Private Equity Returns are Overstated

Many people believe that the rich and powerful have access to exclusive investments that earn higher returns than average people can get. One such category of investments that sounds impressive is private equity. However, the severe restrictions placed on private equity investors make the returns much lower than they appear.

A private equity investor is asked to commit a certain amount of money over a long period, such as seven years. However, the private equity funds don’t have to take all the money at once. The funds can demand the money on their own schedule. They also get to give the money back on their own schedule, possibly later than the seven year period.

The funds get to calculate their returns on the money they’ve collected, not the total commitment from the investor. So, as an investor, you have to keep some of your committed cash on the sidelines, or risk a demand for cash at a bad time, say 2008 or 2009 when stocks had tanked.

Personally, I would consider my return as a private equity investor to be a blend of the fund’s return and interest on the cash I had to keep on the sidelines. If there is any debate about whether private equity funds outperform stock indexes, this method of calculating returns would end it.

When I was young, I thought the rich had mysterious ways of getting higher returns than I knew how to get. I don’t believe that anymore. My first thought when I hear about some sort of exclusive investment is that someone is trying to separate me from my money. I’m happy to stick with index investing where cash inflows and outflows happen when they suit me, not some private equity fund.