private assets

It’s the middle of May and the full-year results are in. For publicly listed companies it would be yesterday’s news. Tax filings have been made and many firms even reported their first quarter. But in private equity, with its long-term perspectives, the ‘old’ data still can be worthy of a cover story, certainly when it comes to a year like 2022, marked by war, inflation and surging interest rates. The Q4 2022 Burgiss report shows how the market did.

Private assets might have dropped significantly in value since the “good years” of 2020 and 2021, but despite a bad year in 2022, they’re still outperforming public market returns by quite a margin, explained Schroders Capital’s chief investment officer Nils Rode at his firm’s private assets 2021 outlook this week.  History shows that private assets investors could have a strong year in 2023 despite the bad overall macroeconomic conditions, he argued.

The spread of web-based platforms has reached into the rarefied atmosphere of private equity, which has historically been paper-based and face-to-face in-person meeting with one’s investment adviser. This is taking place against an industry-wide drive to “democratise” the private assets world, in order to sate huge desire to invest, but also to address the equity issues raised in relation to significant barriers to access, Alfi’s Private Assets Conference made clear this week. 

The exact impact on private asset values of this year’s declines on global stock and bond markets has yet to be determined, but already some family offices are concerned about the shifts in their portfolios. “There are capital calls that have not been met,” a UBS banker told the Alfi conference on Tuesday.