Investors Push for Transparency in the Private Markets Curtain

Financial‑market data has emerged as gold in the murky realm of private assets. Institutional investors—including pension funds, university endowments and insurers—are demanding clearer visibility into the once‑opaque world of private equity and private credit funds. To meet that demand, major firms on Wall Street are racing to acquire private‑asset data platforms: for example, S&P Global recently agreed to purchase With Intelligence for about $1.8 billion, while BlackRock in March acquired Preqin for $3.2 billion. Despite the appetite, reliable data remains limited. Unlike public markets—where stocks and bonds are rigorously reported and benchmarked—private‑asset managers typically disclose only quarterly return summaries, often anonymized, making apples‑to‑apples comparisons difficult. For example, major benchmarks from firms such as MSCI and Cambridge Associates rely on aggregated, anonymised fund returns, complicating performance attribution and cross‑fund due diligence. The timing of this push is notable: many private‑equity funds trailed public equities in 2023 and 2024, and some managers are under scrutiny following fraud allegations in their private‑credit portfolios. One large pension‑fund CIO, for instance, admitted frustration at being unable to pinpoint which sectors caused under‑performance in its $15 billion private‑equity book. For Wall Street data firms, this represents a clear profit opportunity. Subscriptions to private‑fund benchmarks and data analytics can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually—higher if retail investors begin to flood into alternatives and demand more transparent products. The stakes are high: democratizing private markets hinges on better data, but also challenges long‑standing business models built on secrecy. #PrivateMarkets #DataTransparency #AlternativeAssets #WallStreetInnovation #SlimScan #GrowthStocks #CANSLIM