A Practitioner's Guide to LP Portfolios, GP-Led Deals, and NAV-Based Pricing
Julian R. Sterling
These are the workbooks and documents that go with the book. The five original workbooks reproduce all
sixteen figures Chapter 9 states, including the ones it states as ranges, and the fifth computes the
seller’s walk-away level next to the buyer’s ceiling. Around them: two of the models with the
inputs emptied, four printable working documents, a question book that marks itself, and three cases the
book names and never takes to a number. Nothing is locked, protected or watermarked.
Free to download. No sign-up, no email address, nothing to fill in.
Eleven workbooks, the printable documents and the read-me. Each group below can also be
downloaded on its own. Last revised 22 September 2026.
The five workbooks
These carry the book’s own figures, so that every number it prints can be traced to a live
formula.
Download these five89 KB
Chapters 8 and 9
Secondary deal model
The worked case, live: an interest offered at 88 against a reported NAV of 100, an underwriting
NAV of 104, a portfolio expected to return around 130 over four years. It projects distributions
and remaining calls over time, decomposes the return into the part from the entry discount and the
part from company appreciation, and stresses delay and value together. On the chapter's case only
30 percent of the value created comes from the discount — which is what tells you the
diligence budget belongs on company quality. Sheet 2 also carries the Chapter 8 duration
table: 85 for 100 returns 1.18× whether the money comes back in one year or five, but 17.6
percent becomes 3.3 percent.
Secondary_Deal_Model.xlsx · XLSX · 22 KB
Chapter 7
Bottom-up NAV build
Rebuild the reported NAV company by company so you price against a number you believe rather than
one the manager asserts. Pre-filled with the chapter's build, where a reported 100 becomes an
underwriting 97. The aggregate is the least interesting output: 62.9 percent of the value sits in
the two names the buyer likes, while the two it worries about are smaller and marked down. There
is a triage panel for how much of your NAV rests on positions you have actually underwritten, and
a marking calibration sheet for a manager's historical marks against what its companies eventually
fetched.
NAV_Bottom_Up.xlsx · XLSX · 16 KB
Appendix B
Underwriting checklist
Thirty items across six sections — fund and manager, NAV and valuation, underlying companies,
structure and terms, legal and consents, return and pricing — with a status dropdown, a notes
column and a progress sheet that counts what is still open by section. Work it before the bid goes
out, not after it is accepted.
Underwriting_Checklist.xlsx · XLSX · 11 KB
Appendix C · Chapter 13
Interview and case preparation
The ten questions with what a strong answer contains and a self-score, the three case prompts with
the structure a strong response follows, and the 30/60/90-day plan as a tracker. Answer in the blue
column before reading the guidance column.
Interview_and_Case_Prep.xlsx · XLSX · 15 KB
Appendix E · Chapter 8
The bid, the floor, and the room between them
Chapter 8 says a deal clears only where the buyer’s ceiling and the seller’s floor
overlap, and that the art of pricing is to infer the floor. It never computes either one. This file
computes both, from the same cash flows, and the result is not the one the chapter implies.
The floor and the ceiling turn out to be the same formula — the present value of one
set of cash flows — evaluated at two different rates. So when both sides project the same
cash, the zone of agreement is exactly zero at equal required returns, and negative
whenever the buyer wants more than the seller requires. On the Chapter 9 deal, a buyer at 15 per
cent facing a seller discounting at 10 misses by 11.02 points of NAV. There is no
price that satisfies them both.
Which reframes the whole trade: a discount to NAV is not a disagreement about value, it is the price
of a difference in required return, plus whatever the seller’s motivation is worth. The grid
shows where a zone exists at all, and the shape of it explains three things the chapter asserts
without deriving — why stress favours buyers, why proprietary deals clear tighter, and why
near-harvest funds trade closer to par.
The last two sheets price the deferred purchase price, which the book calls counterintuitive and
leaves at that. Deferring a third of the price for one year is worth 3.94 points of headline
price at an identical return — four points of NAV in a market decided by one or two.
It works because the fund’s own year-one distribution covers 58.7 per cent of the deferred
cheque, so it is not leverage on the asset at all. Which is exactly why it fails the way it does:
let that distribution arrive two years late and the deferred buyer gives back more than the all-cash
buyer, because the points stay paid while the cash does not arrive.
Secondaries_Bid_and_Floor.xlsx · XLSX · 18 KB
The same models, on your own deal
The deal model and the bottom-up NAV build, with the same formulas and every input emptied. Type your own fund interest into the blue cells and the model runs.
Blank set · two workbooks
Your interest, your rebuild
The deal model takes the NAV, the price, the underwriting NAV, the value expected back and its
profile year by year, the deferral and leverage, and the stress. The NAV build takes each company’s
mark, your view, its exit horizon and your confidence. Each workbook closes on a checks sheet that
counts the inputs still empty and runs the tests that hold on any deal: distribution shares that add to
100 per cent, a stressed multiple below the base, a price below the value expected back, every position
with both marks and a horizon.
Put the book’s inputs back, listed in the archive, and the book’s figures come back with
them: 1.45x and 14.8 per cent on the Chapter 9 deal, a reported 100 rebuilt to 97 in Chapter 7.
Five pages to print and take into a meeting. A4, with margins wide enough for US Letter.
Chapters 4, 6 to 9 · Appendix B
Four working documents
The thirty-item underwriting checklist of Appendix B, with a status, an owner and a line for the
answer. A bid one-pager: NAV rolled forward, the unfunded commitment, the price and its discounts, the
return base and stressed, and the split between discount and appreciation. The company-by-company NAV
rebuild of Chapter 7, with the concentration and marking questions beneath. And a GP-led transaction
review: price and process, the choice offered to existing investors, the general partner’s
economics and the asset.
A workbook that marks itself. Answer in the yellow cells; the marking fills in as you go.
All parts of the book
Twenty-eight numerical, twelve multiple choice
The numerical questions work the book’s own figures: the Chapter 7 rebuild and its
concentration, the Chapter 8 duration table and the price a hurdle allows, the Chapter 9 deal and its
stress, and the floor, ceiling and deferral of Appendix E. They are marked against a tolerance, so a
reasonable rounding passes. The score sheet counts the wrong answers by part of the book.
Nothing is hidden. The marking sheet holds every answer, every tolerance, and the reason for
each answer.
New material, not a restatement. Three situations the chapters name in passing and never take to
a number. Each case is one workbook: the note is the first sheet, the model is the rest, and a
checks sheet closes it. Type your own figures in and every finding recomputes.
Case one · extends Chapter 6
The commitment that comes with the interest
Two interests with the same NAV of 100, bought at 88. The one with 30 of unfunded commitment is bought at a 9.2 per cent discount on its total exposure, not 12, and returns 14.7 per cent against 15.6. To match, it should cost 85.58, or its new investments should return 1.67 times instead of 1.5. A discount to NAV prices what exists; the capital still to be called is bought at par.
Case two · extends Chapters 8 and 9
Paying later, or borrowing
The Chapter 9 deal paid four ways. A free one-year deferral of 40 per cent lifts the return from 14.8 to 17.5 per cent and keeps most of that gain in the chapter’s stress. Leverage at 8 per cent lifts it to 17.1 per cent and keeps none: 8.1 per cent stressed, with or without it. Together they show 22 per cent on a 14.8 per cent asset.
Case three · extends continuation vehicles in Chapter 4
Sell or roll
An existing investor offered 95 for an asset carried at 100, or a roll into the new vehicle at a 1 per cent fee and 12.5 per cent carry. At 1.8 times gross, rolling is worth 19 more than selling and earning 10 per cent elsewhere; the break-even is 1.57 times. The fee and carry cost a rolling investor about 2.2 points a year.
The book states its answers in words — a MOIC "in the region of one and a half times", an IRR
"in the mid-teens", a stressed multiple that "compresses toward one and a third". The workbook tests
membership of the range the book states rather than equality to a point, which is the honest test and
the one that survives you pricing a different deal.
Where the book leaves a convention open — what "the exits slip by two years" means — both
readings are computed and shown side by side rather than one being fitted to agree.
Reader list
Optional. One email when a companion file is corrected or a new worked case goes up, and a short note when a new book comes out. Nothing on this page needs it.
The Private Equity Secondaries Investor develops the complete framework behind these models, with the assumptions, trade-offs and worked examples tied together.
The workbooks open in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets and Numbers. They use
no macros and no add-ins, so nothing needs to be enabled or trusted. If your spreadsheet asks
to update links on opening, decline — there are none.
What changed, and when
22 Sep 2026
Blank model set, four printable working documents, the question book and three new cases added. Read-me rewritten.
Closing the DealTwo defensible bridges 20.70 million apart, a peg worth 7.00 million, and the six choices that remove 6.60 of a 12.00 earn-out.
CMBS and CRE CLOsWhere the loss actually lands, from appraisal reduction to realised severity, and what the B-piece is really being paid for.
How to Read a Commercial LeaseThe three refinements chapter 19 names and never performs, and the renewal rate below which the mark-to-market is worth nothing.
How to Read a Credit AgreementWhere the default actually comes from, the cure that costs 5.5 times the other, and the capacity nobody adds up.
How to Read a Real Estate Loan AgreementThe cure ratio in closed form, the four-point window in which the cheap cure works, and the cure sized to the wrong threshold.
Office Real EstateA six per cent yield that returns 3.2 per cent once the re-letting cycle is paid for, and the headline-to-net-effective rent arithmetic.
Private Equity Real EstateBoth worked waterfalls to the dollar, the two capital stacks, and the arithmetic of the promote made changeable.
Private Markets PerformanceThirty-one of the thirty-three figures chapter 19 publishes reproduce exactly — and the two that do not are named rather than quietly adopted.
Raising a Real Estate FundThe chapter 17 funnel run on a calendar — when the first close actually lands, and why more travel does not help.
Real Estate FinanceFour people look at one building and reach four numbers; the lender is whole only above 105,109,489, twelve per cent below today’s value rather than forty.
Real Estate Financial ModelingProperty, development and fund models built line by line, and the modelling test worked end to end.
Real Estate Fund ManagementThe waterfall of 6.11, the build-to-core of 8.7 and the proceeds gap, reproduced as live formulas rather than asserted.
REIT Analysis and ValuationFFO of 532.0, AFFO of 381.0, net asset value and dividend safety — every figure a formula you can change.
Retail Real EstateThe occupancy cost of every unit in a centre, the sixteen per cent of the rent roll no tenant can sustain, and the right-size-convert-or-hold decision priced.
Sale and LeasebackA €179.5 million transaction end to end, with rent cover measured on the entity that actually signs the lease.
Self-Storage Real EstateThe cohort engine behind a 590-unit store, and the rate increase on existing customers priced against the move-outs it causes.
The Fund Finance ProfessionalChapter 8 builds the reported-to-eligible NAV bridge; chapter 9 computes every ratio without it. Two points at every state — and what a subscription line does to the IRR.
The Growth Equity InvestorWhat a pro rata cheque really costs, and the band where defending your ownership loses money.
The Private Credit InvestorThe two coverage ratios are not measured on the same thing: the erosion is 47.7 per cent, not the 28.7 the headline implies.
The Private Equity Fund Controller PlaybookThe book defines IRR, DPI, RVPI and TVPI, tells you to update them at the exit, and prints not one value. Computed: a 1.833× deal inside a fund at 0.892 TVPI.
The Venture Capital AssociateWhat defending a position costs, and how many companies a reserve pool actually defends.
Financial Risk ManagementA fund inside every limit that cannot meet a redemption — and the number that decides it is the one with no currency attached.
Business ValuationThree advisers land 26.8 per cent apart on one company, and the whole gap turns out to be 1.96 points of perpetual growth.
Quantitative FinanceThree models agree to a quarter of one per cent about a number that one unobservable input moves a hundred and three times as much.
Asset ManagementFour people quote four returns for one mandate, all correct and 2.7017 points apart — forty-eight times the manager’s net skill.
Alternative InvestmentsA manager reports 13.29 per cent and the endowment earns 6.26 — both correct, and only a third of the advertised advantage arrives.
Credit AnalysisFour defensible EBITDAs on one borrower give leverage from 3.19x to 6.47x — and the add-back argument is fifty times the covenant headroom.
Venture CapitalOne company out of twenty-eight returns 56.7 per cent of the fund, and half the capital goes in after the decision — at half the return.
Machine Learning for FinanceFive people quote the accuracy of one credit model, all five are right, and the number that decides how much money it makes is none of them.
Commercial Real Estate InvestingThe equity earned 8.6647 per cent and the investor received exactly 8.0000 — the preferred return, and nothing above it.
Mergers and AcquisitionsThe board paper says the deal creates 13,436,667 of value. The arithmetic says it destroys 17,530,855. Nobody is lying.
DerivativesThe treasury report says the hedge cost 1,233,698. That is the interest differential, not a cost.
Treasury ManagementFive cash balances for one company, all correct and 145,600,000 apart — and the revolver that is two-thirds of the liquidity leaves at a revenue fall of 8.4127 per cent.
Financial Planning and AnalysisRevenue 3.0190 per cent above budget and operating profit 16.3209 per cent below it, in the same quarter, with every figure correctly stated.
Energy TradingA position report that is 91.7031 per cent hedged and correctly computed, on a book that is short 2,542,000 MWh — and a margin call of 198,400,000 the next morning.
Construction Cost ControlA contract sum of 26,301,102 became a final account of 29,153,363 on the building that was drawn — and 85.8 per cent of what was lost was knowable on the day it was signed.
Pricing StrategyA list price of 148.00, a pocket price of 112.51, and the nine deductions in between — with what one point of price is actually worth.
Trade FinanceSix routes to payment on one 4,200,000 export order cost between 178,040 and 223,268, a spread worth 14.8 per cent of the margin, and a day of buyer credit costs 1,031.76.
Cost AccountingOne factory costed twice on the same 13,440,000 of overhead, and 4,053,091 moves between four product families.
Contract ManagementA bid 5.50 a unit cheaper, signed on paper worth 9.81 a unit more — and 94.68 per cent of it was knowable on the day of signature.
Capital MarketsFour defensible readings of one bond, the cost of an issue under each convention, and the placement discount computed at a constant discount.
Financial RegulationThree ratios pass and the fourth is in breach by 1,956.0 million: the output floor, the liquidity buffer after encumbrance, and the loan split.
Bank ManagementFour defensible readings of one balance sheet, the deposit beta measured two ways, and the liquidity that lasts 3.9 days.
The Real Estate WorkoutFour ways out of one broken loan, discounted to today, and the 58.7 cents at which a payoff beats enforcement.
These files accompany The Private Equity Secondaries Investor. The book is on Amazon.
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