Attribution before performance
Before any capital partner reads a return column, they establish who did the work. A principal who sourced and asset-managed a transaction at a prior firm has a different claim than one who sat on the investment committee that approved it.
State the role for each transaction plainly: sourced, underwrote, closed, asset-managed, exited, or participated. Where the record belongs partly to a former employer, say so and describe the boundary. Overstated attribution is the most common reason a diligence process ends quietly.
Realised, unrealised and the space between
Separate realised outcomes from marks. A realised deal has a closing statement, a distribution history and a final capital account. An unrealised position has a valuation policy and an opinion.
Present both, never blended. When unrealised positions are shown, state the valuation basis, who prepared it and when it was last updated. Institutional readers discount marks automatically; they penalise marks presented as results.
- Realised: entry date, exit date, equity invested, distributions, net multiple, net IRR.
- Unrealised: current basis, valuation method, date, and what would change it.
- Losses: shown with the same fields, plus a short factual note on cause.
The gross-to-net bridge
Gross deal returns and investor net returns are different numbers, and the distance between them is a description of the sponsor's economics. Show the bridge: fees, promote, financing costs and expenses that sit between the asset result and the investor outcome.
Sponsors who volunteer this bridge shorten diligence. Sponsors who omit it invite a reconstruction of their fee load by someone less charitable.
One methodology, applied everywhere
Fix the methodology once and document it: how IRR is calculated, how partial realisations are treated, how co-invest and sidecar capital is included, how currency and leverage are handled, and what date the record is measured to.
Then apply it to every transaction, including the ones that hurt. A record that quietly excludes two failed deals is worse than a record that includes them with an explanation, because the exclusion is discoverable and the explanation is not available afterwards.
The file behind the page
Assume the summary page triggers a request for the underlying evidence. The record should be backed by closing statements, distribution records, lender payoff letters, capital account statements and the model used at the time.
Keeping that file assembled continuously is far cheaper than reconstructing it during a live raise, and it is the same file a data room will need.
- Per-deal folder: acquisition memo, closing statement, financing terms, exit documentation.
- Investor-level records: capital accounts, distribution history, tax reporting.
- A single source-of-truth spreadsheet or system that produces the summary, not a hand-typed page.