Institutional Investors and Private Equity

Private Equity is funded mostly by institutional investors — pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, family offices — which entrust their capital to managers by becoming LPs (limited partners) in the funds. The share of their portfolio devoted to private markets sets the pace of fundraising. The analyses under this theme describe who funds the industry, why, and how that base is now widening to individuals and retirement savings.

Key metrics:

• the amount of capital raised;
• the target allocation to Private Equity;
• the concentration of capital among the largest managers;
• the pace of distributions, which determines investors’ ability to reinvest.

Start with: No. 12 — Private Equity Opens Up (for Real) to Individual Investors · No. 26 — Private Equity: An Asset Class Come of Age · No. 31 — Private Equity and Retirement