Commentary

Private Equity Now – Impact on Fundraising (LP Perspective)

We resume our discussion of the private equity liquidity crunch and its impact on fundraising, this time from the LP’s perspective. The supply/demand imbalance in the fundraising environment has shifted to favor LPs. This gives them greater GP access, longer diligence windows, and more negotiating power with LPA terms.  But many LPs, their investment programs…

Private Equity Now – Impact on Fundraising (GP Perspective)

So far in our “Private Equity Now” series we’ve covered the various technologies available to LPs and GPs to access liquidity in this difficult environment. This week we focus on fundraising to understand how GPs are navigating with investors pining for distributions. Indeed, private equity fund managers are facing a landscape unlike any we’ve experienced…

Private Equity Now: The LP Perspective

Over the past two weeks we’ve touched on the distribution dilemma in private equity, and most recently on the perspectives and tactics used by GPs. This week, we dive deeper into the LPs perspective and how allocators are managing private equity programs in the current environment. To quantify the issues: LPs observed a 9.5% distribution…

Private Equity Now: The GP Perspective

Challenging financing conditions and macroeconomic disruptions have ushered in a period of lackluster M&A activity the last few years. Sellers are reluctant to realize investments at what are perceived to be depressed valuation multiples. Buyers meanwhile are wary of overpaying and unwilling to meet sellers at multiples of a bygone era. The resulting valuation gap…

Private Equity Now: The Distribution Dilemma

Having focused this year mostly on the effects of rates and the economy on private credit, it’s time to turn our attention to private equity. One of the more surprising aspects of conversations around this topic is how PE has taken a back seat to PC, particularly regarding growth and performance of the asset class….

Everything Happens So Much (Last of Three Parts)

While the expected pace of Fed cuts has slowed, nothing suggests a change in direction. This course suggests a re-assessment of which strategies deserve allocations. Who will be the winners and losers? How does our high velocity environment complicate these decisions? One speaker at the GEF spoke about how managers find themselves increasingly behind the…

Everything Happens So Much (Part Two)

Investors are challenged today with so much data and distraction coming at them from every angle. This makes it tough to see the big picture, which looks pretty good. After a dramatic 50 bp chop to the Fed funds rate barely two weeks ago, the mood has swung around once again. Now it’s more like,“What’s…

Everything Happens So Much (Part One)

The 7th Annual Greenwich Economic Forum this week brought together dozens of CEOs, CIOs, and top financial executives of all stripes for thought-provoking conversations. Topics included trends in asset management, global geopolitics, financial technology, and financial regulation. Tough to find more sophisticated and diverse thought-leadership outside a small town in Switzerland or the Beverly Hills…

Letter from the North Country

Our friends at Bloomberg hit the market last week with a startling headline: “Private Credit Faces Worst Reckoning Since 2008.” Just in time for us to speak to hundreds of institutional investors at conferences in Traverse City, Michigan, and Toronto about private credit’s virtues. We did find evidence of solid risk management. A recent Fitch…

Downhill From Here

One of the unalloyed joys of our job these days is around Fed meetings. We’ve known for four years this moment would arrive, but the timing and extent of the rate cut kept analysts guessing. And despite countless experts weighing in until the last minute, the Fed’s “big move” caught many by surprise. Not that…