815 Independent Sponsor Deals Analyzed
Greg Brown is a Professor of Finance at UNC Kenan-Flagler and Founder of the Institute for Private Capital. On July 15, 2026, he published the first large-scale study of independent sponsor performance, covering 815 deals. Investor-reported transactions generated a 2.86x average gross TVPI and 29.3% gross IRR, outperforming matched non-IS PE deals by 0.73x TVPI and 11.4% IRR on average, with no statistically significant increase in downside risk.
More recent episodes
Buying an 800-Unit Hair Salon during Covid
Azhar Quader shares how Queens Court Capital rescued Hair Cuttery from bankruptcy, cut costs, and hit $17M EBITDA in under a year through special situations PE.
20x a $10m investment in 2.5 years
Mike Sutton of Guideboat Capital shares how he scaled Ojos Locos to $25M EBITDA and 40x’d Buff City’s value through overlooked, high-growth deals.
The 123-Year-Old Firm's Independent Sponsor Blitz
HKW is a 123-year-old firm (!!). First an investment bank, then a PE investor across 5 funds, and now an independent sponsor with 5 new platforms in the last 18 months. Ted Kramer is the CEO of this venerable institution, and he shares why thae history matters as they've converted 180 completed buy-side transactions and 25,000 tracked deals into pattern recognition.