Is there value in listed private equity?

Peter McKellar, coordinating partner and CIO of SL Capital Partners and manager of the Standard Life European Private Equity trust, on the prospects for this unloved sector.

In terms of annualised return, over the past 15 years the listed private equity sector has outperformed quoted equities by 3.8%, lending weight to the argument for investors staying the course with listed private equity. These figures also demonstrate the long term performance potential of the sector. Despite this, in recent years the industry has faced a number of headwinds. Following the global downturn in 2008, share price discounts to the net asset value (NAV) of the listed vehicles’ underlying assets widened materially. This was partly due to specific issues relating to investmen...