The Problem with Private Markets
3/26/20261 hr 2 min
In this episode, we unpack the growing tension in private markets—private equity, private credit, and private real estate—and examine whether their long-standing appeal holds up under scrutiny. With increasing pressure to bring these investments to retail investors, the discussion explores how illiquidity, valuation opacity, and complex fee structures may be masking risks rather than reducing them. We break down how private assets are marketed, why their "smooth" returns may be misleading, and what recent events—like gated funds and forced asset sales—reveal about their true risk profile.
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First 90 secondsBenjamin Felix· Host0:00
[upbeat music] This is the Rational Reminder Podcast, a weekly reality check on sensible investing and financial decision-making from three Canadians. We are hosted by me, Benjamin Felix, Chief Investment Officer, Dan Bortolotti, portfolio manager, and Ben Wilson, head of M&A at PWL Capital.
Ben Wilson· Host0:17
Good to be back. This is episode four oh two, where we're talking about the private markets or the problems with private markets, which is a pretty interesting topic and has been a hot topic in news headlines recently.
Benjamin Felix· Host0:29
Good to be back recording with you guys. We haven't recorded an episode like this in quite a while. We had a, a long string of guest episodes. Good to be back.
Dan Bortolotti· Host0:38
Good to be here.
Benjamin Felix· Host0:39
Before we jump into the private markets content, I did wanna just address something. I've had a couple conversations recently where people had no idea what PWL does, which to us is a little bit concerning because we do expend a lot of energy creating content and putting ourselves in the public eye so that people know who we are and know to reach out to us if they're looking for the services that we provide. So when people don't know what we do, it's kinda like, oh, we should probably make sure people know of what it is that we do. In both of these cases, these people thought that PWL only does asset management, and they'd kinda written us off as an option for what they were looking for, which was more of a holistic wealth management type service, because they thought we only did asset management. I just wanted to mention up front here that PWL is a wealth management firm. We do manage investment portfolios using low-cost index funds and dimensional funds. But as discretionary