SBAI Podcast

Podcast Episode 25: Private Markets, Data and the Search for Transparency

Episode Notes

Ashley Lester, Chief Research & Development Officer at MSCI, joins Brian Digney to explore one of the biggest challenges facing private markets today: data. Drawing on a career spanning central banking, academia and senior investment roles at Morgan Stanley, Schroders and MSCI, Ashley explains why private market investing depends on better information, greater transparency and more consistent reporting.

The conversation examines how investors evaluate private equity and private credit when valuations are subjective, disclosure is inconsistent and liquidity is limited. Ashley discusses MSCI's unique private markets data set, what decades of research reveal about long-term private equity returns, and why academic research is playing an increasingly important role in shaping industry best practice.

Brian and Ashley also look ahead to the future of private markets, discussing valuation standards, private credit risks, the growing importance of wealth investors, and how better data and analytics could transform investment decision-making over the next decade. It's an insightful discussion on the evolution of private markets and why transparency is becoming one of the industry's most valuable assets.

Key takeaways include:

Private markets remain significantly less transparent than public markets, making high-quality cash-flow, valuation and underlying portfolio data critical to informed investment decisions.
MSCI research finds that private equity has generated meaningful long-term excess returns over public markets, although some of that performance can be explained by factors such as leverage, size and industry exposure.
Valuation and liquidity are becoming increasingly important as private markets expand beyond traditional institutional investors into wealth and defined contribution portfolios.
Private credit has produced attractive historical returns, but limited disclosure and the absence of a full credit-cycle test remain important areas of uncertainty for investors.
Greater standardisation of data, combined with analytics that bring public and private assets together on a like-for-like basis, could significantly reshape private market portfolio management over the next decade.

Whether you are an institutional investor, asset manager, private markets professional or investment consultant, this episode offers a detailed examination of how data, transparency and analytics are changing the way investors understand private equity, private credit and the wider private markets landscape.

About the SBAI:

We are an active alliance of asset managers and allocators dedicated to responsible practice, partnership and knowledge. We do this by setting Standards, providing industry guidance and facilitating collaboration and exchange of ideas through our community of over 250 institutional investors and asset manager signatories responsible for approximately US$11 trillion in assets.

For more information, visit www.sbai.org.