2020 prediction – SWFs and pensions
will become more sophisticated
Sovereign wealth funds and public pensions financed private equity for years before they began co-investing in deals alongside their GPs. Though the trend is well publicized, the practice is still rare overall. Pension funds co-invest in about 2% of all US deals while SWFs contribute to less than 1%. Predictably those percentages go up for much larger deals, with 12.3% of $1B+ transactions involving either pensions or SWFs.