Hamilton Lane

Every investor wants access to the private markets, and every manager – established or otherwise – wants to help them get it. But when there’s a “new product every day”, how many of them will be any good?

The question of how much private market assets are really worth has more answers than ever with the growing popularity of evergreen funds. But the drive for more and more frequent valuations has to end somewhere. Right?

Private market managers aren’t entirely insulated against falls in the public markets, which have resulted in diminished fundraising activity. But private assets aren’t going to stop outperforming anytime soon.

There’s fairly wide disagreement about what private market outperformance will look like in the future, and investors are sweating the amount of money pouring into the asset class. At least the question of valuation is less frenzied than six months ago.

While there’s widespread suspicion that “financial skullduggery” is afoot in private market valuations, the tricky part is the lack of comparisons in their fastest growing segment.

Australia’s super funds have been leaders in adopting private markets investing, but they’ve still got a long way to go. Overcoming the obsession with liquidity will be one hurdle, says the boss of $900 billion private markets manager Hamilton Lane.