Help: Understanding Manager Scoring

Overview

Evaluating fund managers takes time because fund returns and cash flow timing vary by strategy and vintage, which makes fair comparisons difficult. PitchBook’s Manager Scores framework simplifies this by scoring each fund family against peers with similar investment strategies. Use the score badges to quickly identify top-performing managers, see how fast they deploy and return capital, and inform your allocation workflow. This article explains how the scores work, the methodology behind them, and where to find them on the PitchBook Platform.

What is Manager Scoring?

PitchBook’s Manager Scores is a quantitative framework created by our PitchBook Institutional Research Group to bring research-informed solutions to common allocation challenges. This framework assesses the performance track record of a fund manager’s closed-end fund strategies, otherwise known as fund families. This is primarily accomplished by converting each fund’s internal rate of return (IRR) to a Z-score and controlling for the strategy and vintage of the fund. Individual fund Z-scores are then weighted by the estimated finality of the IRR and combined across the fund family to produce a single score. These scores—Fund Performance Score, Capital Call Speed Score, and Distribution Speed Score—provide at-a-glance ratings to help you understand the degrees to which a fund family has outperformed or underperformed the benchmark.

What does each score mean?

The Manager Scores framework contains the Performance Score, the Capital Call Speed Score, and the Distribution Speed Score. The Performance and both Cash Flow scores have the same visual and user experience on the investor profiles; however, each has different use cases. Where our Performance Scores are designed to help you identify top performers by looking at high scores, the Capital Call Speed Score and Distribution Speed Score help you understand the speed of cash flows, providing better visibility into potential timing.

These scores are assigned to a fund family on a 1-100 numeric scale, with 100 representing a top performer. The scale is not based on quartiles, ensuring that fund families with unequal scores are not distributed in the same performance ranges and that data is not skewed. These scores help you determine how a fund manager’s performance is trending across the peer group.

How are high Performance Scores identified?

You may notice some fund families have a star icon next to their Performance Score. This indicates the fund family received a score of 70 or above and may be considered a high performer. The higher the family is on the spectrum relative to its peers, the more it outperforms the benchmark. A high score also indicates that the manager has underlying funds within the fund family that have consistently performed well, demonstrating what’s known as performance persistence.

Please note that Manager Scoring is not an investment recommendation by PitchBook and does not provide predictive numbers. Rather, these scores should be used to help you quickly contextualize information on key players and discover new managers who might fit your strategy. If you feel metrics are not reflected accurately, please submit data feedback to provide us with more details.

What peer groups can I view Manager Scores data for?

You can filter Manager Scores data by several peer groups to help you identify fund managers within your focus area. Choose to view Fund Strategy Peers, Deal Type Peers, Deal Industry Peers, or Deal Geography Peers to discover fund managers with other similar investment concentrations. Please note that the Deal Type Peers, Deal Industry Peers, and Deal Geography Peers tabs only display for fund families with an access point of Primary or Co-Investment. To learn how peer groups are calculated, check out the Peer group Fund Family Style metrics section of this article.

Methodology

Read below to learn about the eligibility criteria needed for individual funds and fund families in order to calculate their Manager Scores.

Performance Score eligibility

Each individual fund must have the following eligibility criteria to receive a Performance Score:

• The fund must have an IRR, inception date, vintage, fund category, and fund strategy.

  • Inception date is proxied using the earliest available date among the first report date, close date, or vintage year, depending on what’s available for the fund.
• The fund must be older than five years.

A fund that meets all of these criteria receives an individual Performance Score, even if its fund family does not qualify for a Fund Family Performance Score.

Each fund family must have the following eligibility criteria to receive a Performance Score:

• The fund family must have at least two eligible funds.
• Any fund families with multiple fund strategies or locations are excluded.

Note: Additional inclusion criteria are applied for PitchBook’s published annual league tables. These report‑specific filters are described in the Overview section of the Global Manager Performance Score League Tables report.

Cash flow scores eligibility

Capital Call Speed Scores and Distribution Speed Scores are calculated independently. For example, a fund family could receive a Capital Call Speed Score with two qualifying funds but may not have a Distribution Speed Score if one or both funds were not eligible for inclusion in the framework.

Each individual fund must have the following eligibility criteria to receive a Capital Call Speed Score or Distribution Speed Score:

• Individual funds must have historic contributions, distributions, fund size, and inception date.

  • Inception date is proxied using the earliest available date among the first report date, close date, or vintage year, depending on what’s available for the fund.
• Individual funds must have at least the first two years of data for us to calculate a Capital Call Speed Score and at least the first three years of data for us to calculate a Distribution Speed Score.

Each fund family must have the following eligibility criteria to receive a Capital Call Speed Score or Distribution Speed Score:

• The fund family must have at least two funds with a Z-score to qualify.

Peer group Fund Family Style metrics

The PitchBook Fund Family Style metrics are designed to summarize a fund family’s deal history and trends in a standardized way that can be understood at a glance. These metrics provide a relative category for each fund family’s investment style: Generalist, Target, or Specialist. These categories indicate the degree to which a fund family is focused within the metrics in question.

Inclusion eligibility

A fund family must have at least 15 completed deals attributed to the funds in the fund family in the PitchBook platform.

Navigate Manager Scoring

This next article section provides a walkthrough of how to use Manager Scoring throughout the platform.

Investor profile

On an investor’s profile, you can drill down into the performance of a specific fund manager. The following sections show you what to expect in each section, as well as other relevant features to explore to help you evaluate effectively.

For a high-level view of a fund manager’s fund families’ scores, take a look at the Funds section of an investor’s profile. Click on a fund family to view a snapshot of its Performance Score, Capital Call Speed Score, and Distribution Speed Score. Visit the Definitions section of this article for details on each of these scores.

Fund Family Performance tab

To explore the Manager Scoring framework more in-depth, click the Fund Family Performance tab on an investor’s profile. This brings you to the PitchBook Manager Scoring subtab.

On this subtab, you can select which of the investor’s fund families you’d like to view Manager Scores for using the Fund Family drop-down menu. Here, you can choose from fund families with or without scores.

After you’ve selected a fund family, scroll through the Performance Score, Capital Call Speed Score, Distribution Speed Score, and Fund Performance sections to learn more about how the fund family performed compared to fund families in its various peer groups. Visit the Definitions section of this article for explanations of each of these scores.

Each section has a consistent layout: a numeric ranking, peer group tabs, bar chart, table, View All Peers button, and performance metrics. These are indicated as 1-6 in the two images below.

1. The numeric ranking shows the overall rank given to the fund manager on that score. For Performance Scores, scores of 70 or above are marked with a star icon to show the fund family has consistently high performance.
2. The peer group tabs allow you to filter the (3) bar chart, (4) table, and (5) View All Peers based on the peer group of your choice. You can view this data by either Fund Strategy, Deal Type Peers, Deal Industry, or Deal Geography. Please note that the Deal Type Peers, Deal Industry Peers, and Deal Geography Peers tabs only display for fund families with an access point of Primary or Co-Investment.
3. The bar chart demonstrates the fund family’s performance compared to the average performance of its peers.
4. The table shows you the scores of the fund family you are viewing as well as the fund family’s peers.
5. The View All Peers button takes you to the Manager Scoring tool and displays a list of all fund families with the same peers as the one you are viewing. Learn more about how to use and filter this list in the Manager Scoring tool section of this article.

6. At the bottom of the page, you can also view and compare return metrics for each of the investor’s fund families in the Fund Performance section.

When you’re ready to share your findings with your team, press the Download button in the upper right-hand corner to easily export all tables and charts as a PDF. You can also download each one individually by pressing its corresponding download icon.

Manager Scoring tool

You can view top-performing fund families within a list that you can sort and filter in the Manager Scoring tool. To access this tool, click on Manager Scoring from the Funds Analysis section of the PitchBook sidebar, or click on the View All Peers button from the Fund Family Performance tab on an investor’s profile.

The Manager Scores tool features a league table that lists all the fund families in PitchBook and includes a variety of columns, including Performance Score, Capital Call Speed Score, and Distribution Speed Score. Our Performance Scores are designed to help you identify top performers by looking at high scores. The Capital Call Speed Score and Distribution Speed Score help you understand the speed of cash flows, providing better visibility into potential timing. Refer to the Definitions section of this article for all the columns featured in the league table.

You can filter this league table by Investor, Fund Strategy & Access Point, Investment Style, and by Manager Scores. Select Apply to ensure your changes are reflected.

Export data from the Manager Scoring tool straight to Excel with the Download button on the top right of the ribbon.

Use Manager Scores data

Now that you know the tool and where to find the data, use this section to apply the data to your business case. Below, we have created some scenarios that can be used as a guideline to help you get the most out of the tool.

I’m working on expanding my list of fund managers who invest in North American buyout strategies.
Visit the investor profiles of fund managers you’ve identified as investing in North American buyout strategies. Navigate to their Fund Family Performance tab to be taken to the PitchBook Manager Scoring subtab. In each scoring section, you’ll see how the fund manager ranks compared to their fund strategy peers. Click through similar fund families listed in the tables of each section to explore and compare other fund managers’ performance and cash flow speed scores.

I want to know how a fund manager has performed over time within an investment strategy before analyzing further.
Visit the investor profile of the fund manager you’d like to assess. Navigate to their Fund Family Performance tab to be taken to the PitchBook Manager Scoring subtab. Use their Performance Score to assess the performance track record of a fund manager’s closed-end private market strategies, also known as fund families. Look for a star icon that indicates a high degree and persistence of the outperformance of a fund family to its benchmark. This icon is only awarded to fund families with a performance score of 70 or above.

I want to know a fund manager’s speed of historic capital calls and distributions within an investment strategy over time before analyzing further.
Visit the investor profile of the fund manager you’d like to assess. Navigate to their Fund Family Performance tab to be taken to the PitchBook Manager Scoring subtab. Use their Capital Call Speed Score and Distribution Speed Score to approximate the relative speed of cash flows, taking a bottom-up approach from individual funds in fund families.

Definitions

• Performance Score – This score is used to measure the degree and persistence of the outperformance and/or underperformance of a fund family.
• Capital Call Speed Score – This score evaluates the fund family’s relative speed of calling down commitments.
• Distribution Speed Score – This score evaluates the fund family’s relative speed of returning capital back to limited partners.

Peer groups

Fund Strategy Peers

• Fund Strategy Peers – Fund Strategy Peers are fund families with the same fund category, which is the high-level focus of the fund. These categories group the different fund strategies, which you can check out in our Fund Strategy definitions article.
• Fund Strategy – The fund category of the fund family, including Co-Investment, Fund of Funds, Private Debt, Private Equity, Real Assets, Secondaries, and Venture Capital.
• Access Point – The method by which the fund implements its investment strategy. The access point is a broader category defining the fund’s investment preference in its portfolio. To learn more, visit our Help Center article Fund Access Point definitions.

Deal Type Peers

• Deal Type Peers – Deal Type Peers are fund families with similar investment types.
• Access Point – The method by which the fund implements its investment strategy. The access point is a broader category defining the fund’s investment preference in its portfolio. To learn more, visit our Help Center article Fund Access Point definitions.
• Deal Type Tag – Indicates the degree to which a fund family is focused on investing via a specific deal type. The degree of investment concentration increases from Generalist to Specialist:
  
  • Generalist – The Generalist tag tends to imply less than 50% investment concentration via a specific deal type.
  • Specialist – The Specialist tag generally implies around a 67% or more investment concentration via a specific deal type.
  • Targeted – The Targeted tag implies typically around a 50%-67% investment concentration via a specific deal type.
• Top Deal Types – The three deal types the fund family invests in most.
• Total # of Deals – The total number of deals closed by the fund family.

Deal Industry Peers

• Deal Industry Peers – Deal Industry Peers are fund families with similar industry investment concentrations.
• Access Point – The method by which the fund implements its investment strategy. The access point is a broader category defining the fund’s investment preference in its portfolio. To learn more, visit our Help Center article Fund Access Point definitions.
• Industry Tag – Indicates the degree to which a fund family is focused on investing in a specific industry. The degree of investment concentration increases from Generalist to Specialist:
  
  • Generalist – The Generalist tag tends to imply less than 50% investment concentration in a single industry sector.
  • Specialist – The Specialist tag generally implies around 67% or more investment concentration in a single industry sector.
  • Targeted – The Targeted tag implies typically between 50% and 67% industry concentration in a single industry sector.
• Top Deal Industry – The top three most invested in industries by the fund family.
• Total # of Deals – The total number of deals closed by the fund family.

Deal Geography Peers

• Deal Geography Peers – Deal Geography Peers are fund families with similar geographic investment concentration.
• Access Point – The method by which the fund implements its investment strategy. The access point is a broader category defining the fund’s investment preference in its portfolio. To learn more, visit our Help Center article Fund Access Point definitions.
• Deal Geography Tag – Indicates the degree to which a fund family is focused on investing in a specific region. The degree of investment concentration increases from Generalist to Specialist:
  
  • Generalist – The Generalist tag tends to imply less than 50% investment concentration in a region.
  • Specialist – The Specialist tag generally implies around a 67% or more investment concentration in a region.
  • Targeted – The Targeted tag implies typically around a 50%-67% investment concentration in a region.
• Top Deal Geography – The top three most invested in regions by the fund family.
• Total # of Deals – The total number of deals closed by the fund family.

Fund Performance

• Family Funds – A series of funds that share the same strategy, geography, and financial sponsor.
• Vintage Year – The year in which a fund makes its first investment by delivering capital to a project or company. When we cannot confirm the year of first investment, the year of the fund’s final close is used as the vintage year.
• Fund Size – The total amount of capital committed by the limited partners of the fund. It includes all the fund’s net capital and assets.
• Data as of – This defines the reporting period for fund returns.
• IRR – Internal rate of return (IRR) represents the rate at which historical series of cash flows are discounted so that the net present value of the cash flows equals zero.
• Fund Performance Score – This score is used to measure the degree and persistence of the outperformance and/or underperformance of a fund family.
• TVPI – Total value paid-in (TVPI) is a measurement of a fund’s realized and unrealized value as a proportion of the total paid-in or contributed capital. Also known as the investment multiple, TVPI can be found by adding together the DPI and RVPI of a fund.
• DPI – Distributed to paid-in (DPI) is a measurement of the capital that has been distributed back to LPs as a proportion of the total paid-in or contributed capital. DPI is also known as the cash-on-cash multiple or the realization multiple.
• RVPI – Remaining value paid-in (RVPI) is a measurement of the unrealized return of a fund as a proportion of the total paid-in or contributed capital.
• Contributed – Also known as drawn-down capital or paid-in capital. The total capital that a limited partner paid into the fund. When used by an investor or fund, it refers to the total amount of committed capital that has been requested or drawn down from the limited partners.
• Fund Capital Call Speed Score – This score evaluates the fund family’s relative speed of calling down commitments.
• Distributed – The amount of capital returned, or distributed, to the limited partners by the investor (also known as the general partner or fund manager). The total amount distributed refers both to the general partner’s repayment of the limited partners’ commitments, as well as the general partner’s payment of additional profits to the limited partners.
• Fund Distribution Speed Score – This score evaluates the fund family’s relative speed of returning capital back to limited partners.

• Fund Families – This column lists the fund family name. These are a series of funds that share the same strategy, geography, and financial sponsor.
• Investor – This column lists the investor, also known as the fund manager, of the fund family.
• Performance Score – This column lists the fund family’s Performance Score, which is used to measure the degree and persistence of the outperformance and/or underperformance of a fund family.
• Capital Call Speed Score – This column lists the fund family’s Capital Call Speed Score, which evaluates the fund family’s relative speed of calling down commitments.
• Distribution Speed Score – This column lists the fund family’s Distribution Speed Score, which evaluates the fund family’s relative speed of returning capital back to limited partners.
• Access Point – The method by which the fund implements its investment strategy. The access point is a broader category defining the fund’s investment preference in its portfolio. To learn more, visit our Help Center article Fund Access Point definitions.
• Fund Family Strategy – This column lists the fund category, which is the high-level focus of the fund. These categories group the different fund strategies, which you can check out in our Fund Strategy definitions article.
• Fund Family Sub-Strategy – This column lists the fund strategy, also known as the type of deals the fund family’s funds focus on making. Visit Fund Strategy definitions for a comprehensive list of all our fund strategies.
• Fund Family Location – This column lists the location of the funds in the fund family.
• Fund Family Benchmark – This column lists the benchmark fund strategy by overarching category. These are Private Equity, Venture Capital, Private Debt, Real Estate, Real Assets, Fund of Funds, and Secondaries.
• Total # of Deals – The total number of deals closed by the fund family.
• Top Deal Industry – The top most invested in industry by the fund family, along with the degree of investment concentration of either Generalist, Specialist, or Targeted.
• % of Deals by Top Deal Industry – The number of deals by top deal industry divided by the total number of deals by the fund family.
• # of Deals by Top Deal Industry – The number of deals completed by the fund family’s top deal industry.
• Top Deal Geography – The top most invested in region by the fund family, along with the degree of investment concentration of either Generalist, Specialist, or Targeted.
• % of Deals by Top Deal Geography – The number of deals by top deal geography divided by the total number of deals by the fund family.
• # of Deals by Top Deal Geography – The number of deals completed by the fund family’s top deal geography.
• Top Deal Type – The three deal types the fund family invests in most, along with the degree of investment concentration of either Generalist, Specialist, or Targeted.
• % of Deals by Top Deal Type – The number of deals by top deal type divided by the total number of deals by the fund family.
• # of Deals by Top Deal Type – The number of deals completed by the fund family’s top deal type.
• # of Funds – This column lists the number of funds in the fund family.
• # of Open Funds – This column lists the number of open funds in the fund family.
• Most Recent Fund Size – This column lists the most recent fund size reported for a fund in the fund family.

Helpful links

To understand how this feature fits into a broader workflow, check out PitchBook Pioneer’s course – Manager Performance Due Diligence.