Private Equity

Six Current Challenges Facing Private Equity LPs

May 2023 – 9 min read

In the uncertain economic climate of 2023, limited partners may benefit from revisiting several important considerations when managing existing private equity portfolios and allocating capital.

With economic dislocation and a possible recession on the horizon, limited partners (LPs) investing in private markets will face a field of hurdles in coming months when making decisions about existing and new commitments. In particular, there are six specific challenges of which private market investors should be aware.

1. Deconstructing the ‘Denominator Effect’

LPs’ private market exposures have increased materially (as a percentage of total plan assets) over the past year due to a combination of:

  • Public market valuation declines coupled with relatively flat private market valuations
  • Declining distribution rates
  • Accelerated commitment pacing due to the increased velocity of general partner (GP) fundraising timelines

As some LPs consider re-balancing their portfolios in response to these recent market changes, we believe it is imperative that LPs employ a more nuanced, thoughtful approach in deconstructing and analyzing all of the complex private market sub-strategy components embedded within the numerator and denominator calculations of the socalled ‘denominator effect’, which occurs when the value of one portion of a portfolio (e.g., public markets) decreases dramatically and diminishes the value of the total portfolio, causing any portfolio segment that did not decrease in value (e.g., private markets) to constitute a larger percentage of the total.

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Mina Pacheco Nazemi

Head of Diversified Alternative Equity

J.R. Keeve

Director

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