A special distribution, as agreed beween investors and the investment manager, meant to compensate the investment manager once the investors' pre-established hurdle has been achieved (thus allowing the investment manager to "catch-up").
A common structure where investors receive distributions up to a pre-established level of preferred return, at which point the investment manager receives a percentage of distributions therafter (this could be up tp 100% of distributions) until a pre-established balance between the investors and investment manager is reached.