EDHEC Infrastructure and Private Assets Day 2025 will take place on 9 December in London, bringing together leading academics and industry experts to share the latest research and insights on unlisted assets.

The event offers a unique opportunity to deepen understanding of private markets, explore cutting-edge methodologies, and discuss their implications for portfolio construction and risk management.

The intellectually rigorous programme, designed to advance both theory and practice in private asset investment, will include the following themes:

Private Asset Valuations – Why They Matter

• Beyond compliance: valuations drive asset understanding and allocation
• Critical for all investor types: DC & DB pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds
• Ensure transparency, comparability, and better decision-making
• Link portfolio strategy to reality through timely valuations
• Mitigate risk by reducing information gaps and valuation lags
• Support trust and accountability with stakeholders
• Practical takeaways: why staying current is essential and how investors benefit

Term Structure of Risk in Private Assets

• Understand how risk evolves with time in private markets — and why horizons change everything
• Learn why short-term volatility can mislead, and what longer horizons reveal about stability
• See how horizon-dependent risk shapes portfolio design and asset allocation decisions
• Discover why fees, illiquidity, and risk aversion matter more for private assets than for listed markets
• Gain tools to explain private market risks and returns clearly to boards, clients, and stakeholders

Private Asset Secondaries, What to Watch For

• Why secondaries are reshaping private markets
• The risks and opportunities driving today’s deals
• What investors need to know before stepping in

Moving the Goalposts or Better Measurement?
How North American pensions design, tweak, and sometimes reset their benchmarks — and what that means for investors

• Spot the benchmark type: policy portfolio vs. reference portfolio vs. asset-class benchmarks (PE/infra/real estate)
• Read the signals: how and why benchmarks change (ALM cycles, risk tolerance, transparency drives) vs. changes that look like underperformance cover
• Diagnose incentives: how benchmark design affects manager behaviour, fees, reported “value-add,” and governance

Market Pricing of Risk in Private Equities: Evidence from Factor Models

• Systematic differences in average pricing of observed transactions by risk factors
• What discount rates (expected returns) do transactions imply? Is there an illiquidity premium?
• Can a simple factor model explain private equity prices?
• How can bid-ask spreads capture valuation uncertainty?
• What portion of prices is systematic vs. idiosyncratic?

View the full programme.

Secure your place now below!