| > These aren't mom-and-pop organizations buying penny stocks, they are some of the most sophisticated investors out there Agreed, but they're facing KKR and Apollo, who are even more sophisticated. PE is a small proportion of CALPERS portfolio. They can't be the top expert everywhere, and they can't be better at PE than PE firms. > They turn down investments all time because they don't make sense. But can they turn down a whole asset class? > If you have a product with high demand and low supply, you can set the terms. It's a sellers market Maybe we can agree that PE firms are not competing enough on the liabilities side, which makes it difficult for institutional investors to negotiate fees down? > I have a hard time feeling sorry for highly sophisticated investors complaining about the terms of an investment they had complete free will over investing or not. To me that sounds like the typical free market fallacy, "no reason to complain or ask for regulation because you can just buy the product elsewhere if you're unhappy". Sure, that works fine when there's enough competition, but I'm not convinced it's the case in PE. |