LP Scorecard: Megabuyouts shine in recent 9-month surge for Washington

Megafunds drove distribution activity at Washington State Investment Board, which received more than $3.5 billion from its private equity portfolio during the first nine months of 2015, according to an analysis of the latest return data.

Megafunds brought in $1.5 billion during the period. While that is somewhat expected given that the pension has the most committed there, it also had the leading distribution percentage (cash out divided by cash in) among all the fund classes, with 11.3 percent.

Individual megafunds that returned the most capital included Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’ 2006 fund, which was the highest distributor with $278.5 million back to the pension system.

TPG Capital’s TPG Partners VI and TPG Partners V returned $219.5 million and $201.3 million, respectively. Warburg Pincus’s 10th private equity fund brought in $129 million for the pension system.

GTCR’s Fund X returned $119.4 million but had the highest IRR (20.3 percent) and distribution percentage (45.6 percent) of the top five funds. Together, these five funds combined to produce $947.6 million.

While megafunds as a class returned the most in the portfolio, large-sized buyouts funds brought back the second highest amount, with $662.6 million to the system. Midsized funds came in third with $604 million.

Special-situation funds came in fourth but had the second-highest distribution percentage, with 9.9 percent.

Overall, WSIB’s PE portfolio has about $47.2 billion committed across 306 active funds. Those active funds combined have drawn more than $41 billion and returned almost $45.3 billion in realizations as of September 30, 2015.