Francisco Partners leads the 2020 HEC-DowJones Private Equity Performance Ranking

JOUY-EN-JOSAS, France–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Francisco Partners, Genstar Capital Partners, and Vitruvian Partners secured the top three spots in the 2020 HEC-DowJones Private Equity Performance Ranking, respectively.

HEC Paris Business School and DowJones joined forces in 2009 to publish an annual ranking of Private Equity (PE) firms based on their historic performance and expected future competitiveness. The ranking is designed to answer the question “which firms have performed the best for their investors?”

This year’s ranking lists the world’s top PE firms in terms of aggregate performance based on all buyout funds raised between 2007 and 2016.

In total, the study analysed performance data from 529 PE firms and the 977 funds they raised over a ten-year period. Led by Oliver Gottschalg, Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris Business School, the ranking found that the firms analysed raised an aggregate equity volume of $1.4tr in total.

The ranking draws on a comprehensive set of data on PE fund performance provided by Preqin and directly from PE firms, and uses a unique methodology to calculate the aggregate performance of each firm based on difference performance measures for all the funds managed by the firms. The method in use is also able to aggregate performance across vintage years and considers relative and absolute returns.

According to Professor Gottschalg, “A look at the top performers confirms the strong positioning of many tech-focused firms we already saw in prior years. In addition, my research shows that a good amount of ‘fund size discipline’ seems to increase the chances to make it on this list – even though it will be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for success. The average amount raised from 2007 to 2016 for the Top 5 Firms of the 2020 ranking is just over US$4B. This is less than the corresponding number for the Top 5 of the 2013 ranking (just over US$5B), when we looked at vintages 2000-2009 even though the industry itself grew substantially in that time.”

The Ranking: Top 20 out of 529 PE Firms

Rank	Firm	Performance Score
1	Francisco Partners	2.40
2	Genstar Capital Partners	1.79
3	Vitruvian Partners	1.71
4	Veritas Capital	1.65
5	Waterland Private Equity Investments	1.57
6	Thoma Bravo	1.48
7	Hg Capital	1.48
8	Leonard Green & Partners	1.47
9	Clayton, Dubilier & Rice	1.29
10	Quadrant Private Equity	1.22
11	General Atlantic	1.10
12	New Mountain Capital	0.88
13	Ares Management	0.51
14	Crestview Partners	0.50
15	Kohlberg & Company	0.43
16	Audax Group	0.40
17	Vista Equity Partners	0.35
18	Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe	0.33
19	Astorg	0.32
20	Oak Hill Capital Partners	0.27

Last year, Thoma Bravo, Clayton Dubilier & Rice and Genstar Capital Partners were the Top 3 in the HEC-DowJones Private Equity Performance Ranking.