Here are some of the most popular stories that ran on peHUB this past week.

Average investment multiples are higher for later stage and secondary commitments made since 2005, compared with other funds of the same vintages, and median IRRs for the later and secondary fund investments from earlier in the decade are better as well.

The big news today is that Facebook is reportedly planning to register to go public next week. It should come as no surprise, then, that our most popular post this week was about this year’s prime IPO candidates. Other hot topics included the above-average performance of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System’s PE portfolio, a surge in VC investing and promotions at Carlyle and TA Associates. Here are the top 10 posts peHUB’s regular readers found most compelling from Jan. 23 to Jan. 27

1. Slideshow: Bring on the 2012 IPO Candidates – by Joanna Glasner
2. Scorecard: San Francisco Builds A Winning PE Portfolio – by David Toll
3. Venture Investing Rebounds In 2011 With Early Stage Leaping To A 10 Year High: Slideshow – by Mark Boslet
4. Aydin Senkut Recalls a Game of Pool with Aaron Levie Led Him to Milo.com: PHOTOS – by Alastair Goldfisher
5. Slideshow: Smart Grid, Smart Play? – by Jonathan Marino
6. TA Associates Promotes Eight – by peHUB staff
7. Carlyle Promotes 41 Execs – by peHUB staff
8. Global PE M&A Does Well in 2011 – by Angela Sormani
9. TransDigm Group Acquires AmSafe Global – by peHUB staff
10. Battery, Bay and USVP Could See 22x Return from Guidewire IPO – by Lawrence Aragon

In a city known for cultivating teams with winning records, be it the Giants or the 49ers, the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System has built a private equity portfolio whose performance tops anything I’ve come across. The diversified, 249-fund portfolio, dating back to 1987, has achieved an overall investment multiple of 1.65x as of June [...]

Raising a venture capital fund is no easy task, but funds continue to be formed under difficult conditions. So clearly money is available and LPs are willing to commit it. The question is how to find the cash and approach who has it? Here are several comments from today’s Venture Capital Journal’s Venture Alpha conference [...]