The truth is i don't know for sure if i'm right on the performance fee structure, as i've applied what i know is a common structure in private equity land to IMF's case without being sure. That said, i think i am, and it's just slightly clumsily worded in IMF's announcement.
To demystify, below i've done a very simplified example of how i think the cash flow waterfall works in IMF's case. I've made some very crude assumptions of:
- All capital deployed on day 1, and returned after 5 years
- No interim cash flows
- Pref hurdle of 15%
- Actual return of 25%
Using those assumptions, this is how it looks:
|
Column 1 |
Column 2 |
Column 3 |
Column 4 |
Column 5 |
Column 6 |
Column 7 |
Column 8 |
1 |
{colgroup} |
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2 |
{col=325x@}{/col}{col=100x@}{/col}{col=100x@}{/col}{col=100x@}{/col}{col=100x@}{/col}{col=100x@}{/col}{col=100x@}{/col}{col=100x@}{/col} |
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3 |
{/colgroup} |
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4 |
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|
6/30/2016 |
6/30/2017 |
6/30/2018 |
6/30/2019 |
6/30/2020 |
6/30/2021 |
5 |
|
|
Year |
Year |
Year |
Year |
Year |
Year |
6 |
|
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
7 |
IMF investment |
|
-$50.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
8 |
Fortress investment |
|
-$150.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
9 |
|
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|
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|
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10 |
Pref on IMF investment @ 15% |
|
$50.0 |
$57.5 |
$66.1 |
$76.0 |
$87.5 |
$100.6 |
11 |
Pref on Fortress @ 15% |
|
$150.0 |
$172.5 |
$198.4 |
$228.1 |
$262.4 |
$301.7 |
12 |
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13 |
Cash flow available to distribute (assume 25% IRR) |
|
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$610.4 |
14 |
|
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15 |
Pay off IMF pref |
|
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|
|
|
|
-$100.6 |
16 |
Pay off Fortress pref |
|
|
|
|
|
|
-$301.7 |
17 |
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18 |
Profit split available (surplus above pref) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
$208.1 |
19 |
Pro-rata 85% share to Fortress |
|
|
|
|
|
|
$132.7 |
20 |
Pro-rata 85% share to IMF |
|
|
|
|
|
|
$44.2 |
21 |
15% performance fee (profit share) to IMF |
|
|
|
|
|
|
$31.2 |
22 |
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23 |
Total cash flow to Fortress (pref + profit share) |
|
-$150.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$434.4 |
24 |
Total cash flow to IMF (pref + profit share + performance fee) |
|
-$50.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$176.0 |
25 |
Total vehicle cash flow |
|
-$200.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$0.0 |
$610.4 |
26 |
|
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|
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|
27 |
Fortress IRR |
|
23.68% |
|
|
|
|
|
28 |
IMF IRR |
|
28.60% |
|
|
|
|
|
You can see that the vehicle gets a 25% IRR in total, but the way the profit sharing works is that 85% above the preferred return hurdle gets split pro rata (i.e. 75% Fortress 25% IMF) between equity in the fund, and the remaining 15% goes straight to IMF as a performance fee. That's why the respective investors' IRRs are significantly different, even though they invested pro rata into the same JV - IMF skims the 15% performance fee above the pref straight into its pocket, as well as sharing in the pro rata 85% returns to unitholders.