2022 Search Fund Study: Selected Observations
Peter Kelly, Sara Heston. (2022)
Stanford GSB Case E-807, 31 pp
Dated July 15, 2022; data as of December 31, 2021. Sample: "526 first-time search funds formed since 1984" (p3); data on 270 acquirers, of which "225 are included in our aggregate financial analysis, excluding 44 companies that had been operating for less than one year and one company for which we had incomplete financial information" (p3). Headline: "aggregate pre-tax returns of 35.3% internal rate of return (IRR) and 5.2x return on investment (ROI)" (p2); "Excluding those still searching, 66% of all search funds launched made an acquisition" (p4); "the median purchase price increased significantly to $16.5 million" (p2). Footnote 2 (p2) discloses a cap not stated in earlier editions: "all returns calculations cap the return from the highest returning search fund at 200x ROI". Excludes serial, self-funded and single-sponsor searches (p3); first edition to report searcher ethnicity.