, Columnist
Guess Where Harvard’s Private Equity Will Likely End Up
Financial advisers and retail investors are late to the PE party, but they're an attractive target all the same.
Exit Options.
Photographer: Sophie Park/Getty Images North AmericaImagine an institutional investor that allocates a big chunk of its portfolio to illiquid private assets but then needs to sell some of those investments to raise cash. Or a fund company that makes a fortune on actively managed mutual funds for decades, but its investors move their money to low-cost index trackers. Or a financial research company built around selling ratings of actively managed funds that people no longer buy.
Those may sound like three unrelated problems, but they all have a single solution, apparently: Sell private assets to financial advisers and unsuspecting retail investors.