliver Gottschalg, who has been compiling this private equity classification for a number of years. His ranking shows the top three positions remain unchanged from last year: TA Associates, Veritas Capital, and Francisco Partners are all U.S.-based. This highlights the dominance of funds centered in the United States. It also reveals the resilience of Software Buyout-focused GPs including Hg and Thoma Bravo.

The ranking reveals the stability of private equity firms in a high interest rate environment. Professor in the Strategy and Business Policy department,  Oliver Gottschalg evaluated the performance of 101 firms which raised total equity of over $1.6tr through 352 funds between 2010 and 2019. It answers the question: “Which firms generated the best performance for their investors over the past years?” and draws on performance information from all relevant buyout funds managed by a given PE Firm and aggregates their performance based on a novel and proprietary methodology into one overall performance score.

Professor Gottschalg is also the holder of the school’s Antin IP Chair on Private Equity and Infrastructure.

* Performance scores cannot be compared across geographies.

This year’s HEC Paris-DowJones 2022 Large Buyout Performance rankings are sponsored by Long Term Assets Ltd.