Yes. At a minimum, investors should consciously consider it. The co-investment “craze” isn’t going away anytime soon—we estimate co-investing currently accounts for nearly one-third of all private investment activity—and there are structural reasons why it will continue, as we will discuss. For investors with allocations to private investments, adding co-investments offers some advantages; namely, lower fees…
Agribusiness private equity can be easy to overlook, but institutional investors would be remiss to disregard the sector. In this edition of Real Asset Dynamics, we examine the sector’s defining characteristics, recent industry trends, and their implications. Investors are cautious about agriculture investments. Farmland managers, which dominate the global private equity agriculture landscape, tend to…
With underlying assets that provide essential services, infrastructure debt can play a key role in institutional investor portfolios. In this research note, we review how infrastructure debt has evolved, discuss its investment qualities, and highlight a few thoughts for those considering an allocation.
In USD terms, the Cambridge Associates LLC benchmark indexes for global ex US developed and emerging markets private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) produced nearly identical results in fourth quarter 2017 (5.7% and 5.6%, respectively); but, for the year, the developed markets index earned a significantly better return (30.0% versus 18.9%).
US private equity and venture capital returns were both in the double digits for calendar year 2017, but the divide between the results for the Cambridge Associates LLC indexes for the two asset classes was fairly wide.
Equity markets and commodity-related assets outperformed other asset classes, while monetary policy expectations continued to negatively impact bond markets during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018. This brief chart book looks at returns and other market metrics for fiscal year 2018.
In short, no—their use isn’t going away any time soon. Rather than avoid them, incorporate new elements to more clearly assess the manager’s true investment skill.
For investors with private allocations, how one incorporates them into the policy benchmark will materially impact the portfolio’s relative performance, making the choice key to informed decision making. We review the various methodologies used and make a series of recommendations on best practices to follow. In considering the performance of private investments within the total portfolio, we anchor to a set of principles: keep it simple, don’t treat private investments differently, and make performance evaluation as meaningful as possible.
When assessing performance at the aggregate private portfolio and sub-component level, investors should take the long view. In this publication, we review how long funds take to settle into their ultimate quartile ranking and highlight our framework for benchmarking a portfolio of private investments.
The Cambridge Associates LLC global ex US developed markets PE/VC index returned 21.0% year-to-date, boosted by its 5.4% third quarter return. The emerging markets index 4.4% for the quarter and 12.2% year-to-date.