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Article: Mandate Research: Asset Allocation - Private equity - Once bitten, twice shy.
- Article from:
- Financial Times Mandate
- Article date:
- April 21, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 FT Business. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Although private equity has a long history, the majority of European institutional investors who have an exposure today entered the asset class less than five years ago. Given the long-term, illiquid nature of private equity, most of these investors have still to see the returns promised to them.
Their enthusiasm for the newly discovered asset class is challenged by early write downs, which were significant in 2001 and 2002 and largely due to venture capital and leveraged buyout funds with large telecom investments. Of course, it is too early to make predictions about the ultimate returns but the most recent vintages, in particular 1999 and 2000, are expected to ...