Private Markets, Unicorns, Meta, Web3 and More.

Boardroom Governance Newsletter #19 | November 1, 2021.

Photo by Paul Bill on Unsplash

“Perhaps the single most significant development in securities markets in the new millennium has been the explosive growth of private markets.” SEC Commissioner Allison Herren Lee.

On Oct 12th, SEC Commissioner Lee gave a speech calling for more transparency in the private markets. Her remarks pointed to some relevant data:

1. Per Morgan Stanley, more capital has been raised in these markets than in public markets each year for over a decade, with no signs of a change in the trend. “For example, companies raised $3.0 trillion in private markets and $1.5 trillion in public markets in 2017.”

2. Per McKinsey, global private equity AUM reached $4.5 trillion in the first half of 2020—growing 6% from year-end 2019, or an annualized 16.2% since 2015.

3. Per Vanguard, “[T]he asset size of the private equity market has been gradually growing on an absolute basis and relative to the public equity market over the last 20 years. Private equity has risen from 2% to 7% of total inv…