The writer is the founding partner of Verdad Advisers and the author of ‘The Humble Investor’
US equity markets have had a banner run in the years since the Covid-19 market panic. Yet despite the S&P 500 surging nearly 95 per cent over the past five years, US private equity firms are struggling to profitably sell the portfolio companies they have accumulated — nearly 12,000, according to research by Cherry Bekaert. At the current exit pace of 1,500 companies a year, it would take nearly eight years to clear the existing inventory.
Investors in private equity have seen distributions of capital collapse from the typical 30 per cent of net asset value down to only about 10 per cent of net asset value, according to Bain. And frustrated investors in funds — most notably Yale and Harvard — are turning to the secondary market to sell stakes, while talk of “over allocation” and “above-target” investment in the asset class is spreading.