Pink Floyd’s Private Equity Songs

The temptation of another private equity musical license was too strong to resist – the titles of some of the most famous songs and albums of one of my favorite rock groups may seem to have been made on purpose to introduce and comment upon certain highly debated arguments in the PE industry.

Stranded Capital, Fire Sales Or….

I wrote in my previous post that actual durations of PE funds are longer than those that are the perceived industry standards. The 14-year number reported in the headline of an article of a recognised magazine is a different thing, but it ties well and allows some reasoning about LP extensions, fire sales and the possible rational alternatives for investors.

The PE S-Curve, Dug Out

There are a couple of concepts that qualify a discovery – even if just stumbled upon: novelty and usefulness. With respect to private equity, the S-Curve adds the notion of decreasing marginal returns to improve the mainstream J-Curve notion, and this clears novelty. What’s left now is to dig out its usefulness.

The PE S-Curve, Stumbled Upon

Unexpectedly last week, I stumbled upon an S-Curve hidden between the lines of a study released by an established private equity funds of funds firm with a cautious introductory question: “do private equity funds sometimes just run out of steam?”

What’s Up with Private Markets’ Secondary Prices?

There are some confusing messages out there about private markets’ secondary prices that are worth distilling to identify latent signals of opportunity and risk.

Coller’s IRR Card [More Subtly Fooled #2]

If there’s an iconic badge for private equity valuation this is probably Coller Capital’s IRR and compound interest “cheat sheet” Card.

Carlyle, Blackstone and Private Markets’ Beta

In the last few days, Carlyle first and Blackstone almost right after released investor updates and provided interesting information about the growth estimates of the value of their private equity funds for 2013 and the first quarter of 2014.

Putting the [α + β-Cen] Reports into Context

On monday night, earlier this week, Carlyle announced preliminary data regarding its funds’ first quarter valuations.

Introducing the [α + β-Cen] Reports

I am pleased to introduce first issue (number 0 in beta) of the [α + β-Cen] Reports whose objective is to provide “rational and quantitative” valuation indications and forecasting references to private markets’ fund investors.

Riding Private Markets’ S-Curves

As I write about interpreting and predicting private markets’ returns, for the readers who missed one of my previous posts, I confirm there is no misspelling in the headline, it’s an S.