Trends in Private Markets 2024

Historically, institutional investors focused on positioning capital in public markets; but as yields from those traditional forms of investment fell following the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, asset management firms increasingly began to seek out alternatives in the form of private equity and debt, venture capital and real estate as a means of generating new growth. These growth funds began to show signs of maturity in 2022, reaching EUR 29bn over the course of the year, which was the second-highest-ever level of investment recorded in non-publicly traded assets and securities.

This report examines how regulators are now keen in 2024 to encourage higher levels of engagement with private markets for a wider audience of retail investors, along with likewise levels of transparency, and it shows how they are aware of some of the issues that traditionally held back liquidity growth. In doing so, many long-standing regulatory frameworks were recently updated.

Meanwhile, technology is also playing a transformative role in reshaping private capital markets, and GreySpark believes that digitialisation therein will continue to offer a range of benefits that include increased accessibility for sophisticated and unsophisticated investors alike. For example, distributed ledger technology enables a so-called golden record for transactions, enabling the tokenisation of assets, which can be split into fractionalised units of the underlying asset, making them more affordable for a wider group of investors, furthering the democratisation of private markets. Additionally, secondary market platforms are providing an avenue for private equity investors to make early exits, liquidate assets or readjust their portfolios.