European private equity performance figures bode well for those European buyout funds on the fundraising trail. General partners saw double-digit positive returns in the one-year time horizon through June 30, according to Thomson Reuters Private Equity Performance Index.

Looking at the overall figures, European private equity performance posted positive returns across all but the 3-year investment horizon for the period ending June 30, 2011, according to Thomson Reuters.

One-year returns, the most affected by current market conditions, moved in a positive direction for venture capital funds, registering a 12.2 percentage point increase from last year to 1.7%. The longer-term 20-year time horizon return just about held positive for venture capital funds with a slight decrease from June last year from 0.5% to 0.1%.

European buyout funds saw one-year returns decrease 3.7 percentage points from June 2010, but remained strongly positive at 15.3%. By fund size in the 1-year time horizon, weighing in with a 10% return were small buyouts; 24.7% medium buyouts; 11.3% large buyouts and 22.4% mega buyouts; the small, medium and large buyout fund returns in the 20-year time horizon stand at 11.7%, 17.7% and 12.7% respectively.

The “All Private Equity Return” category outperformed the Morgan Stanley Euro Equity Index across every time horizon ending June 30, 2011, and outperformed the FTSE100 across all but the 3-year time horizon.

On the back of these positive results, a handful of European buyout funds are celebrating closings in record time and exceeding their original targets. Among the mega-buyout funds are BC Partners’s BC Partners European Capital IX, which has already reached its €6 billion ($8.09 billion) target and is leaving the fund open until the beginning of next year with a hard cap of €6.5 billion. And Nordic EQT Partners successfully closed EQT VI in October at its hard cap of €4.75 billion after just nine months on the road.

In the medium to large buyout space is UK-based firm Montagu Private Equity, which closed Montagu IV on €2.5 billion in April. And French mid-market firm Astorg Partners exceeded its €800 million target for Astorg V, closing in April at its hard cap of €1.05 billion after just seven months on the fundraising trail.

Scroll down the slideshow to see the full set of European performance figures from the Thomson Reuters European Private Equity Performance Index drilling down by investment stage.

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