About Those Alternative Asset Classes...

Various experts (almost invariably connected to firms that market or manage these investments) tout the importance of having exposure to hedge funds and private equity in one’s portfolio in order to create returns in excess of the overall stock market.
Being the skeptic I am about such matters I was hardly surprised to find this article in the Financial Times

Private equity underperforms market

By Martin Arnold, Private Equity Correspondent
Published: November 22 2007 16:48 | Last updated: November 22 2007 16:48

Private equity has on average underperformed the stock market in the last decade, according to a detailed survey of the buy-out industry submitted to the European Parliament on Thursday…..The research – based on data from 6,000 private equity deals and about 1,000 buy-out funds – shows that average private equity returns have underperformed the benchmark S&P 500 share index by 3 per cent, after fees charged to investors.“This does not correspond with the stereotype of the industry making its investors extremely rich,” Mr. Gottschlag told the Financial Times. “Investors have not had much fun in this asset class, even though they have all been obsessed with gaining access to the best-performing funds.”
And talk about crude math, how about this:
Excluding fees and carried interest (a widely used profit sharing scheme), returns from private equity outperformed the S&P 500 by 3 per cent.
“So private equity is generating value somewhere, but its fee structure means the general partners capture double the out-performance they generate,” said Mr Gottschlag, who is also head of research at Peracs, an advisor to buy-out investors.

So yes, private equity is a profitable asset class…..for those that manage the private equity funds

Mr Gottschlag admitted that some private equity firms were consistently outperforming the stock market. But he was sceptical about the number of buy-out funds that say they are “top-quartile” in performance rankings.

And private equity seems like Lake Wobegeon where everyone is above average the Professor states:
“I have never met a general partner who was not top-quartile. So I wonder where three-quarters of the industry is hiding,” he said.And remember the data used came before the current period of tight credit where private equity firms have had to walk away from deals due to limited or expensive financing.