In an article published in Financial Investigator on 30 September, 2025, Evan Clark, Senior Private Market Analyst at EDHEC Infrastructure & Private Assets Research Institute (EIPA), presents the key findings from a recent Scientific Infra & Private Assets (SIPA) report entitled ‘What is the Private Equities Market? And how different is it from public equities?’ which establishes that there are significant differences between the private and public equities space. Public markets have far fewer companies (48k vs ~1 million+) relative to the private equities market, while the median and mean size and profitability is greater than observed in private markets. This has implications when comparing returns and risk across the two markets:

“The private equities market is a very large market with its own set of players and characteristics. This has implications for asset pricing and benchmarking performance. Institutions that continue to rely on referencing public equities returns against private equities returns, risk conflating two markets with different dynamics. This has the potential to mislead constituents and beneficiaries regarding the true risk-adjusted performance.”

🔗 Read the full article.

🔗 Read the report.