Aviva Investors – one of the largest UK-owned active fund managers with £274bn of assets under management – has waded into the debate about buyout performance by announcing that its private equity investments have outperformed its public equities returns over the last 20 years.

Aviva Investors' private equity portfolio has generated returns of 16% per annum more than the FTSE All Share, FTSE Europe Ex-UK and the S&P 500 over 21 years, the European asset manager told Private Equity News, a sister title of Financial News. The figures were based on the value of its realised and unrealised private equity investments.