Where does private-equity premium come from? Can private-equity performance be reproduced by leveraging up public-equity investments? What’s private equity’s outlook given that cheap borrowing is not expected to return in the foreseeable future? 

Getting a read on leverage in private-equity portfolio companies is key for institutional investors who want to better understand risk and return drivers. We examined trends over the past decade, comparing buyout companies to public small caps. 

When selecting private-credit funds, investors can often only consider broad strategies, due to the general opacity of the asset class. We draw on loan-level data and proprietary analytics to produce a more detailed picture of the direct-lending market. 

Tracking municipal-bond benchmarks can mean evaluating hundreds of thousands of securities along many dimensions, such as credit ratings. We evaluate an alternative, factor-model-based approach.