Private Equity Findings, Issue 20

Topics

Foreword By the numbers

Retrospective: A bigger picture

Overview Understanding LPs performance The role of academic research in PE The most influential pieces of academic research The affect of the 2006-07 credit bubble Resilience of the PE industry The the growth of private debt funds Areas of current research Areas of research opportunities?

What’s at stake?

Roundtable: Will AI transform private equity?

Overview PE embracing AI technologies AI origination for VC investments The limitations of AI & lack of data AI in decision making Using AI to predict future outcomes Do LPs really need AI to process qualitative information?AI techniques to predict company director performance Do large networks and directorships mean poor performance?What aspects of PE are ripe for AI disruption?AI for PE: hype vs. reality

Time for a new model?

Overview Time for a new model: The research viewpoint Time for a new model: The investor viewpoint

The side letter arms race

The role of academic research in PE

Foreword By the numbers

Retrospective: A bigger picture

Understanding LPs performance The role of academic research in PE The most influential pieces of academic research The affect of the 2006-07 credit bubble Resilience of the PE industry The the growth of private debt funds Areas of current research Areas of research opportunities?

What’s at stake?

Roundtable: Will AI transform private equity?

PE embracing AI technologies AI origination for VC investments The limitations of AI & lack of data AI in decision making Using AI to predict future outcomes Do LPs really need AI to process qualitative information? AI techniques to predict company director performance Do large networks and directorships mean poor performance? What aspects of PE are ripe for AI disruption? AI for PE: hype vs. reality

Time for a new model?

Time for a new model: The research viewpoint Time for a new model: The investor viewpoint

The side letter arms race

Retrospective: A bigger picture

What is the role of academic research into PE?

“When I first started looking into PE and VC, the industry was a backwater, it was a very small part of institutional portfolios and it was managed in an idiosyncratic way using its own terminology. Yet since then, there has clearly been a lot of academic work in areas such as performance assessment and this has given both academics and practitioners tools to think about how PE fits into institutional portfolios.

“Academic research has also helped to answer many critical questions for policymakers. One of these is the social consequences of buyouts on employees and long-run investments by the companies that PE backs – there had been industry association efforts to address this, but they were quite far from definitive. Another is around how governments can best boost innovation. There had been a lot of experiments in the 1980s and 1990s and a lot of capital spent for little return. Academic research has helped to clarify which areas governments should focus on.”
Josh Lerner

“I see academic research into PE as important for two main reasons. One is that it chronicles changes and new developments in the industry so that we can understand them from a policy perspective. We can understand what’s driving those changes and whether there are intended, unintended or perhaps even detrimental consequences to policy decisions and specific regulation. It can help us understand if the industry could be regulated differently to improve disclosure and transparency and to drive performance.

“The other is that it can help us understand the impact of PE and VC on society – and this is becoming more important as both of these asset classes continue to grow. Do they have a transformative effect on the businesses they back, for example? And if so, what are the consequences?”
Antoinette Schoar

“Any research should provide valuable insight, be objective and be data-driven – including qualitative and experiential data. It should help stakeholders such as regulators, policymakers, asset managers and asset owners make better decisions. In private investments, research has the potential to be extra valuable because these are relatively new asset classes where there is a lot of scope for education, because it is very difficult to access detailed, high-quality data, and because private markets are growing and accounting for an ever-larger proportion of the economy.”

Richard Carson

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Understanding LPs performance

The most influential pieces of academic research