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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.
私募市場的崛起似乎勢不可擋。根據麥肯錫(McKinsey)的數據，儘管融資成本增加、成長前景不確定，但截至去年6月30日，私募市場管理的資產總額達到了13.1兆美元，自2018年以來年均成長近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.
儘管籌款額已從2021年的高峯下降，但道富銀行(State Street)最近的一項調查發現，大多數機構投資者打算增加對幾乎所有私人市場的敞口，包括基礎設施、私人債務、私募股權和房地產。
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年金融危機以來，私募市場的蓬勃發展——尤其是大型收購類——是建立在寬鬆的貨幣政策基礎上的。大部分回報並非來自投資組合公司的效率提升，而是來自以不斷成長的市場倍數、以及透過槓桿來出售資產，這增加了股本回報相對於資產回報的比例。
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.
由於這些槓桿的作用，如今市場倍數已經下降，融資成本已經上升，資產負債表變得薄弱。在倍數低迷的情況下，經理們不願出售資產並實現回報，導致對投資者的支付較低。至於私人債務，其成長主要是由於監管套利，自金融危機以來，銀行面臨更嚴格的監管。
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價資金繁榮時期被人忽視，現在在機構投資者質疑私募基金經理對投資組合公司的估值時則顯得緊迫。自從利率迴歸正常以來，估值問題一直很嚴重。私募基金經理對其資產價值的減記幅度往往遠小於公開市場的下跌幅度，考慮到該資產類別的槓桿和非流動性更高，這很荒謬。減記幅度應該遠大於公開股權。
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.
同樣令人擔憂的是，美國第五巡迴上訴法院上月決定廢除美國證交會(SEC)對於提高私募股權績效和費用透明度的新規定。披露缺乏統一性，而是基於管理人與投資者之間的個別協議。關於內部收益率的計算和不透明的祕密費用（常常由投資者在不知情的情況下支付）引發了很多爭議。
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.
美國證交會也一直擔心，市場上缺乏明確定義的估值程式和緩解行業內無數利益衝突的規程。其中包括大量的續投基金，即經理將投資組合公司出售給新基金。這使他們免受公開市場估值的影響。此類交易涉及收購集團費用的大幅增加。
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.
對於低流動性資產的敞口，導致面臨所謂「終局」的養老金基金的投資組合平衡問題日益嚴重，「終局」指的是透過買斷或買入方式將養老金義務和相匹配的資產轉移給保險公司。保險公司不樂於接收低流動性資產，即使接收，也會施加嚴格的減值。
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.
話雖如此，私募市場的崛起對投資者來說是有好處的。它們提供多元化的收益，但前提是要考慮上述「終局」。去碳化和數位化讓基礎設施領域出現了巨大的機遇。而風險投資則爲進入新技術提供了入口。
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.
鑑於大量資金湧入私人資本，尚不清楚還有多少非流動性溢價有待獲取。可投資金儲備(dry powder reserves)，即投資者已承諾但尚未投入使用的金額，達到3.7兆美元，連續第九年成長。
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.
相對於公開市場，評估私募股權的表現是困難的。真正的回報只有在投資最終實現時才能知道。在此期間，一切都取決於經理的估值。約翰霍普金斯大學(Johns Hopkins)凱里商學院(Carey Business School)的傑弗裏•胡克(Jeffrey Hooke)認爲，私募股權經理在大量保密條款和錯誤資訊的掩蓋下，隱瞞了表現一般的投資回報。他說，他們用一個簡單概念——透過借錢來增加股權回報——塑造了一個幾乎沒有問責制的龐大商業帝國。
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.
最大的問題與成本有關。私募基金通常基於投資者承諾投入的資金收取2%的年度管理費，以及在通常爲8%的預先約定回報門檻之上，收取20%利潤的費用。相比於被動管理報價股票投資的較小百分比成本，這對績效是一個巨大的拖累。
The days of easy windfalls from freakishly loose monetary policy are gone. Now, private capital is much more hazardous terrain for investors.
從異常寬鬆的貨幣政策中輕鬆獲利的日子已經過去了。現在，私人資本對投資者來說是更加危險的領域。