Thank you George.

Nowhere does it say in the paper you refer to (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2701317) that the four datasets reviewed are 'comprehensive'. It would be wrong of you to suggest so.

I note that this research paper is dated 2015, so it is older than the ones I mention in my article. Your accusation that my "perspective is based on the state of the industry and analysis about 10 years ago" is undermined by your reference to a paper that is 6 years old (and presumably the datasets are even older).

The Journal of Private Equity's article dated Fall 2019 is not more up to date than the three sources I mentioned earlier from Bain & Co, Richard Ennis and CEM Benchmarking. Their findings were in fact published last year (in 2020) so have every right to be called as 'up to date' as the Journal's article.

Again, I don't see anything in the sources you provide that shows that benchmarking can be deemed reliable. You seem to believe that the data fed by LPs is unquestionable.

Why don't you read the first three parts of this series - a large portion of the IRRs including in your datasets are interim (unrealised) data. Hence they are not final and cannot rightly be benchmarked against public equity markets whose returns are truly 'final'.