I mean, they miscalculated valuations. Who else would eat losses but them?
Retail investors and anyone else unsophisticated enough to pay these inflated valuations.
Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
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Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#12The unfortunate reality of PE is that regardless of your opinion of them, your money is probably tied to them.
Seems like that’s literally not true considering that most people can only invest in public exchange tradeable funds.
Not directly. But pension funds, investment groups, insurance companies — organizations who everyday investors rely on — give them money.
And thanks to the current administration you will soon be able to direct 401k money to them.
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like that’s literally not true considering that most people can only invest in public exchange tradeable funds.
Not directly. But pension funds, investment groups, insurance companies — organizations who everyday investors rely on — give them money. And thanks to the current administration you will soon be able to direct 401k money to them.
The real problem here is the lack of accountability. We invented a huge pile of regulations forcing public firms to be transparent, largely because the lack of transparency was easy to abuse and small investors don’t have the resources to do their own investigatory work. Now those regulations are being undermined by this new backdoor approach, and so even public and regulated investments are becoming more risky. It’s a bad trend and it will only reverse when people inevitably follow the incentives and there’s a big crisis.
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#14This sounds very similar to the commercial real estate market. What do they have in common? High amounts of leverage, and holding periods of 5-7 years for assets.
They're trying to sell assets bought with cheap money and a lower acceptable rate of return to buyers with higher financing costs and a higher risk free rate of return.
They're going to be holding onto those assets for a while, until they either accept that they need to eat the loss to get liquid or their paper losses are inflated away.
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#15Private equity hoovers up existing businesses that are mostly well functioning. If they fail, we suffer as those businesses we depend upon fail and disappear. Everything from big national chains to your local doctors office can be destroyed in this way. But if private equity succeeds, we also suffer. Private equity is… private. Normal people have our savings invested in public markets. We can’t easily invest in priva…
> Private equity is… private. Normal people have our savings invested in public markets. We can’t easily invest in private equity, and we shouldn’t because it’s too risky.
Financial entities you rely on (pension funds, insurance companies, and universities among others) invest, and you may be getting access yourself thanks to Trump!
> IMO any business over a certain size should be forced to be public and no option to go private again.
What on earth is the rationale for this policy? If you build a successful company, you're required by law to give up control?
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#16Private equity hoovers up existing businesses that are mostly well functioning. If they fail, we suffer as those businesses we depend upon fail and disappear. Everything from big national chains to your local doctors office can be destroyed in this way. But if private equity succeeds, we also suffer. Private equity is… private. Normal people have our savings invested in public markets. We can’t easily invest in priva…
> But imagine a world where every strong business goes private and only failing businesses are public.
That's the opposite of what happens with PE. PE firms don't buy fairly priced, well run businesses. They (typically) buy underpriced, poorly performing but cash flow heavy businesses that would benefit from leveraging up and making operations more lean.
Think about it, if a business is fairly priced and well run, PE firms have no incentive to buy it because where do they generate returns?
I don't like PE firms but there's no doubt that they force businesses to operate better, and ultimately that benefits people like you and me who have retirement savings, because PE firms aren't getting their money out of thin air.
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#17my alumni association has a related pe fund. Minimum personal wealth requirement to participate is 5 million usd. This is high risk high reward, and total loss is possible. I looked at some of the companies they underwrite and it's completely risky stuff that's ethically ambiguous.
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#18Private equity hoovers up existing businesses that are mostly well functioning. If they fail, we suffer as those businesses we depend upon fail and disappear. Everything from big national chains to your local doctors office can be destroyed in this way. But if private equity succeeds, we also suffer. Private equity is… private. Normal people have our savings invested in public markets. We can’t easily invest in priva…
> Private equity is… private. Normal people have our savings invested in public markets. We can’t easily invest in private equity, and we shouldn’t because it’s too risky. Financial entities you rely on (pension funds, insurance companies, and universities among others) invest, and you may be getting access yourself thanks to Trump! > IMO any business over a certain size should be forced to be public and no option to…
I don't think there is a valid rationale for this.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of armchair spectators that don't understand how the economy actually functions; and they've got brigades that go after people that do actually know who speak out (based on certain keywords).
As a result, its totally not worth talking about since the point of no return has largely already come and gone and we're stuck in a hysteresis trap.
People don't see how the things we are seeing today were predictable outcomes given choices made at the money-printer level (i.e. Fed/Private Banking).
No deposit requirement, is no reserve money-printing. It always fails, but I'm sure someone will say... but this time will be different. Needless to say, any discussion on economics is basically flame bait these days with a lot of delusional people on both sides of the aisle.
Fractional Banking (RIP, Circa 2020).
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#19[deleted]
Re: Private equity is sitting on $5T of existential dread
#20Private equity hoovers up existing businesses that are mostly well functioning. If they fail, we suffer as those businesses we depend upon fail and disappear. Everything from big national chains to your local doctors office can be destroyed in this way. But if private equity succeeds, we also suffer. Private equity is… private. Normal people have our savings invested in public markets. We can’t easily invest in priva…
> But imagine a world where every strong business goes private and only failing businesses are public. That's the opposite of what happens with PE. PE firms don't buy fairly priced, well run businesses. They (typically) buy underpriced, poorly performing but cash flow heavy businesses that would benefit from leveraging up and making operations more lean. Think about it, if a business is fairly priced and well run, PE…
Do PE hospitals and veterinary clinics perform better?