Overall US private equity performance showed positive returns across all investment horizons and turned sharply positive in the one-year time horizon for the period ending 31 March 2010, according to Thomson Reuters.
With improving stability in the broader capital markets and a return for venture capital and private equity IPO and M&A exits, near-term horizon returns saw marked improvements over last quarter.
The ten-year time horizon for venture capital funds demonstrated weakening trends from last quarter and a year ago, registering negative investment returns as the cash flows and corresponding valuations seen in 1999 are no longer included in the sample.
One year returns, which are most affected by the current market environment, moved in a strongly positive direction registering a seven percentage point increase from last quarter for venture capital funds (11.5 per cent) and a 9.1 percentage point increase for buyout funds (19.4 per cent).
Longer-term time horizons held strongly positive for venture capital funds with a slight increase from the third quarter return in the 20-year time horizon to 17.8 per cent compared to 17.1 per cent a year ago.
In the buyouts category, small and medium buyout funds in the longer-term time horizons continued to drive performance, with double-digit performance figures.
Overall, venture capital and buyout fund returns across most time horizons continued to outperform US public market indices, Nasdaq and the S&P 500, through 31 March 2010.
