In an article published in Financial Investigator on 27 May, 2025, Evan Clark, Senior Private Market Analyst at EDHEC Infra & Private Assets (EIPA), presents the key takeaways from a recent report by Scientific Infra & Private Assets, entitled “Does Size Matter? A Closer Look at Alpha across Fund Size”, analysing the performance of 586 buyout funds in North America, spanning vintages from 2013 to 2023. He summarised:

“Using privateMetrics indices as benchmarks, we find that smaller US buyout funds exhibit greater potential to generate outsized alpha, but they also carry a higher risk of delivering significantly negative alpha. This heightened volatility is influenced by systematic risk exposures and manager incentives that shape both asset selection and strategy. At the other end of the spectrum, mega-cap US buyout managers have also demonstrated an ability to generate alpha—albeit at lower levels—though doing so at scale still translates into substantial dollar value for limited partners (LPs).”

🔗 Read the full article.

🔗 Read the report.