24 practitioner guides by Julian R. Sterling, best read first at the top. Each one is built on a single worked case, and every figure it prints is a live formula in a free workbook.
The quickest way into private equity and private markets is The Private Equity Secondaries Investor, the most read title in this list. The others go deeper into one job or one asset each. Every book below has a free companion page with the workbooks, so the arithmetic can be checked before the book is bought.
A Practitioner's Guide to LP Portfolios, GP-Led Deals, and NAV-Based Pricing
Seller's floor and buyer's ceiling are the same formula at two rates, so at equal rates the zone is exactly zero — 11.02 points of NAV apart.
Worked example: Why a secondaries bid-ask gap often has no zone at all
Accounting, NAV, Capital Calls, Valuation, Investor Reporting
The book says so three times. Its own case says the opposite: minus 4.71 points. Atlas returns 1.833× and the fund ends at a TVPI of 0.892.
Worked example: How the GP catch-up is actually solved
Worked example: Why a quarter-end close needs two routes to the same NAV
A Practical Guide to Subscription Lines, NAV Facilities, Hybrid Structures and Private Markets Financing
Chapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge and Chapter 9 computes every ratio without it — two points at every state. Plus an IRR of 38.41.
Worked example: What a subscription line actually does to the IRR
A pro rata cheque costs less than the original, not more — and there is a band where defending your ownership loses money. Chapter 12 never says so.
Worked example: What a pro rata cheque actually costs, and the band where it loses money
A Practical Career and Implementation Guide to How Single-Family and Multi-Family Offices Invest and Operate
The number is 567 million — and it is a property of two schedules, not of the industry. From 244 basis points to 12, at 42 basis points a year.
Worked example: At what level of wealth does a family office start to pay?
3.08× money and 25.3 per cent, decomposed to six decimal places. Deleveraging, which no operating partner performs, is 20 per cent of it.
Worked example: Does higher leverage dilute the operating partner's contribution?
A Practitioner's Guide to Assessing Managers, Mitigating Operational Risk, and Building an Institutional ODD Program
Three of twelve managers carry a flaw the book calls terminal, and the averaging model gives all three its top rating — three quarters of a point higher.
Worked example: Why refining an operational due diligence rubric makes it weaker
A Practitioner's Guide to Commitments, Cash Flows, and the Return That Reaches the Investor
The four workbooks behind Alternative Investments: the three returns on one call schedule, the multiples and the over-commitment ratio, the public market equivalent against any index, and what smoothing does to the beta.
Worked example: How much of a private fund's reported IRR reaches the investor?
The chapter works a clawback to 24 million, then makes two recommendations that pull against each other: the tax-rate gain lands uncollateralised.
Worked example: What a clawback actually collateralises
The Harbourgate pack with its twelve reconciliations as formulas rather than assertions, five worked cases, and your own capital account rebuilt.
Worked example: How do you recompute a private fund's management fee after offsets?
The Career Guide to Fundraising, LP Reporting and Capital Formation
7.12 per cent or 40.49 per cent or 1.323 times, all true, all of the same fund — an eleven-point gap between the honest readings. Free Excel workbook.
Worked example: Six ways to state the same fund's return, all of them true
Every figure Chapter 19 publishes, reproduced and checked — 11.07%, a TVPI of 1.833× — with five corrections to the book, a blank set, working documents, forty questions and three cases.
Worked example: Can you average fund IRRs to get a portfolio return?
Private Equity Buyouts by the Numbers: Entry Price, Leverage, Value Creation and Exit, Where the Return Really Comes From
The companion files of The Buyout Investor: three workbooks that reproduce every figure in the book (the LBO model, the returns bridge and sensitivities, the deal-to-fund waterfall), blank working sheets and a 60-minute test with its answer key.
Worked example: Why is net IRR lower than gross IRR in private equity?
A Practical Career and Implementation Guide to Sourcing, Underwriting, and Building a Co-Investment Program in Private Markets
Chapter 11 is the chapter about money and contains one number. Dilution is not the loss it describes: what you give up is an option, and this prices it.
Worked example: What a follow-on reserve is actually worth
A Practical Career and Implementation Guide
Chapter 14 is called Exit and drops the line that matters. Enterprise value is the wrong unit: 8.86 of equity, 0.16× on cost, 2.2 points of gross IRR.
Worked example: What does an ESG value creation plan actually add to enterprise value?
Semi-Liquid Private Markets Funds: Design, Liquidity, Valuation, Fairness and Distribution
A closed-ended fund advertising 13.25 per cent does not beat an evergreen netting 8.64. It ties with it. What the sleeve costs, settled with arithmetic.
Worked example: The headline IRR at which a closed-ended fund merely ties an evergreen
A Practical Guide to Fund Operations, Service Providers, Valuation Governance, Data, Controls, and Scaling the Management Company
The four workbooks behind The Private Markets COO: the operating-system templates, a capital call and distribution run end to end, a fee waiver applied at the wrong level, and an administrator scorecard with a five-scenario capacity model.
Worked example: How much does a cheaper fund administrator actually save?
A Practitioner's Guide to Manager Selection, Portfolio Construction, and Commitment Pacing
The saving is 37 basis points, and priced as risk the whole fee advantage is a 22.8 per cent loss rate. Chapter 14 disposes of it in one clause.
Worked example: What a co-investment programme actually saves, and what erases it
A Practical Career and Implementation Guide to Fair Value, Portfolio Marks, and Defensible NAV
The book describes its illustrations without numbers on purpose. These files close the chain with one full set of figures and every step visible.
Worked example: Can a 30 per cent marketability discount be evidenced?
A Practical Guide to Raising Private Markets Capital from Wealth Managers, Private Banks, and Family Offices
The forecast the book describes and never performs, corrected: three peaks at months 29, 44 and 84, and the signature of a miss. With blank models, thirteen working documents, forty questions and three cases.
Worked example: Why do gross flows keep rising while the growth rate falls?
A Practical Career and Implementation Guide to Sourcing, Diligence, and Portfolio Support
2.71 companies out of forty, on a call 14.8 times the pool — and sixty-one per cent of the cost falls in the Series D alone. The arithmetic the book skips.
Worked example: How many companies does a venture reserve pool actually defend?
A Practitioner's Guide to Fund Economics, the Power Law, and the Return the Investor Actually Earns
The four workbooks behind Venture Capital: the four multiples of one fund, the power law measured with a tick box on every position, initial cheques against reserves, the carried interest under five conventions, a blank set, working documents, forty questions and three cases.
Worked example: Can a fund call more than the commitment I signed?
Free Excel workbooks for The Continuation Fund Handbook: the Chapter 18 transaction from first discussion to closing, reconciled in euros, the pricing and fee arithmetic, and the appendix checklists.
Worked example: What does it cost to roll on worse terms than the incoming buyers?
Coming soon on Amazon · Free companion files
The companion workbook of The Private Equity-Backed CFO: a sponsor-owned distributor rebuilt quarter by quarter, with its covenant, its 13-week cash flow, its exit and the CFO's own equity, every printed figure by live formula. No sign-up.
Coming soon on Amazon · Free companion files
Start with The Private Equity Secondaries Investor by Julian R. Sterling. It is the most read title in this list, and like the others it is built on one fully specified worked case whose every printed figure is reproduced in a free Excel workbook.
Yes. Every title in this guide has a free companion page on julianrsterling.com with the workbooks, blank templates and checklists. They need no account and no email address.
Analysts, associates and managers who need to compute the numbers rather than describe them: each book follows one case from the first input to the decision, at practitioner level.
Real estate investing, finance and fund management · Credit, private credit and distressed debt · Infrastructure, data centres and energy · Corporate finance, valuation and markets · Regulation, compliance and banking · Business operations: cost, contracts, pricing and supply chain · Personal finance and investing for beginners