Record-Setting Pace of U.S. Buyout Fund Distributions Will Slow: Poll

The record-setting pace of distributions from U.S. buyout funds will slow down this year, according to a poll of peHUB readers.

Of the 187 people who took the poll, 122 (or 65%) predicted that 2012 distributions from U.S. buyout funds will be lower than they were last year.

Limited partners received $93.6 billion from their U.S. buyout fund managers in 2011, according to a recent report by Cambridge Associates. That was the largest annual amount it has recorded since it began tracking the data in 1986.

While there was agreement that distributions would be smaller, there was no consensus on how much smaller. Twenty-seven people predicted that they would be 90% of 2011, 29 said they would be 80%, 26 said they would be 60%, 26 said they’d be 50% or less and 14 predicted they’d be 60% of last year.

Just 65 people (or about 35%) of those polled believe this year’s distributions will top last year’s.

See the chart below for complete results.

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