Aim Well Before Shooting for the (Private Equity) Stars

If you are shooting for the stars it may be wise to look for some reference points to be sure you are aiming in the right direction. Careful navigators always check the Pointers to confirm they have correctly identified the Southern Cross before marking the route.

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.

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.

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.

Private Capital Beta: Theory Reloaded

In a recent Financial Analyst Journal article titled “Do (Some) University Endowments Earn Alpha?” the authors find that endowments mostly fail to deliver alpha and what looks as alpha can be almost totally explained by the inclusion of alternative investments in a static asset allocation. Digging further, the authors find that there is no strong statistical evidence of selection skill relating to the private equity and hedge fund portfolios.

Private Capital Beta Revealed

Private capital beta – the mythological entity whose existence and value have been denied for decades on the basis of the evidences drawn from the dispersion of IRRs of private capital funds – may be among fund investors, new DaRC Room evidences reveal.