Sydney private equity firm Crescent Capital Partners has been ranked 13th globally in the 2025 HEC Paris-Dow Jones Lower Mid Market Buyout performance rankings.
Crescent was the only Australian firm to make the top 20 in a year which saw past US domination reduced. US firm Gridiron Capital took first place, but half of the remaining top 20 were non-US, including three from the UK and six from the EU.
A leading European business school, HEC Paris has calculated Lower Mid Market Buyout performance rankings annually since 2009. The author of the study is Professor Oliver Gottschalg, a recognised expert on private equity, who leads private capital studies at HEC Paris.
The fact that non-US firms, particularly from the UK and EU, took half of the top spots in 2025, proved that world-class value creation is no longer concentrated in a single geography, Gottschalg said, highlighting that the lower mid-market segment is characterised by a levelling global playing field.
For the first time in all segments of the Performance Rankings, an impact firm, Sweden’s Summa Equity, made the list securing fourth position.
Professor Gottschalg said this “watershed moment” suggests that impact and stellar returns can go hand-in-hand and impact firms can compete with some of the world’s largest private equity firms.
Founded in 2016, Summa is also the only firm to achieve a ranking within ten years of establishment with the rest of the top 20 taking an average of 20 years to get there.
The 2025-year rankings also showed dominance of sector-agnostic funds with only three firms focused on specific sectors – Main Capital, software; ARCHIMED, healthcare; and Wafra, financial services – making the top 20.
“While we see pockets of immense success in specialised niches like software and healthcare, the dominance of sector-agnostic firms in the top five suggests that a broad investment lens remains a powerful strategy for navigating the lower mid-market”, Gottschalg said. “Accordingly, this flexibility allows the most sophisticated firms to pivot towards growth wherever it emerges.”
The HEC Paris-Dow Jones Lower Mid Market Buyout Performance Ranking identifies private equity firms targeting the lower mid-market segment as firms which have invested in companies with revenues typically between $US1 million and $US40 million, or enterprise values under $US250 million. Rankings are based on aggregate performances for fund investors based on all buyout funds raised between 2012 and 2021. To be considered for inclusion, firms must have raised at least two funds.
To ensure a robust evaluation, Gottschalg analysed a database of 695 private equity firms and 1,439 funds representing an aggregate equity volume of $US2.5 trillion. The performance score is derived from a blend of measures, including internal rate of return (IRR), DPI (cash-only return multiple) and TVPI (a return multiple considering account values of ongoing investments).
According to Gottschalg, this methodology addresses the “chronic opacity” of the private equity industry by shifting the focus from cumulative fund size to actual value creation. This achieves aggregation of performance across vintage years while considering both relative and absolute returns, he argues.
Founded in 2000 by managing partner Michael Alscher, Crescent Capital is one of Australia’s longest operating private equity managers and has $4.5 billion in assets under management across seven core funds. The firm invests in mid-market companies across Australia and New Zealand with enterprise values in the range $100 million to $500 million. The firm is essentially sector agnostic but tends to focus on sectors in which it has achieved success and developed expertise. As a result, Crescent has a particular focus on healthcare – which accounts for around half of all its investments – as well as the industrial, consumer and financial services sectors.
Image: HEC Paris Professor Oliver Gottschalg. He says his ranking methodology addresses the “chronic opacity” of the private equity industry.