CalPERS discloses fund-level IRR behind one PE return

The record

CalPERS's 2026 Private Equity Annual Program Review is board material: Agenda Item 6c, presented to the Investment Committee on 15 June 2026, built on portfolio data as of 31 March 2026. It states private equity net asset value of $119.3 billion, up from $92.2 billion a year earlier, across 134 managers and 421 funds. The mix by strategy is buyout at 57.3%, growth at 31.6%, venture at 6.4%, opportunistic at 3.8% and credit at 0.6%. For its post-2022 'current strategy,' the review states a since-inception net internal rate of return, on active investments only as of 31 December 2025, of 29.5%, against a non-annualized total-value-to-paid-in multiple of 1.48x.

What the sources establish

The review names its inputs rather than one blended number: portfolio composition comes from State Street and CalPERS's own PEARS accounting system, and strategy returns are set against the State Street Private Equity Index. CalPERS's own investment and financial reports page lists this review alongside the private debt and real estate reviews as recurring board disclosure. The deck separates an active-investments-only net IRR from a figure including exited holdings, and states CalPERS was rated the most transparent US public pension in 2025 by an outside benchmark it names but does not reproduce.

Scope and revision

The 29.5% figure covers only the strategy launched in the fourth quarter of 2022, measured on active holdings, and carries 'no lag,' the report says. Elsewhere in the same document, the State Street Private Equity Index used as its benchmark is built with a one-quarter lag using the Modified Dietz method, so lining CalPERS's own return up against the index means comparing two different calendars unless a reader checks the dates. The review states that 2021 was an 'unattractive vintage' carrying $19.5 billion of commitments, while 2023 and 2024 are the only vintages to rank first-quartile in both net IRR and TVPI since the program began in 1990, a judgment it calls premature for 2025. None of this supports reading any single fund's, or vintage's, return as standing for CalPERS's venture sleeve, put at 6.4% of the book by cost, let alone the broader venture market.

The decision in front of you

An LP, allocator or analyst quoting a CalPERS return should specify which strategy it describes, whether it is active-only or active-plus-exited, its as-of date, and whether any benchmark beside it carries a lag CalPERS's figure does not. This is editorial: the review defends CalPERS's own choices to its board, not a market benchmark, so a number lifted from it should be labelled as CalPERS reporting on CalPERS.

• Does the return quoted describe the current strategy, the prior strategy, or the whole private equity program?
• Is the return calculated on active holdings only, matching the benchmark's basis?
• Does the as-of date on CalPERS's figure match the as-of date of any index or peer figure placed next to it?

A single pension fund's own board deck is strong evidence of what that fund discloses about its own portfolio. It is not evidence about the venture market as a whole, and this review's own footnotes draw that line explicitly.