Private markets are, without question, one of the most transformational stories in modern finance. The numbers speak for themselves: 87 percent of all U.S. companies generating more than $100 million in revenues remain privately held, yet the average individual investor has allocated less than 5 percent of their portfolio to this space. That gap represents both an enormous opportunity and a shared responsibility to get the language right as we invite a new generation of investors into these markets.
And right now, candidly, we’re not getting the language right.
THE PROBLEM IN PLAIN SIGHT
The financial industry has a long and productive history of evolving its nomenclature when the old terms no longer serve. “Alternative investments” gave way to “private markets” precisely because the word alternative implied something peripheral, exotic or optional. In reality, endowments and sovereign wealth funds have long allocated well north of the
