Problématiques d'évaluation d'un fonds de private equity et comment l'auditeur fait-il pour gérer le risque de matérialité y étant lié ?

Abstract

Since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the audit role has been questioned more than once by different actors. Subsequently, the profession became increasingly regulated, in particular through the introduction of laws and procedures. In Luxembourg, the audit profession is now regulated by the law of 23 July 2016 ("Audit Law") and by the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) adopted for Luxembourg by the CSSF, the public authority in charge of supervising the audit profession. Few research has been conducted to try to establish a link between the audit profession and a clearly less regulated sector, private equity. Despite its existence since the 1900s, this field still hides a large number of secrets about its own concepts. The purpose of this thesis is mainly to understand and interpret aspects of the private equity field, mainly in Luxembourg, by closely studying buyout and venture capital strategies, regulations and procedures applicable in this sector, the performance indicators, the valuation of a fund and three specific actors : the general partner, the limited partners and the auditor. The objective of this study is to put oneself in the shoes of an auditor of a private equity fund and to carry out critical work in this sector, by discovering how the different concepts of the profession apply on the PE industry : such as the principle of materiality, the significant audit risks specific to the PE, the auditor's report and the issuance of his opinion. The final point of the proposed issue is to study the factors influencing the performance of a private equity fund to determine whether they can impact the audit of such a fund, and therefore its own concepts. To feed our research, we based ourselves on a large number of scientific articles as well as interviews with active and internal actors of the private equity sector.