CalPERS: Best & worst PE & VC funds

June 22, 2011, 11:39 PM UTC

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is the country’s largest investor in private equity and venture capital, with $50 billion of exposure to nearly 700 funds. It also is one of the most transparent, thanks to a 2002 skirmish with the San Jose Mercury News.

CalPERS publishes the cash-in/cash-out, investment multiples and internal rates of return (IRRs) for all of its underlying funds, and recently updated the information through December 31, 2010. The lag isn’t terribly surprising in private equity reporting, although CalPERS (by its own admission) was supposed to have this information up weeks ago.

Below I’ve posted the entire portfolio, ranked by IRR (from highest to lowest). For those unfamiliar with this data, please don’t pay too much attention to funds raised in 2008 or later, due to an inherent “j-curve” that can artificially harm an immature fund’s performance data. All that is missing are CalPERS’ stakes in the management companies of Apollo Global Management, Carlyle Group and Silver Lake Partners, which I discussed earlier this month.

Download the data here, or view below

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