Resources
The industry already knows.
Surveys and research from the industry's own institutions on diligence and data quality. Every number links to its source.
CFA Institute · 2024
Private markets: governance issues rise to the fore
Across 848 surveyed members, the frequency and accuracy of valuation reporting is the #1 private-markets concern; comparability of performance measures is #2.
Data quality
State Street · 2025
Private markets and the data revolution (~500 institutions)
Institutions report waiting up to five or six months for a quarter's data, while back offices still transpose numbers from PDFs into spreadsheets by hand.
Operational drag
Accenture · 2024
It's time to rethink private equity due diligence
83% of PE respondents believe their current due-diligence approach has substantial room for improvement; 90% agree better diligence drives value.
Operational drag
DiligenceVault · 2026
2025-26 Global Manager Survey (780+ firms, 78 countries)
70% of the industry is still tethered to the “digital gravity” of shared drives and Word documents.
Institutional memory
Coller Capital · 2024
Global Private Capital Barometer, 41st edition
63% of LPs say the exit timelines their GPs communicate feel optimistic; 91% support introducing exit committees.
Data quality
S&P Global · 2025
S&P, Cambridge Associates and Mercer form a private-markets data consortium
Three incumbents pooled forces because fragmented data and inconsistent reporting standards are limiting informed investment decisions.
Standardization
ILPA · 2025
Reporting Template v2.0 & new Performance Template
The refreshed industry-standard templates apply to funds still investing in Q1 2026 or commencing operations after January 1, 2026.
Standardization
Mercer · 2025
Bridging the data gap: the core of private market intelligence
Most private-markets data still comes from public sources: often outdated, delayed by two or more quarters, and not fit for real-time decisions.
Data quality
Brown, Gredil & Kaplan (NBER) · 2016
Do private equity funds manipulate reported returns?
Some under-performing managers boost reported returns exactly when fundraising takes place.
Data quality
Jenkinson, Sousa & Stucke · 2013
How fair are the valuations of private equity funds?
Interim valuations are inflated during fundraising, and performance figures reported while fundraising have little power to predict ultimate returns.
Data quality
Ercan, Kaplan & Strebulaev (NBER) · 2025
Interim valuations, predictability, and outcomes in private equity
Stale marks and repeated markdowns predict poor future performance, visible as early as the first year.
Data quality
Phalippou (Oxford Saïd) · 2020
An inconvenient fact: private equity returns & the billionaire factory
PE funds have returned about the same as public equity indices since at least 2006, while collecting an estimated $230B in carry.
Fees
Accelex + FactSet · 2025
Fund administrators struggle with private-markets data
55% of fund administrators call data acquisition and governance their primary operational challenge; large admins run six different core systems.
Operational drag
Allvue Systems · 2026
2026 GP Outlook Survey (102 firms)
44% of portfolio managers identify benchmarking datasets as a top technology need.
Benchmarking
Ocorian · 2026
Private markets fundraising: key trends shaping 2026
56% of 300 senior PE executives rate investor-reporting requirements as extremely challenging.
Operational drag
CFA Institute · 2025
Private markets: transparency will define the next stage
24% of investment professionals see substantial problems in valuation reporting, and the standardized reporting template is only half-adopted.
Standardization
Aztec Group / Private Funds CFO · 2026
Private-markets reporting: how GPs are adapting
72% of GPs believe their LPs value clear, timely and accurate reporting above all, and reporting tops the 2026 outsourcing list.
Operational drag
Cambridge Associates · 2014
A framework for benchmarking private investments
80 to 90% of funds land in at least three different quartiles over their lives; early top-quartile labels mean little.
Benchmarking
Harris & Stucke (SSRN) · 2012
Are too many private equity funds top quartile?
Modest, defensible variations in method (vendor, vintage definition, metric) let as many as half of all funds claim top-quartile status.
Benchmarking
Harris, Jenkinson, Kaplan & Stucke (NBER) · 2020
Has persistence persisted in private equity?
Using only information available at fundraising, buyout funds show little or no performance persistence post-2000; venture capital persistence remains.
Benchmarking
MSCI (Burgiss) · 2024
Inflating returns with subscription lines of credit
For recent buyout and real-estate vintages, the median subscription line inflated reported IRRs by roughly 100 basis points.
Data quality
CEM Benchmarking · 2015
The case for standardized total cost disclosure in private equity
Estimated total direct LP costs for private equity were 3.82%, while reported management fees were only 1.8%.
Fees
Intapp, citing BCG · 2022
The importance of institutional knowledge management in PE
A large fund could see a net impact of $100M annually just from managing its knowledge more effectively.
Institutional memory
Deloitte · 2025
2025 GenAI in M&A survey (1,000 leaders)
86% of organizations have integrated GenAI into M&A workflows; 35% of adopters apply it to due diligence.
AI adoption
Panopto · 2018
Workplace knowledge and productivity report
The average large US business loses $47M a year to inefficient knowledge sharing; 42% of institutional knowledge is unique to the individual.
Institutional memory
Jefferies · 2026
2025 Global Secondary Market Review: another record-breaking year
Secondary volume hit a record $240 billion in 2025. LP portfolios sold at 87% of NAV on average.
Secondaries
Coller Capital · 2026
Global Private Capital Barometer, 44th edition
67% of LPs expect AI to widen the gap between the best and worst funds. Only 22% see it as a source of outperformance.
AI adoption
Coller Capital · 2025
Global Private Capital Barometer, 42nd edition
54% of LPs expect to buy or sell private equity stakes on the secondary market within two years.
Secondaries
Coller Capital · 2024
Global Private Capital Barometer, 40th edition
86% of LPs plan a first commitment to a new manager within the next one to two years.
Due diligence
Preqin, via Institutional Investor · 2022
Investors are more likely to walk away over transparency
59% of investors say better fund transparency would improve alignment with GPs. Only 40% worry about the level of management fees.
Fees
ILPA · 2025
How we got here: the effort behind ILPA's new reporting standards
ILPA's 2016 reporting template sits at about 50% adoption. Nearly 70% of consultation participants plan to adopt the new version.
Standardization
Nadauld, Sensoy, Vorkink & Weisbach (NBER) · 2016
The liquidity cost of private equity investments: evidence from secondary market transactions
Buyers of PE fund stakes beat sellers by about 5 percentage points a year, a gap linked to asymmetric information.
Secondaries
Da Rin & Phalippou (Journal of Financial Intermediation) · 2017
The importance of size in private equity: evidence from a survey of limited partners
On average a quarter of an LP's investment committee left within five years. At one in four LPs, turnover topped 40%.
Institutional memory
State Street · 2024
Private Markets Survey: macro challenges not dampening demand (480 institutions)
Almost 80% of surveyed investors want one central platform for their public and private asset data.
Data quality
Mercer · 2026
Moving beyond the AI pitch: asset managers' use of AI
69% of asset managers name data quality and access as the main barrier to using more AI.
AI adoption
Cavagnaro, Sensoy, Wang & Weisbach (NBER) · 2016
Measuring institutional investors' skill from their investments in private equity
Some LPs pick funds consistently better than others. One standard deviation more skill adds about 3 percentage points of return.
Due diligence
Stanford GSB (Begenau & Siriwardane) · 2022
What public pensions pay when they chase private equity
Pensions in the same fund pay different fees, with management fees 0.91% apart on average. The gap adds up to $19 billion across the sample.
Fees
Phalippou, Rauch & Umber (Journal of Financial Economics) · 2018
Private equity portfolio company fees
GPs charged the portfolio companies they control $20 billion in fees, over 6% of the equity they invested.
Fees
MSCI · 2025
Preserving the past: the case for frozen indexes in private assets
Even 90 days after quarter end, only about 80% of fund valuations have been reported. Q4 runs about 30 days later.
Benchmarking
MSCI · 2026
Before the write-off: fundamental signals and valuation lags in buyout
In buyouts that ended in write-offs, marks held at cost for roughly 8 quarters after earnings started falling.
Data quality
Cambridge Associates · 2017
Are private equity returns doomed?
In any given vintage year, top-quartile PE funds beat bottom-quartile funds by 1,400 basis points on average.
Due diligence
Lu, Mullally & Ray (Wharton Pension Research Council) · 2022
Paying for performance in public pension plans
The average public pension CIO stays 6.33 years. CIO turnover predicts weaker future performance.
Institutional memory
Pew Charitable Trusts · 2016
Making state pension investments more transparent
37% of the 73 largest state pension plans reported 10-year returns before deducting manager fees.
Fees
Northern Trust · 2026
Asset Owners in Focus: Global Asset Owner Peer Study 2026
71% of 181 asset owners rank efficiency and automation as a top operational challenge. 57% cite data integration.
Operational drag
FCA (UK Financial Conduct Authority) · 2025
Private market valuation practices
Only 70% of firms in the UK regulator's review said they follow the IPEV valuation guidelines. Most skipped ad hoc revaluations during shocks such as COVID.
Standardization
ESG Data Convergence Initiative · 2026
ESG Data Convergence Initiative (EDCI)
More than 400 GPs and LPs back one standard set of ESG metrics. About 10,000 companies now sit in the shared benchmark.
Standardization
IMF · 2024
Global Financial Stability Report: the rise and risks of private credit
Private credit grew to about $2.1 trillion in 2023. The IMF flags stale and potentially subjective valuations as a vulnerability.
Data quality
EY · 2024
2024 EY Global Alternative Fund Survey
Only 31% of institutional investors are sure their managers use AI. Yet 42% say adopting it should bring lower fees.
AI adoption
BNY + Stanford (SLTI) · 2025
Tech-driven alpha in private markets
Alternatives arrive as nonstandard documents and unstructured data. 44% of surveyed asset owners run three to five systems to handle them.
Operational drag
Korteweg & Sørensen (Journal of Financial Economics) · 2017
Skill and luck in private equity performance
Top-quartile PE firms are expected to beat bottom-quartile firms by 7 to 8 percentage points a year. Noisy results make them hard to spot in advance.
Benchmarking
