Review of Corporate Finance > Vol 2 > Issue 3

Should Investors Care Where Private Equity Managers Went to School?

Florian Fuchs, School of Finance, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, florian.fuchs@unisg.ch , Roland Füss, Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance (s/bf), University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and Research Fellow at Center for Real Estate and Environmental Economics, NTNU Business School, Norway, roland.fuess@unisg.ch , Tim Jenkinson, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, UK, tim.jenkinson@sbs.ox.ac.uk , Stefan Morkoetter, School of Finance and St.Gallen Institute of Management in Asia, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and Singapore, stefan.morkoetter@unisg.ch
 
Suggested Citation
Florian Fuchs, Roland Füss, Tim Jenkinson and Stefan Morkoetter (2022), "Should Investors Care Where Private Equity Managers Went to School?", Review of Corporate Finance: Vol. 2: No. 3, pp 451-492. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/114.00000021

Publication Date: 07 Dec 2022
© 2022 F. Fuchs, R. Füss, T. Jenkinson, S. Morkoetter
 
Subjects
 
Keywords
JEL Codes: G11, G15, G24, G34
Buyout funds, fund teams, education, fund performance, university
 

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In this article:
Introduction 
Roles of Education 
Sample Characteristics 
Empirical Results 
Concluding Remarks 
References 

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate whether the educational background of private equity managers, which represents an important part of their human capital, impacts fund performance. In particular, we explore three potential channels of how their educational background may influence fund performance: (i) institutional quality, (ii) individual performance, and (iii) academic variety. We find that a combination of top-tier education and work experience identifies individual performance in the management team. In addition, academic variety, in particular among graduates of high-ranked universities, rather than uniform institutional quality, is an important return driver.

DOI:10.1561/114.00000021

Online Appendix | 114.00000021_app.pdf

This is the article's accompanying appendix.

DOI: 10.1561/114.00000021_app

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