Equity Multiple

Equity multiple is the total cash distributions received from an investment divided by the total equity invested, expressing how many times an investor gets their money back over the hold period. A 2.0x equity multiple means the investor doubled their money - investing $500,000 and receiving $1,000,000 in total distributions (including return of capital). Unlike IRR, equity multiple does not account for the time value of money. A 2.0x multiple over 3 years is far better than a 2.0x over 10 years, but the equity multiple alone doesn't distinguish them. For this reason, sophisticated NNN investors evaluate equity multiple alongside IRR to get a complete picture - IRR captures time efficiency while equity multiple captures total wealth creation. Most NNN syndications target 1.5-2.5x equity multiples over 5-10 year hold periods.