PE Duration Disambiguated (Smooth Capital)

Getting responses to questionnaires is an art and I can’t say I master it. Nevertheless, I had a few especially kind readers of my previous post who contributed their opinion (thanks!) to the embedded polls. Their results make it more interesting and “independent” to define “surprising” certain different data available in the industry.

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.

Calpers, SEC and the Hawthorne Effect on PE

This morning a “must read” Pulse email caught my eye before my finger could enter the “default mode” and hit the delete key on my phone. The word science, spotted in the title, won my curiosity, sneaking in through my Galilean inclination.

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.

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.

No Liquidity without Price

The title of last week’s PEI‘s Friday Letter, “No Dice without Liquidity”, identifies the critical element determining the reported decision of KKR to stop promoting two retail products.

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.

Why IRR, PME Induce Inaccurate Allocation Decisions

In one of my previous posts, I wrote about the importance of time – of correctly framing time – for purposes of comparability and pricing. The topic is so critical not to require a second round that adds more details and practical implications.

Relativity Theory, Money-Time Curvature and Private Capital Pricing

Wonder what relativity theory and money-time curvature have to do with rational pricing of private capital? The two quotes below, freely adapted from the Wikipedia pages about space-time and reference frame, may give a hint.

The Price of Private Funds Is Less Wrong

If Prof. Malkiel had taken his “Random Walk” in Midtown Manhattan, the private capital industry’s enclave, he could have found that prices can be “less wrong” there than down Wall Street – to a level that could offer, over the life of a private fund, reasonable arbitrage opportunities but not without risk.