Financial Times and Stanford Business School Describe How Private Equity Investors Like CalPERS Act Like the Dumb Money They Are

In a bit of synchronicity, we have two accounts that describe different aspects by which private equity limited partners, such as public pension funds like CalPERS, private pension funds, endowments, life insurers, and sovereign wealth funds are all cheerfully fleeced by private equity fund managers, which in the trade are called “general partners”. The Financial Times describes what ought to be a scam, continuation funds, which allow general partners to collect yet more fees on doggy old deals. Stanford Business sets forth the limited partners’ tender faith that general partners can generate alpha (return for investor skill) on a strategy that is leveraged equity in a very toppy stock market. Oh, and after many studies have demonstrated that to the extent private equity outperforms, the general partners harvest that through their fees and expenses, resulting in net returns to limited partners that more or less equate to stock market returns, but with higher risks.¹

¹ The evidence is so overwhelming that we hope you forgive us for not updating our tally from a 2020 post:

For the sake of completeness, here’s some of the extensive evidence from our archives that private equity not only doesn’t earn enough to compensate for its higher risk, but has even become merely an “on par with stocks” level investment:

• Experts effectively or actually telling CalPERS that private equity does not outperform:
  • CalPERS Debunks Private Equity: Executive Summary
  • Private Equity Expert Dr. Ashby Monk Repudiates CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost’s Private Equity Scheme During and Immediately After Presentation at CalPERS
• CalPERS staff trying to hide private equity underperformance
  • CalPERS Used Sleight of Hand, Accounting Tricks, to Make False “There is No Alternative” Claim for Private Equity
  • CalPERS Admits Its New Private Equity Funds Will Dilute Returns, Seeks to Change Benchmark to Hide That; Presents Other Questionable Claims as Top Investors Underperform Due to “Alternative Investments”
• Analyses by non-captured parties
  • Why Private Equity Does Not Outperform
  • New Study Undermines Rationale for Investing in Private Equity and CalPERS Strategy in Particular, as Oregon CIO Demonstrates that Public Pension Funds Are Dumb Money
  • Even Endowments Like Harvard, Former Top Investors in Hedge and Private Equity Funds, No Longer Beat Boring Stocks and Bonds
  • New Study Slams Public Pension Funds’ Alternative Investments as Drag on Performance, Identifies CalPERS as One of the Worst “Negative Alphas”; Shows Folly of CalPERS’ Desperate Plan to Increase Private Equity and Debt and Go Bigger Using Leverage
  • Oxford Professor Phalippou: Since 2006, Private Equity Has Produced Only S&P 500 Returns While Reaping $400+ Billion in Fees
  • Private Equity Clearly Inferior to Public Equity: Delivers Similar Returns With Lower Liquidity