The European private equity trade body will today publish performance figures that say private equity funds on average have generated annual returns, net of fees, of 10.3 per cent over the 10 years ended 2006.

The figures, compiled by Thomson Financial for the EVCA, compare with an adjusted 5.5 per cent annual return over 10 years in the Morgan Stanley Euro Equity index.

However, the figures underline highly variable results in different segments of private equity - European buyouts have significantly outperformed venture capital - and large differences between the best and worst performing funds.

Upper quartile venture capital funds generated annual returns of 23.6 per cent, while bottom quartile generated negative returns of 20.4 per cent.

Upper quartile buyout funds generated returns of 37.6 per cent, while the bottom quartile made negative 10.2 per cent.

More than €90 billion ($119 billion) was raised for European funds last year, including €71 billion for buyout funds. - ( Financial Times service )