Private markets. Higher returns not a sure thing

Having spent over 20 years investing in alternative assets for large institutional investors, I would like to highlight several crucial points that were not mentioned in the article "Private markets may open doors to Singapore retail investors" (April 26).

- Yeo Chee Kean

Unlike public market funds—commonly known as unit trusts in Singapore—which tend to track benchmarks closely, private market fund returns vary significantly. For instance, 2007 vintage private equity funds delivered internal rate of returns (IRR) of between 20 per cent (top quartile) and 0 per cent (meaning investors would have lost money after fees).

This underscores the importance of fund selection. Unfortunately, top-performing funds are often oversubscribed and rarely accessible to individual investors through banks or fintech platforms.