Pereira, João PedroHansen, Marla Catarina Helena2021-02-092024-01-062020-01-212020-01-06http://hdl.handle.net/10362/111547Historical analyses surrounding the size effect on private equity buyout fund performance have arrived at controversial conclusions in regard to both the certainty of significance and, given significance, the outperformance of one size group over another. The paper uses performance data of 1,914buyout funds spanning vintages 1995 to 2015, retrieved from Pitchbook, and summarizes a survey on investors’ beliefs, conducted in Autumn 2019.No significance for fund size in absolute dollar terms can be found. However, when size is classified in to quartiles and groups, ‘Small’ performs the best. This is robust for IRRs. Finally, investors tend to invest into smaller funds when the time horizon is longer, however, do not generally favor one specific size group.engPrivate equity buyout fund performanceFund sizeSmall Vs large-capFund level datamaster thesis202609073