Market Condition and the Exit Rate of Private Equity Investments in Brazil

Abstract

Exit is a crucial issue for private equity (PE) industry. Fund managers tend to time the market to exploit favorable market conditions and sell their equity stake at a higher price, generating higher return. In this article we investigate the magnitude of the impact of market condition in the exit rate of Brazilian PE deals. We use the hazard model and two proxies for hot market condition: the market price-earning ratio and the number of IPOs. Our results indicate that PE funds do market timing, and that the magnitude is higher when the proxy is price-earning ratio.