State Street Corporation, the provider of financial services to institutional investors, announced today the results of the State Street Private Equity Indexsm as of December 31, 2008. The index is based on the latest quarterly statistics from State Street Investment Analytics’ Private Edge Group and includes more than 1,500 private equity partnerships with aggregate commitments of approximately $1.5 trillion.
The Private Edge Group provides detailed analyses of private equity investments for a diverse client base including public and private pensions, endowments and foundations, representing nearly 5,000 commitments totaling approximately $200 billion. The Private Edge Group has one of the most extensive and comprehensive private equity data sets currently maintained in the marketplace, including partnership information down to the portfolio company level.
The Private Equity industry exhibited a quarterly return decline for the fifth consecutive quarter in Q4 2008. The return for the State Street Private Equity Index was -16.32% for Q4 2008, which is a near 800 basis point decline from the prior quarter. Despite the recent declines, the analysis of returns for Q4 2008 generated some positive results.
“Private equity funds generally held their ground better than public equities during the fourth quarter of 2008,” says William Pryor, senior vice president of State Street Investment Analytics. In Q4 2008, the S&P 500 reported a -21.94% quarterly return, while the Russell 3000 reported an even larger -22.78% decline. The 500-600 basis point outperformance of private equity versus public equity during the fourth quarter is notable, given that in Q3 2008, the private equity return was only 0-30 basis points higher than these two public equity indices. On an annualized basis, the State Street Private Equity Index reported a one year return of -25.76%, outperforming the S&P 500 return of -38.49% for 2008.
While the fourth quarter returns were down across all major private equity strategies, the Venture Capital funds in the State Street Private Equity Index demonstrated resiliency to public market volatility and declined by only -9.66%.
“Venture Capital funds, by their nature, tend to be less affected by difficult credit conditions than do Buyout, Distressed Debt and Credit Opportunity funds,” says Pryor. “In the fourth quarter of 2008, the private equity funds that had the highest exposure to the credit markets, either through highly leveraged portfolio companies or by direct investment in debt securities, experienced the largest losses of any private equity strategy as general partners wrestled with the impact of the global credit crisis on their interim valuations.”
Both domestic and international private equity returns declined in the fourth quarter. Domestic funds in the Index reported a -14.69% return and International funds reported a -21.42% return in Q4 2008. Overall, the magnitude of the return changes between third and fourth quarters for domestic funds and for international funds were relatively even, indicative of the global nature of the challenges impacting the current economic environment.
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