The Career Guide to Fundraising, LP Reporting and Capital Formation
Julian R. Sterling
These are the companion files of Private Equity Investor Relations by Julian R. Sterling.The book on Amazon →
One Excel workbook, the arithmetic of Appendix J, with one of its figures corrected. Around it, a blank version for your own fund, nine working documents to print, forty questions that mark themselves, and three cases the book does not work. All free. Nothing is gated behind a sign-up, and no email address is asked for.
Six workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each group below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 22 September 2026.
Get an email if these files are corrected
Optional. When a workbook on this page is corrected or a new worked case goes up, readers on the list get one email, plus a short note when a new book comes out. The downloads do not need it.
Meridian Growth Partners III: 300 million of commitments, vintage 2018, eight years of
cash flows, and a remaining portfolio carried at 145. Nothing about the flows is
designed to make a point — which is what makes the spread between the measures
worth looking at. This is not a pathological fund. It is a competent one in mid-life,
and its measures still disagree by eleven percentage points.
The rate of return on the full series, treating the closing valuation as a sale, is
18.04 per cent. Strip the valuation out and compute on realised cash alone — what
an investor would have earned if the remaining portfolio turned out to be worth nothing
— and it is 7.12 per cent. Nobody expects that outcome. The
number is still the honest floor, and it is the size of the question every experienced
limited partner is really asking when they ask how confident the firm is in its marks.
Then the same fund through four other lenses. Over the last three harvest years alone,
measured from the firm’s own 2022 valuation, 20.14 per cent
— two points higher than since inception, and equally true. (The first edition of
the book prints 40.49: it dates the 2023 flows with the opening valuation and solves a
three-year window as two. The workbook shows both.) Against a nine
per cent public index, a public market equivalent of 1.323 times,
materially less flattering than 1.784 times of total value. And the undrawn 45 million,
which appears in none of the measures and belongs in every report.
Change one distribution on the cash-flow sheet. DPI and the realised rate move immediately;
total value barely shifts. That is the difference between value created and value returned,
in one keystroke — and it is the distinction most quarterly letters blur.
Then set the closing valuation to zero. The 18.04 per cent becomes 7.12 in front of you. It
is worth doing once, because it is the calculation a limited partner does silently.
The subscription-line sheet is computed exactly rather than scaled by a rule of thumb: the
calls are re-dated and the whole series is discounted on actual days, and on whole years. Delay them six months
and the rate rises about 1.2 points while the multiple falls from 1.784 to 1.770, because
the 2.1 million of interest is real money and the timing is not. Push the delay to eighteen
months: the rate gain does not flatten, it grows to 4.24 points, and the multiple loss nearly
triples. A longer draw puts more of the headline rate down to timing.
The same measures, for your own fund
The workbook rebuilt with every figure emptied. Type in any fund of up to fifteen years; the checks sheet counts what is still missing and tests that the model holds together.
Appendix J
A blank set for any fund
Calls and distributions year by year, the valuation date and the mark. The file gives DPI, RVPI and TVPI, the share of value that rests on the firm’s own marks, the undrawn commitment, both rates, a window of your choice measured from the firm’s valuation at its opening date, the public market equivalent against any index, and a subscription line on actual days and on whole years.
The book’s fund is listed in a text file inside the archive. Type it back in and the file returns 1.216, 1.784, 18.04 and 7.12 per cent, 20.14 over the three-year window and 1.323 against the index.
Nine pages to print and use. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Appendices A, B, D, E and H · Chapters 10, 13, 16 and 17
Nine working documents
The 24-week fundraising workplan as a tracker, with the weekly meeting agenda. The LP meeting brief. The DDQ checklist, signed line by line. The quarterly reporting checklist, worked back from the distribution date. A performance disclosure sheet that puts the four questions of Chapter 13 to every figure and the six questions of Appendix J to the fund. The eleven pipeline stages with a closing dashboard. A draft for the difficult update of Chapter 16. And the 100-day scorecard.
A workbook that marks itself. Answer in the yellow cells; the marking fills in as you go.
All parts of the book
Forty questions on the book
Six on the profession and the fund lifecycle, eight on fundraising, seven on reporting and client service, five on the platform and the career, eight on the arithmetic of Appendix J and six on the three cases below. Numbers are marked to a tolerance, multiple choice to the letter, and the score sheet counts your errors part by part: that is your revision list.
Nothing is hidden. The marking sheet holds every answer, every tolerance, and the reason for each answer.
New material, not a restatement. Three situations the chapters name in passing and never take to a number. Each case is one workbook: the note is the first sheet, the model is the rest, and a checks sheet closes it. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Chapters 10 and 17 · Case one
The pipeline that adds up to the target
Fourteen investors for the successor fund, 575 million in all. On the team’s probabilities the pipeline expects 428 million and the 250 million first close is all but certain. On the conversion rates of the last fundraise it expects 257 million, the first close is a 53 per cent chance and the target is out of reach. The exact distribution of the total then ranks the investors by what one stage of progress is worth: the one to spend the month on is the new sovereign fund whose chances the team overstated most.
Chapters 11 and 13, and Appendix J · Case two
The window you choose
Seven windows can be quoted at the end of 2025, from 18.4 to 22.6 per cent. Measured from the firm’s own opening mark, the window rewards a low mark: about six points for every ten per cent taken off it, while the since-inception rate does not move. The case also corrects the appendix, whose three-year window is solved as two years: 20.14 per cent, not 40.49.
Chapters 13 and 18, and Appendix J · Case three
The line in the year of the next fundraise
The appendix’s line adds 1.2 points at the end of the eighth year. A routine line, twelve months on every call of the investment period, adds 5.1. And at the end of 2022, when the successor fund goes to market on this record, it adds 8.2 points: 16.7 per cent reported as 25.0. It costs 11.25 million of interest and 0.075 of multiple.
in every workbook, controls that state their own verdict
All figures are net to the limited partner — after management fees, fund expenses and
carried interest — because that is the only basis on which one fund compares with
another. Meridian Growth Partners III is fictional, as every fund in the book is.
Opening the file
The workbook opens in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. It uses
no macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet
asks to update links on opening, decline — there are none.
What changed, and when
22 Sep 2026
A blank version of the workbook, nine working documents, forty questions that mark themselves and three new cases. The book’s workbook is revised: the three-year window from the 2022 valuation is 20.14 per cent, not the 40.49 the book prints, which solves three years as two; the workbook shows both. It now also discounts the subscription line on whole years, and runs thirteen controls. It can be downloaded on its own.
Articles on this book
9 of the calculations in this workbook, worked out in full.
All articles.
How are private equity quartile rankings calculated?Against the peer upper quartile, median and lower quartile. A 17.9 per cent IRR is top quartile at a 17.80 threshold and second at 18.20, on the same peers.
What is a good DPI for a private equity fund?It depends on age. An illustrative 1.81x fund shows DPI of 0.52x in year 6, 1.04x in year 8, 1.54x in year 10; at one 12.0% IRR, year 8 runs 0.70x to 1.21x.
How big should a successor private equity fund be?Size it from deployment, not demand. Three deals a year at $28.0m for five years, plus reserves and fees, gives $547.8m: 1.83 times a $300m prior fund.
How long does it take to raise a private equity fund?Meetings needed, meeting pace and diligence lag. $206.25m of new money at 8 per cent conversion closes in week 51 after launch: 11.8 months, 14.5 with preparation.
What is a good IRR for a private equity fund?One that beats the hurdle, the public market and the peer median, with a multiple behind it. A 21.3% IRR at 1.50x made less than 15.6% at 2.10x.
The other books with companion files. The full list of titles is on the
author page.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
The CBAM Compliance HandbookWhat 2027 really costs, how big the buffer should be, and the term the surrender formula counts twice.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
The Private Equity Fund Controller PlaybookThe book defines IRR, DPI, RVPI and TVPI, tells you to update them at the exit, and prints not one value. Computed: a 1.833× deal inside a fund at 0.892 TVPI.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Distressed Debt InvestorWhere the fulcrum security actually breaks, and what an 80-cent recovery is worth once composition and time are priced.
The Real Estate Debt InvestorThe margin against the return on capital, the floor priced, and what prepayment protection buys.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 — the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Trade FinanceSix routes to payment on one 4,200,000 export order cost between 178,040 and 223,268, a spread worth 14.8 per cent of the margin, and a day of buyer credit costs 1,031.76.
Cost AccountingOne factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead, and 4,053,091 moves between four product families.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.
Contract ManagementA bid 5.50 a unit cheaper, signed on paper worth 9.81 a unit more — and 94.68 per cent of it was knowable on the day of signature.
Capital MarketsFour defensible readings of one bond, the cost of an issue under each convention, and the placement discount computed at a constant discount.
Financial RegulationThree ratios pass and the fourth is in breach by 1,956.0 million: the output floor, the liquidity buffer after encumbrance, and the loan split.
Bank ManagementFour defensible readings of one balance sheet, the deposit beta measured two ways, and the liquidity that lasts 3.9 days.
The Real Estate WorkoutFour ways out of one broken loan, discounted to today, and the 58.7 cents at which a payoff beats enforcement.
Go beyond the companion files
Private Equity Investor Relations develops the complete framework behind these models, with the assumptions, trade-offs and worked examples tied together.
If this book helped — or didn’t — a few lines on Amazon are worth more than they look: they are what the next reader goes on. Write a review. The workbook stays free either way.