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The rise and rise of private markets has a feeling of inexorability about it. Despite increased financing costs and an uncertain growth outlook, private market assets under management totalled $13.1tn on June 30 last year, having grown at nearly 20 per cent a year since 2018, according to consultants McKinsey.
私募市场的崛起似乎势不可挡。根据麦肯锡(McKinsey)的数据，尽管融资成本增加、增长前景不确定，但截至去年6月30日，私募市场管理的资产总额达到了13.1万亿美元，自2018年以来年均增长近20%。
While fundraising has declined from its 2021 peak, a recent survey by State Street found that a majority of institutional investors intended to increase their exposure to almost all private markets, including infrastructure, private debt, private equity and real estate.
尽管筹款额已从2021年的高峰下降，但道富银行(State Street)最近的一项调查发现，大多数机构投资者打算增加对几乎所有私人市场的敞口，包括基础设施、私人债务、私募股权和房地产。
Yet the boom in private markets since the 2007-2009 financial crisis, especially in the big buyout category, was built on ultra-loose monetary policy. Most of the returns came not from enhancing the efficiency of portfolio companies, but from selling assets at ever-increasing market multiples and through leverage, which increases the return on equity relative to the return on assets.
然而，自2007-2009年金融危机以来，私募市场的蓬勃发展——尤其是大型收购类——是建立在宽松的货币政策基础上的。大部分回报并非来自投资组合公司的效率提升，而是来自以不断增长的市场倍数、以及通过杠杆来出售资产，这增加了股本回报相对于资产回报的比例。
Today multiples are down, financing costs are up and balance sheets are weaker thanks to that leverage. Payouts to investors are low as managers are reluctant to sell assets and crystallise returns while multiples are depressed. As for private debt, its growth has been substantially driven by regulatory arbitrage, with banks facing tougher regulation since the financial crisis.
由于这些杠杆的作用，如今市场倍数已经下降，融资成本已经上升，资产负债表变得薄弱。在倍数低迷的情况下，经理们不愿出售资产并实现回报，导致对投资者的支付较低。至于私人债务，其增长主要是由于监管套利，自金融危机以来，银行面临更严格的监管。
Governance shortcomings in private equity, overlooked in the cheap money bonanza, now look pressing as institutional investors query the values private equity managers put on portfolio companies. The valuation issue has been acute since the return of more normal interest rates. Private equity managers have tended to write down their assets’ value by far less than the falls in public markets. This is a nonsense given the higher leverage and illiquidity of the asset category. The writedowns should be far greater than for public equity.
私募基金的治理缺陷在廉价资金繁荣时期被人忽视，现在在机构投资者质疑私募基金经理对投资组合公司的估值时则显得紧迫。自从利率回归正常以来，估值问题一直很严重。私募基金经理对其资产价值的减记幅度往往远小于公开市场的下跌幅度，考虑到该资产类别的杠杆和非流动性更高，这很荒谬。减记幅度应该远大于公开股权。
Also of concern is last month’s decision of the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new rules imposing greater transparency on performance and fees in private equity. There is no uniformity in disclosure, which is based on individual agreements between managers and their investors. Much controversy surrounds the calculation of internal rates of return and opaque backdoor fees that investors often unwittingly pay.
同样令人担忧的是，美国第五巡回上诉法院上月决定废除美国证交会(SEC)对于提高私募股权绩效和费用透明度的新规定。披露缺乏统一性，而是基于管理人与投资者之间的个别协议。关于内部收益率的计算和不透明的秘密费用（常常由投资者在不知情的情况下支付）引发了很多争议。
The SEC had also been worried about a lack of clearly defined valuation procedures and protocols for mitigating the industry’s innumerable conflicts of interest. These include a rash of continuation funds whereby managers sell portfolio companies to a new fund. This shelters them from valuations in the public markets. Such deals entail big increases in the buyout group’s fees.
美国证交会也一直担心，市场上缺乏明确定义的估值程序和缓解行业内无数利益冲突的规程。其中包括大量的续投基金，即经理将投资组合公司出售给新基金。这使他们免受公开市场估值的影响。此类交易涉及收购集团费用的大幅增加。
Exposure to illiquid assets is leading to growing problems of portfolio balance for pension funds approaching the so-called endgame, where they transfer pension obligations and matching assets to insurers via buyouts or buy-ins. Insurers do not like taking on illiquid assets, and if they do accept them, they impose tough haircuts.
对于低流动性资产的敞口，导致面临所谓“终局”的养老金基金的投资组合平衡问题日益严重，“终局”指的是通过买断或买入方式将养老金义务和相匹配的资产转移给保险公司。保险公司不乐于接收低流动性资产，即使接收，也会施加严格的减值。
That said, the rise of private markets has been good for investors. They offer diversification benefits, subject to the endgame caveat above. There are huge opportunities in infrastructure arising from decarbonisation and digitisation. And venture capital provides an entrée into new technologies.
话虽如此，私募市场的崛起对投资者来说是有好处的。它们提供多元化的收益，但前提是要考虑上述“终局”。去碳化和数字化让基础设施领域出现了巨大的机遇。而风险投资则为进入新技术提供了入口。
Less clear, given the huge sums pouring into private capital, is how much of an illiquidity premium remains to be harvested. Dry powder reserves, the amounts committed by investors but not yet deployed, stand at $3.7tn, a ninth consecutive year of growth.
鉴于大量资金涌入私人资本，尚不清楚还有多少非流动性溢价有待获取。可投资金储备(dry powder reserves)，即投资者已承诺但尚未投入使用的金额，达到3.7万亿美元，连续第九年增长。
Assessing the performance of private equity relative to public markets is difficult. Real returns can only be known when investments are finally realised. In the interim, everything rests on the managers’ valuations. Jeffrey Hooke of Johns Hopkins Carey Business School argues that private equity managers have cloaked middling investment returns in a mass of confidentiality and misinformation. They have, he says, taken a simple concept — borrowing money to increase equity returns — and shaped it into a massive commercial empire with little accountability.
相对于公开市场，评估私募股权的表现是困难的。真正的回报只有在投资最终实现时才能知道。在此期间，一切都取决于经理的估值。约翰霍普金斯大学(Johns Hopkins)凯里商学院(Carey Business School)的杰弗里•胡克(Jeffrey Hooke)认为，私募股权经理在大量保密条款和错误信息的掩盖下，隐瞒了表现一般的投资回报。他说，他们用一个简单概念——通过借钱来增加股权回报——塑造了一个几乎没有问责制的庞大商业帝国。
The biggest question relates to costs. Private equity typically charges a 2 per cent annual management fee based on investors’ money committed to the fund, along with a 20 per cent share of the profits over a pre-agreed returns threshold of, typically, 8 per cent. This is a huge drag on performance relative to the fractional percentage costs of investing in passively managed quoted equity.
最大的问题与成本有关。私募基金通常基于投资者承诺投入的资金收取2%的年度管理费，以及在通常为8%的预先约定回报门槛之上，收取20%利润的费用。相比于被动管理报价股票投资的较小百分比成本，这对绩效是一个巨大的拖累。
The days of easy windfalls from freakishly loose monetary policy are gone. Now, private capital is much more hazardous terrain for investors.
从异常宽松的货币政策中轻松获利的日子已经过去了。现在，私人资本对投资者来说是更加危险的领域。