FRG has recently been investigating the dynamics of the private capital markets. Our work has led us to a ground-breaking product designed to help allocators evaluate potential cash flows, risks, and plan future commitments to private capital. You can learn more here and read about our modeling efforts in our white paper, “Macroeconomic Effects On The Modeling of Private Capital Cash Flows.”
As mentioned in a previous post, we are investigating the effects of available liquidity in the private capital market. This leads to an obvious question: Does the Liquidity Risk Premium Still Exist in Private Equity?
It is assumed by most in the space that the answer is “Yes.” Excess returns provided by private funds are attributable to reduced liquidity. Lock up periods of 10+ years allow managers to find investments that would not be possible otherwise. This premium is HIGHLY attractive in a world of low rates and cyclically high public equity valuations. Where else can a pension or endowment find the rates of return required?
If the answer is, “No,” then Houston, we have a problem. Money continues to flow into PE at a high rate. A recent article in the FT (quoting data from FRG partner Preqin) show there is nearly $1.5 trillion in dry powder. Factoring in leverage, there could be, in excess of, $5 trillion in capital waiting to be deployed. In the case of a “No” answer, return chasing could have gone too far, too fast.
As mentioned, leverage in private capital funds is large and maybe growing larger. If the liquidity risk premium has been bid away, what investors are left with may very well be just leveraged market risk. What is assumed to be high alpha/low beta, might, in fact, be low alpha/high beta. This has massive implications for asset allocation.
We are attempting to get our heads around this problem in order to help our clients understand the risk associated with their portfolios.
Dominic Pazzula is a Director with the Financial Risk Group specializing in asset allocation and risk management. He has more than 15 years of experience evaluating risk at a portfolio level and managing asset allocation funds. He is responsible for product design of FRG’s asset allocation software offerings and consults with clients helping to apply the latest technologies to solve their risk, reporting, and allocation challenges.