Look-through analysis means looking past your fund interests to what the funds own: the companies, industries, countries, and securities underneath each NAV. For a limited partner with a dozen or more private funds, it is how you see your total exposure to a sector, a region, or a single company.
This guide covers what look-through analysis shows, where the data comes from, how to build it step by step, and where it breaks. It includes a worked example across three funds and a short note on what the term means in insurance and banking regulation.
Key takeaways
- A fund NAV is one number. Look-through replaces it with the holdings behind it, scaled to your share, so you can add up exposures across managers.
- The schedule of investments is the main source. Most look-through work starts from the schedule of investments in each GP’s financial statements, plus portfolio company updates where GPs provide them.
- Strategy labels hide concentration. In our example, three funds with three different strategies put 34.4% of the LP’s private NAV in US software.
- Expect gaps. Condensed schedules, funds of funds, reporting lags, and inconsistent industry labels limit any look-through. Record what you estimated and why.
- Regulators use the same idea. Solvency II and the Basel framework require insurers and banks to look through fund holdings when they calculate capital, with fallbacks when they cannot.
What is look-through analysis?
Look-through analysis replaces each fund interest in your portfolio with your share of the fund’s underlying holdings. Instead of reporting $7.8 million in Sample Fund III, you report $1.6 million in a US healthcare services company, $1.3 million in a US software company, and so on, down to your share of the fund’s cash.
The term covers a range of depth. At the light end, you allocate a fund’s NAV using its reported sector and country breakdown. At the deep end, you track each security, share class, and loan quarter by quarter. Many LPs mix the two: holding-level detail for their largest funds and summary breakdowns for the rest.
Fund metrics such as TVPI tell you how a fund is doing. Look-through tells you what you own through it.
Why fund-level reporting hides exposure
A capital account statement tells you what your interest is worth. It does not show that two of your managers own the same company, that a diversified buyout fund is half healthcare, or that a European fund holds most of its value in one country.
ILPA framed the gap the same way in its Portfolio Company Metrics Template, which it designed to help LPs measure portfolio risk exposure across geographies, sectors, and strategies. A refreshed version is due in early 2027. Until then, look-through depends on what each GP reports in its own format.
What look-through analysis shows
Sector exposure
- Your share of every holding, grouped by industry across all funds.
- Compared with your targets and with your public portfolio.
Country and currency
- Where the underlying companies operate, not where the fund is domiciled.
- How much of your private NAV depends on each currency.
Single-company concentration
- Your total exposure to one company across every fund that holds it.
- A position that is small in each fund can be large in total.
Overlap across managers
- Companies owned by two or more of your GPs.
- Overlap between fund holdings and your own co-investments.
Security type and seniority
- Common stock, preferred share classes, and loans to the same business.
- Whether you are a shareholder in one fund and a lender in another.
Valuation changes
- Quarter-over-quarter movements in fair value, holding by holding.
- Marks below cost, and the same company valued by two different GPs.
Where look-through data comes from
Most of the data comes from documents GPs already send. The work is extracting it and making it comparable.
| Source | What it gives you | Frequency | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schedule of investments | Holdings with type, industry, country, shares or principal, cost, and fair value | Quarterly; audited once a year | Condensed versions group positions at or below 5% of net assets |
| Supplemental schedule and portfolio company updates | Valuation drivers, movements, company KPIs | Quarterly | Unaudited; formats differ by GP |
| ILPA templates | Fees, expenses, carried interest, and performance | Quarterly | Fund-level; the refreshed portfolio company template is due in early 2027 |
| GP portals and data requests | Holdings files and answers to specific questions | On request | Depends on the GP; LPA confidentiality terms govern use |
| Estimates from strategy or allocation | Expected sector and region mix | As needed | An approximation of the actual holdings |
Our guide to the schedule of investments explains the full and condensed formats and how to scale positions to your ownership. For the broader data plumbing, see family office data aggregation.
Holding-level look-through vs estimates
Holding-level look-through
- How it works
- Extract each holding from GP data and scale it to your share
- Best for
- Large commitments, co-investment overlap, and single-name limits
- Effort
- Data extraction and mapping every quarter
- Weak spot
- Reporting lags and grouped lines in condensed schedules
Estimate from strategy or allocation
- How it works
- Allocate the fund’s NAV using its stated strategy, target allocation, or last reported breakdown
- Best for
- Small positions, funds that report little, and the second layer of funds of funds
- Effort
- Low
- Weak spot
- It cannot show concentration or overlap, which are often the reasons to look through
Regulators accept the same trade-off. Solvency II lets insurers fall back on a fund’s target allocation, or its last reported allocation, when a full look-through is not possible, subject to conditions. The section on regulation below has the details.
Example: look-through across three funds
The example extends the fund from our schedule of investments guide. A family office holds interests in three funds with a combined NAV of $15.8 million at June 30, 2026. Each fund’s holdings come from its schedule of investments, scaled by the family office’s share of the fund’s net assets.
| Fund | Strategy | Fund net assets | Your NAV | Your share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sample Fund III, L.P. | Buyout | $260.0 million | $7.8 million | 3.0% |
| Sample Fund IV, L.P. | Growth equity | $200.0 million | $5.0 million | 2.5% |
| Sample Credit Fund I, L.P. | Senior direct lending | $300.0 million | $3.0 million | 1.0% |
| Total | $15.8 million |
Look-through by industry ($000)
| Industry and country | Fund III | Fund IV | Credit Fund I | Total | % of private NAV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software (US) | 2,433.6 | 2,100.0 | 900.0 | 5,433.6 | 34.4% |
| Healthcare services (US) | 2,074.8 | 1,500.0 | 600.0 | 4,174.8 | 26.4% |
| Business services (US) | 709.8 | 0.0 | 750.0 | 1,459.8 | 9.2% |
| Industrial machinery (Germany) | 990.6 | 0.0 | 450.0 | 1,440.6 | 9.1% |
| Consumer products (UK, France) | 1,115.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1,115.4 | 7.1% |
| Financial services (UK) | 0.0 | 900.0 | 0.0 | 900.0 | 5.7% |
| Cash and other net assets | 475.8 | 500.0 | 300.0 | 1,275.8 | 8.1% |
| Total | 7,800.0 | 5,000.0 | 3,000.0 | 15,800.0 | 100.0% |
None of the three strategies says US software, yet software is the largest exposure at 34.4% of private NAV, spread across all three funds. Healthcare services follows at 26.4%. By country, 70.1% sits in the United States, 10.7% in the United Kingdom, 9.1% in Germany, and 2.0% in France, with 8.1% in cash and other net assets.
Largest single-company exposures
| Company | Held through | Securities | Your exposure ($000) | % of private NAV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio Company A | Fund III, Fund IV | Common stock, Series B preferred stock | 2,310.0 | 14.6% |
| Portfolio Company B | Fund III | Series C preferred stock | 1,326.0 | 8.4% |
| Portfolio Company F | Fund IV, Credit Fund I | Series D preferred stock, Senior secured loan | 1,180.0 | 7.5% |
| Portfolio Company C | Fund III | Common stock | 990.6 | 6.3% |
Company A is 20.0% of Fund III. Because Fund IV owns it too, in a different share class, it becomes the family office’s largest private exposure at 14.6% of private NAV. Company F shows a second blind spot: the family office is both a shareholder and a lender, so a restructuring would hit it on both sides.
Illustrative example. All funds and companies are fictional. Exposures are in thousands of US dollars and reconcile to the $15.8 million total. Each fund’s holdings are scaled by the family office’s share of net assets, which is an estimate when carried interest or deal opt-outs apply.
Stop rebuilding look-through in spreadsheets
FundCount AI Document Intelligence extracts the holdings in your GPs’ financial statements and lines them up by industry, country, and share class, quarter after quarter.
How to build look-through analysis in six steps
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Collect the documents
For each fund, get the latest schedule of investments, your capital account statement, and the supplemental schedule or portfolio company updates if the GP provides them. Note the as-of date of each.
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Extract every holding
Capture name, security type, industry, country, shares or principal, cost, and fair value for each line, including grouped lines. Keep a link from each figure back to the page it came from.
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Normalize names, labels, and currencies
Map each GP’s industry names to one taxonomy, such as GICS, match code names and holding companies to the operating business, and convert non-dollar funds at the reporting date.
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Scale to your share
Multiply each holding by your share of the fund’s net assets, or by your LP ownership percentage per investment where the GP reports it.
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Align the dates
Combine holdings with the same as-of date, or label which quarter each fund reflects. ILPA’s guidance gives funds of funds a longer reporting window, so their data usually arrives last. Our technical guide to alternative funds reporting covers versioning and as-of dates.
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Aggregate and review the changes
Add exposures by company, industry, and country, then compare them with last quarter: new names, exits, and marks that moved. Flag anything that breaches your concentration limits.
The look-through approach in insurance and banking rules
The term also has a regulatory meaning. Two frameworks require institutions to look through fund investments when they calculate capital.
Solvency II (insurers)
- Article 84 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/35 calculates the Solvency Capital Requirement on each underlying asset of collective investment undertakings and other investments packaged as funds. The regulation calls this the look-through approach.
- When look-through is not possible, insurers may use the fund’s target allocation or its last reported allocation, under conditions. Data groupings may cover up to 20% of the insurer’s total assets.
Basel framework (banks)
- Banks risk-weight equity investments in funds with one of three approaches in chapter CRE60: the look-through approach, the mandate-based approach, or the fall-back approach.
- The look-through approach risk-weights each underlying exposure as if the bank held it directly. The fall-back approach applies a 1250% risk weight to the fund investment.
The logic matches LP portfolio analysis: see the underlying assets when you can, use the fund’s mandate or last known allocation when you cannot, and assume the worst when you know nothing. The rest of this guide uses the term in the portfolio analysis sense.
Where look-through breaks, and what to do
- Reporting lag. Quarterly schedules arrive 45 to 90 days after quarter end, so look-through describes the recent past. Use it for structure and concentration, and use capital call and distribution notices for what changed since.
- Grouped lines. Condensed schedules name only positions above 5% of net assets. Ask the GP for full detail, or carry the grouped line as an estimate.
- Funds of funds. ASC 946 requires a fund of funds to name only the underlying holdings above 5% of its own net assets. Estimate the rest from the underlying funds’ strategies.
- Different marks for the same company. Two GPs can value the same company differently, especially in different share classes. Add the exposures, but compare the marks before you treat the total as one price.
- Labels that do not match. GPs use their own industry names and sometimes code names. Keep a mapping table and reuse it every quarter.
- Double counting. Parallel vehicles, feeder funds, and co-investment vehicles can hold the same position. Count each economic interest once.
- Data rights. GP holdings data is confidential. Check what your LPAs and side letters allow before you share look-through reports outside your organization.
How FundCount supports look-through analysis
FundCount AI Document Intelligence collects statements from your investor portals and email, converts them into accounting-ready data, and posts them to your books, with the source document one click from each posted figure. It now also extracts schedule of investments data from GP financial statements, the input most look-through work starts from.
- Extracts asset-level data from GP financial statements: security name, industry, country, round or share class, shares, cost, and fair value.
- Tracks quarter-over-quarter movements in cost and fair value for each holding.
- Shows exposure by industry, country, and share class, filtered by year, quarter, fund, and holding company.
- Shows where the same security appears across different GPs.
- Keeps co-investments, valued from their own schedules of investments, next to fund holdings.
The extracted data sits in the same platform that runs FundCount’s portfolio accounting, partnership accounting, and reporting, used by family offices and by the fund administrators that report to LPs.
Watch-outs
- FundCount extracts what each GP discloses. Grouped lines in a condensed schedule stay grouped until the GP provides the names.
- Holdings data covers what each fund owns and what it is worth. Company KPIs such as revenue and EBITDA come from GP portfolio company updates.
See look-through exposure built from GP financial statements
In a guided walkthrough on real-world scenarios, we extract schedules of investments from GP financial statements, group the holdings by industry and country, and show one company held through two managers.
FAQs
What is look-through analysis in private equity?
Replacing each fund interest with your share of the fund’s underlying holdings, so you can see your exposure by company, industry, and country across all your funds.
What is the look-through approach?
In regulation, it is the method insurers under Solvency II and banks under the Basel framework use to calculate capital on the assets inside a fund instead of on the fund units. In portfolio analysis, the term describes the same idea applied to an LP’s private markets holdings.
Where do LPs get look-through data?
Mostly from the schedule of investments in each GP’s financial statements, supplemented by portfolio company updates, GP portals, and direct data requests.
How often can look-through analysis be updated?
Usually quarterly. ILPA’s guidance expects quarterly reports within 60 days of quarter end, or 90 days for funds of funds, so a look-through report always describes a recent quarter end.
What is the difference between look-through analysis and portfolio monitoring?
Portfolio monitoring is the broader job of tracking private investments: cash flows, valuations, performance, and company KPIs. Look-through analysis is the part focused on what the funds own and how it adds up across managers. Our comparison of private equity portfolio monitoring software covers both.
Can you look through a fund of funds?
Partly. Under ASC 946, a fund of funds must name underlying holdings whose proportional share exceeds 5% of its net assets, in its schedule of investments or in a note. Below that threshold, LPs usually estimate the second layer from the underlying funds’ strategies.
Does look-through analysis show company performance?
Only indirectly, through changes in fair value. Revenue, EBITDA, and other KPIs come from portfolio company updates, which GPs provide in their own formats.
How do you calculate your share of a fund’s holdings?
Divide your capital account balance by the fund’s net assets and apply that percentage to each holding, or use the LP ownership percentage per investment if the GP reports it. Our schedule of investments guide shows the calculation step by step.
Sources and methodology
Sources: FASB ASC 946-210-50, as quoted in SEC staff correspondence; ILPA Quarterly Reporting Standards, Best Practices, version 1.0 (October 2011); ILPA’s Portfolio Company Metrics Template materials and its notice on the template refresh; Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/35, Article 84, and EIOPA’s Q&A on it; the Basel Framework, chapter CRE60 (equity investments in funds). FundCount capabilities come from FundCount’s product documentation and client announcements, reviewed in October 2026.
Example: all funds and companies are fictional. The figures were built to reconcile: each fund’s holdings add up to its net assets, and the look-through totals add up to the family office’s private NAV.
Scope: general information, not investment, accounting, or regulatory advice.
Published: October 2026.
