Private Equity Vanguard - Bogleheads.org

Harbourvest appears to offer something called Fund of Funds or something like it; is this what’s meant by “fund of funds?” I believe these may not be like Vanguard funds and ETFs because mutual funds provide daily liquidity while ETFs offer minute-by-minute liquidity compared with them both. If your online statement indicates your holdings are worth $12,345 you can feel assured in selling them quickly or within hours, realizing close to that amount in cash – anytime of day or night – without incurring penalties from sellers or broker fees. Private equity is typically only sold to wealthy investors due to illiquid investments that cannot be sold quickly, which restricts who it can appeal to. My opinion on Vanguard offering private equity holds no weight whatsoever as I consider myself more of a Boglehead than Vanguardhead; neither class can compare in terms of passive investing experience; private equity being an unwieldy form of investing where no tangible indices or passive products exist for it’s exposure, making trusting their declared valuation of your holding difficult at best (when holding investments are declared), or category statistics or so called indexes.” Everything I have read about private equity (PE), even from boosters, warns me about its reliance on individual fund manager skill and results may vary significantly between funds; so having personal judgment ability in selecting successful firms will likely pay dividends.” * “** All my reading about PE was warning: it all depends on an individual fund manager being skilled enough. Impressive returns seen among “best” firms may not necessarily apply elsewhere and the success depends entirely on personal judgement ability rather than statistics.” Discussion surrounding private equity has long raged around its distinction from (public) small-cap value investing. Even asking this question should give us cause for alarm, given how readily available and cheap small-cap value investments are through mutual funds and ETFs with daily liquidity and protections afforded under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Private equity must offer something very different – and better still! One skeptical argument can be found here: Private Equity: No Clothes Available for Wear. But stock market investing serves a social good by supporting profitable businesses that create value. What evidence supports private equity as being beneficial for anyone other than investors? I know one must exist somewhere – perhaps successful examples exist of struggling companies being saved through private equity investment and now have healthy, growing businesses? There must be examples, but none come to mind that are particularly impactful; rather, I recall companies like Toys-R-Us that became troubled following acquisition by PE firms as examples. *Indices exist for everything today, yet their accuracy depends on how the market value is determined. An annual income of twenty pounds with expenses totalling nineteen nineteen six equaling happiness; or twenty pounds income and twenty six spending results in misery are examples.