Knowledge Base
Investment platforms, performance tracking, portfolio analytics, and the infrastructure for managing a serious investment portfolio.
54 articles in this category — page 3 of 5
The MSCI Materiality Map identifies which ESG factors carry financial weight for companies within specific industries. It covers 35 ESG key issues grouped across 10 themes and three pillars (Environmental, Social, Governance), with weightings that shift substantially by GICS sub-industry. Carbon emi
MSCI Inc. is the infrastructure layer beneath trillions of dollars in global investment decisions. Founded in 1969 as Morgan Stanley Capital International, it provides the indices, analytics, ESG ratings, and real assets benchmarks that institutional investors use to construct portfolios, measure pe
NAV in private equity is the fund's total asset value minus its liabilities, divided by outstanding LP units. That formula is simple. What sits inside it is not. For anyone allocating $5M or more to a single fund, understanding how that number gets constructed, reported, and occasionally massaged is
Private equity performance improvement is the systematic process of increasing a portfolio company's enterprise value through operational, financial, and strategic changes during the holding period. For LP investors, understanding how this works separates funds that generate genuine alpha from those
Top quartile private equity returns are not a vague aspiration. They are a specific, measurable threshold that separates funds worth your illiquidity premium from those that merely justify their existence. According to Cambridge Associates quarterly benchmark data, top quartile buyout funds have his
PCAP, short for Partner's Capital Account, is the ledger record that tracks each partner's economic interest in a private equity fund from first close to final distribution. It captures every capital call, distribution, profit allocation, loss, management fee, and carried interest charge attributabl
Sidecar private equity is a co-investment structure where an investor commits capital to a specific deal or dedicated vehicle alongside an established general partner, outside the main fund. The investor gets direct exposure to individual transactions, typically at reduced fees, while the GP retains
Venture capital returns follow a power law so extreme that the asset class barely resembles a conventional investment. Top-quartile funds have generated net IRRs of 20 to 30 percent or more over 10-year horizons, according to Cambridge Associates. But median funds have frequently underperformed a si
IRR in venture capital is the discount rate that sets the net present value of all fund cash flows to zero. That definition is technically correct and practically incomplete. For limited partners allocating capital to VC funds, IRR is the primary performance metric you will see in quarterly reports,
The MSCI World Index ETF is a straightforward vehicle: one trade buys you exposure to roughly 1,500 large and mid-cap stocks across 23 developed markets. But if you already hold a concentrated US equity position through RSUs, a domestic-heavy taxable account, or employer stock, the diversification b
Venture capital returns by stage vary more than most allocation frameworks acknowledge. Seed funds targeting top-quartile performance have historically generated net IRRs that substantially exceed late-stage vehicles over 10- and 15-year horizons, according to Cambridge Associates benchmark data. Bu
Private equity benchmarking determines whether your fund manager is earning their carry or just riding a market cycle. For investors allocating $2M–$5M+ per fund commitment, the spread between top-quartile and median managers often exceeds 500–800 basis points in net IRR. That gap is not academic. I