Private Markets Investing

Debt & Equity = Balance (true for the public market & true in the private market) WSJ reported that Private Equity funds face mounting/prolonged exits. In contrast, private credit offers a more deterministic return profile given contractual coupon payments, with amortization, and defined maturity dates, which delivers relatively consistent DPI (Distributions to Paid-In), IRR and MOIC calculations. Top-quartile PE managers will distinguish themselves from the crowd as they will deliver strong returns that is truly value-added. Those who are not performing as well will seek extensions, multi-asset continuation vehicles, and fee drag until the “frozen M&A environment” re-opens. The WSJ article highlights $668B stuck in aging PE funds (some now lasting 15 years), whereas direct lenders can pay dividends, recycle capital, or return the capital to their investors as loans mature or prepay. The efficiency and more predictable cash flows of Private Credit is crucial for LPs managing duration and liquidity. PE investors (including pensions and insurance companies) are re-allocating a portion of their alternative investment portfolio towards private credit due this predictable cash flows, lower volatility, and shorter duration. The critical point to realize is that Private Equity and Private Credit work together, it is the perfect balance to optimize your diversified portfolio: Private Equity provides upside through capital appreciation and operational value creation, while Private Credit delivers steady income, downside protection, and predictable cash flows. Together, they complement each other—equity drives growth, credit provides stability—creating a resilient, all-weather private markets allocation for institutional investors. Manager selection is critical in private markets, as top-quartile managers consistently drive most of the value creation. In both private equity and credit, dispersion is wide—making access to proven managers the key determinant of returns.

Investment Opportunities in Climate Adaptation and Resilience 🌎 Climate change is intensifying physical risks across regions and sectors, placing climate adaptation and resilience (A&R) at the center of global strategic priorities. While mitigation addresses emissions, A&R solutions tackle the immediate and long-term risks to infrastructure, economies, and communities. Investment in Climate A&R remains at an early stage despite its scale and urgency. The BCG and Temasek report projects global A&R financing needs of $0.5 trillion to $1.3 trillion per year by 2030. This presents a significant opportunity for private capital to drive both financial returns and systemic resilience. The Climate Adaptation & Resilience Investment Opportunities Map provides a framework to assess where capital can be most effectively deployed. It structures opportunities into seven impact themes and offers a granular view of subsectors and solutions across industries. Investors will find diverse entry points—from early-stage ventures focusing on pure-play A&R innovations to established industrial players integrating resilience solutions into broader portfolios. This dual landscape enables a mix of venture, growth, and buyout strategies tailored to different risk appetites. Adaptation markets are inherently localized. Flood defense strategies, water efficiency technologies, and agricultural resilience solutions vary by geography, creating fragmented but scalable market opportunities that respond to specific climate risks and regulatory frameworks. The report highlights the importance of co-benefits. Nature-based solutions, for example, deliver protective functions while enhancing biodiversity and ecological health. At the same time, material-intensive interventions require careful scrutiny to balance resilience gains with environmental impacts. To capitalize on these trends, investors will need to navigate sectors where regulation, insurance incentives, and risk disclosure frameworks are evolving rapidly. Competitive advantages will accrue to those with deep technical expertise and the ability to scale proven solutions across markets. The Climate Adaptation & Resilience Investment Map identifies seven key impact themes: - Food Resilience - Infrastructure Resilience - Health Resilience - Business and Community Resilience - Water Resilience - Energy Resilience - Biodiversity Resilience Climate adaptation is shaping a new investment frontier, where value creation is tied directly to long-term societal and economic stability. #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange

Alastair Marsh's recent thought-provoking piece in @Bloomberg highlights critical challenges with the current climate tech investing landscape Climate tech projects are capital-intensive with long timelines. Unlike software, much of climate tech requires massive upfront capital for R&D, pilot plants, and manufacturing before significant revenue. This demands longer development and deployment cycles (often 7+ years to scale) that exceed typical 5-7 year VC exit horizons. The classic VC model - built for rapid, asset-light scale-ups - often misaligns with the realities of many climate tech solutions, especially "hard tech." While there’s an abundance of early-stage VC capital for entrepreneurs, later-stage growth that bridges these projects from venture to infrastructure stage is basically absent—that’s called the missing middle. We need to adapt and supplement that approach by layering in other types of capital and bridge the "missing middle." A broader array of financing instruments is essential for climate tech to scale, including patient equity and growth capital, project finance, blended finance, and specialized debt models. Marsh’s piece lays out how family offices are uniquely positioned to be catalyzing players in this space. Their flexibility allows them to deploy capital across diverse segments, filling the gap and driving significant financial returns alongside impact. https://lnkd.in/gUf85Bwy

Private credit isn’t just booming, it’s basically Logan Roy in Succession trying to take over everything in sight. I’ve been flagging for a while how life insurers are charging into private credit, but this new Chicago Fed paper spells it out: 👉 Private placements doubled in a decade, hitting $849B in 2024 and are now 14% of insurer balance sheets. 👉 PE-owned insurers are the real power players, leaning into financial firms + privately placed ABS. 👉 Why? The juice! 80–150 bps more than public bonds. 👉 And the payoff? Outsized growth in indexed annuities, where higher yields translate into bigger market share. It all feels like a strategy Logan Roy would use on Succession. Use the balance sheet as “permanent capital,” squeeze out more yield, then dominate the product market. But it also leaves insurers far more entangled with the rest of the financial system. (It's giving shadow bank energy, but make it annuities.) As I’ve said before, this isn’t a side plot. This is one of the (if not the most important) main arcs in the industry right now. And this paper shows just how central insurers have become to the private credit story. What could possibly go wrong? Full read here: https://lnkd.in/eKXQSsMm

I'm happy to share the release of the #WiSER White Paper, "Igniting a Global Sustainable Economy," following the impactful discussions at the WiSER Annual Forum during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week - ADSW 2025. This report highlights the critical role of female entrepreneurs in driving climate solutions and provides actionable strategies to bridge gender gaps in finance, scalability, AI, mentorship, and accessibility—especially for women in the Global South. Why This Matters: Women-led ventures are key to unlocking innovation in sustainability, yet systemic barriers persist. This paper outlines 5 recommendations: 🔹 Increase Gender-Focused Investment : Boost funding, financial literacy, and microloans for female-led climate projects. 🔹 Scale Women-Led Ventures : Streamline policies and partnerships to accelerate growth. 🔹 Harness AI & Digital Tools: Bridge the AI literacy and access gap to empower business expansion. 🔹 Strengthen Mentorship and Networking: Build cross-sector collaborations to provide women with the resources to succeed. 🔹 Empower Women in the Global South : Address legal and financial barriers, invest in STEM education, and improve access to markets and resources. Dive into the full report below or on Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company)’s website for insights on turning these strategies into action: https://lnkd.in/dyAFPEP2 Thanks again to my fellow roundtable participants: Lawratou Bah, CFA, Mirella Amalia Vitale, Natasha Shenoy, Hajar Alketbi, Manal B., Mariam Alnaqbi, Shaima Al Mulla

A meager 2% of VC capital is invested in female-founded companies.  
Many people I know are working hard to highlight the funding gap between male and female-led companies, exploring the root causes, and proposing actionable solutions, including my colleagues, Teresa Wells, CFA Kate Nevin Lenore Champagne Beirne Research shows: 🚩Female-founded companies command only 7% of VC deal counts 🚩Teams with both male and female co-founders receive just 14.2% 🚩Only 2% of VC dollars were invested in female founded companies  🚩Women received just 11.4% of the total Small Business 504 Loans Yet: Rogue Women’s Fund Stats (as of 2020): Women led companies have 63% higher returns over 10 years period and invest up to 90% back to community and family. The Root Causes Identified: ➡️ Women are underrepresented in VC decision-making roles (just 11% of VC partners are women) ➡️ Childcare is unaffordable – 46% of women left jobs in 2021 for this reason ➡️ Women with higher VC positions in at male dominated firms protect their status by backing male biases ➡️ Gender stereotype and display of more feminine behavior (practicality) during pitches is viewed as lacking vision, while overinflated pitches and numbers are rewarded. Harvard Business School 2017 Pitch Study ➡️ Antiquated small business lending diligence biased against women. United States Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee 
 Proposed Strategies for Change:  ✅Raise awareness of the statistics above - go see the Show Her The Money documentary! ✅Get more women into VC investor roles  ✅Change the way diligence is done to address biases ✅ Create different fund structures that accommodate venture, private equity and debt ✅Promote networking opportunities through organizations like WOMEN IN TECH®- Global Movement @womenfundwomen ✅Help more women pursue careers in STEM and higher education 
Shoutout and thank you to the amazing women and their male allies who are doing this work and believe we can invest in the female operators to increase our global economy. #womeninbusiness #diversityinvc #venturecapital #privateequity #smb

How I hope the #iwd2024 theme of ‘Count Her in: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress.’ meets action: >> BANISH THE GAP Every company with a gender pay gap – and we’re going to know most of your names in February when the Workplace Gender Equality Agency publishes the data – closes it by Dec 2024. >> MEN AS ALLIES More men actively mentor, sponsor and champion their female counterparts so those women can progress their careers/businesses faster. More men step in when they see discrimination/bias/abuse, to take the load off women. >> FIX SYSTEMS, NOT WOMEN We banish any ‘fixing women’ discussions when talking about gender pay and retirement gaps, and instead focus on fixing systems. >> SHARE THE LOAD Every large company with an *extended unpaid* (usually 1-2 years) parenting leave option encourages dads to take it up, sending the clear message that unpaid caring work is to be shared between parents and is not just the domain of mums. >> SUPER ON PARENTING LEAVE Every big company follows the lead of those good folks who’ve done it already and opts to pay super on paid parenting leave for all parents. Do it now so you look good, before it’s a legislated requirement. >> VISIBLE ROLE MODELS Every education department in the country fixes the dearth of female role models in high school science curricula and textbooks per IncludeHer …then audits the same across all curricula and textbooks, and all year levels, fixing any gaps they find. >> SCALING FACTORS Grant providers acknowledge the gender pay gap’s impact on the ability to save matched funding and introduces a scaling factor to account for that handicap. >> ADJUST FOR BIAS Investors, including angels and VCs, use a personal checklist in all pitches to ensure that for every prevention (downside focused) question they ask a prospective female founder, they also ask *at least* one promotion (upside focused) question to adjust for bias. >> 10%+ VC TO FEMALE FOUNDERS Equity Clear publishing its members' investment-by-gender performance sparks massive action to get more investment into businesses led by female founders and teams, and the percentage of investment in those businesses exceeds 10% within a year. >> DAD + DAUGHTER MONEY CHATS I’d like every father to talk to their daughters about investing. How you do it, what the risks are, and how you manage them included. Don’t talk about their spending habits. Show them the power of compounding and let that motivate them to save. ------------- Notice how none of those are actions for women alone to do. I’m not saying I want women to be better savers and better investors. They are already good at those things. …they just need more income to save and invest. I’m not saying I want women to ask for more pay rises, or investment, or apply for more grants. They already do. …they’re just awarded them less often than men are. Let's fix it ALL. Pics with fab women: Kat Ross and Sandra Tuohy at Women in Technology WA Inc. (WiTWA)!

Al Gore's Just Climate fund raises $175M from Microsoft and CalSTRS to back climate startups #JustClimate, the climate-focused #VC firm backed by Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, has raised $175 million from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund and CalSTRS to accelerate nature-based climate investments. While climate finance has historically prioritized energy and transportation, Just Climate is shifting focus to natural solutions such as reforestation, biological fertilizers, and biodiversity protection technologies—critical areas that remain underfunded despite their potential to reverse emissions and restore ecosystems. This #fund expands Just Climate’s investment strategy beyond industrial climate solutions to include agriculture, forestry, and land-use change, which contribute to 15% of global emissions. The firm has already made its first investment, leading the Series B round for NatureMetrics, a company using eDNA technology to assess biodiversity. By directing capital towards restoration finance platforms and carbon verification technologies, Just Climate aims to bridge the gap in funding for nature-based solutions while delivering measurable climate impact. With major backing from institutional investors like Microsoft and CalSTRS, this fund signals a growing recognition that nature is a powerful—and investable—tool in the fight against climate change. The article on TechCrunch in the first comment.

Women, Wealth, and Impact… How Africa’s Largest Gender Smart Fund Directs Capital 🌍 This week, for Episode #156 of the Unlocking Africa Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Yewande Adewusi, Chief Operating Officer and Operating Principal at Alitheia Capital, a leading impact investment private equity firm currently managing Africa’s largest gender-smart fund. Yewande has had a varied career path, with roles as a Regional Director of Sub-Saharan Africa for BBC Global News and as an Executive Director at Tangerine Africa. These roles, coupled with Yewande’s strong background in financial services, particularly in fintech and digital financial inclusion, allow her to apply that experience to the companies they invest in. Alitheia Capital has been pioneering Africa’s venture capital and private equity space for over two decades. The company’s gender-led investing ethos is aligned with Yewande’s ambition to see capital going to women-led businesses, enabling them to scale and grow. Yewande spoke about intentionality and the importance of putting money into the hands of women because it makes sense and is not just a CSR tick box exercise. She elaborated on the definition Alitheia Capital uses to define gender-smart investing: ✅ Female-owned business 🙋♀️ ✅ Majority of women in senior management 👩💼 ✅ Making products and services women use 🛍️ ✅ Significant woman involvement throughout the value chain 🔄 Beyond financial backing, Alitheia Capital supports its portfolio companies with the recently introduced Nzinga Scale-Up Bootcamp. This initiative offers growth-ready SMEs a chance to enhance their technical capabilities in areas such as marketing, finance, strategy, and mentorship. What We Discuss With Yewande: 📢 How Alitheia Capital maintains a balance between financial returns and social impact, embodying their tagline, “true profit with a purpose.” 📢 The strategic priority of gender-lens investing at Alitheia Capital and the impactful results achieved through this focus. 📢 Alitheia Capital’s commitment to a long-term, patient capital approach and its focus on sustainable growth in a short-term-driven industry. 📢 The key factors and strategies Alitheia Capital uses to identify high-potential businesses and make investment decisions. #WomenEntrepreneurs #WomenEntrepreneurs #AlitheiaCapital #ImpactInvesting #PrivateEquity #Podcasting Don’t miss out on this insightful conversation - listen to the full episode by clicking the link in the comments now! 🎙️

𝐍𝐁𝐈𝐌’𝐬 𝐄𝐒𝐆 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲: 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠-𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞. I’ve been following Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) closely, and their approach to #ESG is a masterclass in long-term, risk-based investing. Managing $1.7 trillion, they don’t see ESG as a "nice-to-have,” they see it as a financial necessity. 🔹 1. 𝑬𝑺𝑮 𝒂𝒔 𝑹𝒊𝒔𝒌 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 NBIM holds 1.5% of global equities, meaning their returns are directly tied to how well the world economy handles #climatechange, #biodiversity loss, and #social #inequality. If companies ignore these risks, their valuations—and NBIM’s investments—suffer. 🔹2. 𝑪𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒏 (2022-2025) Their strategy is crystal clear: ✅ Push for net-zero by 2050 ✅ Engage with the 170 biggest emitters (responsible for 70% of portfolio emissions) ✅ Advocate for stronger climate policies 🔹 3. 𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑶𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑫𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 NBIM doesn’t just walk away from high-emission industries. Instead, they push for real change, meeting with 3,000+ companies in 2023 alone. But they’re not afraid to cut ties—150 companies have been dropped due to unsustainable business models. 🔹 4. 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑶𝒘𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 & 𝑪𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒗𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 They’re using their influence to: 📌 Vote on climate resolutions 📌 Push for science-based targets 📌 Invest in renewables & low-carbon tech 💡 While some investors shy away from ESG, NBIM is doubling down—because this isn’t about ideology, it’s about financial resilience. ❓ 𝖶𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝖽𝗈 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗄 𝗌𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗅𝖽 𝗂𝗇𝗏𝖾𝗌𝗍𝗈𝗋𝗌 𝗉𝗋𝗂𝗈𝗋𝗂𝗍𝗂𝗓𝖾 𝖾𝗇𝗀𝖺𝗀𝖾𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗈𝗋 𝖽𝗂𝗏𝖾𝗌𝗍𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗇 𝗍𝖺𝖼𝗄𝗅𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖤𝖲𝖦 𝗋𝗂𝗌𝗄𝗌? 𝖫𝖾𝗍’𝗌 𝖽𝗂𝗌𝖼𝗎𝗌𝗌. 👇