Cyril Demaria-Bengochea is Head of Private Market Strategy at Julius Baer, Associate Professor at EDHEC Business School, and the author of several leading books on private equity. He has also advised Invest Europe, ILPA, and the European Commission, which gives him a rare vantage point across academic evidence, investor governance, and the day-to-day realities of portfolio construction for private wealth.

In this conversation, Ross and Cyril pick apart what is really changing in private markets right now. Fundraising and exits may be slower, but innovation has accelerated, particularly in structures designed to connect institutional managers with the bespoke needs of private clients.

Hyper-novelty in private markets: innovation as a response to constraints

Cyril agrees innovation is native to the industry, but argues the current wave is also a rational response to market conditions: higher rates, slower exits, and more pressure to provide liquidity without forcing sales.

That dynamic has pushed tools like continuation funds and GP-led secondaries from specialist territory into mainstream portfolio management. It is not simply reinvention for its own sake. It is the industry adapting to a world where the old exit rhythms no longer apply.

Evergreen funds and the myth of “semi-liquid”

Cyril explains the core tension: evergreen can be a sensible answer to the complexity of closed-end cash flows, but it can also become pro-cyclical if investor behaviour turns herding and redemption pressure rises at precisely the wrong moment.

This is why he dislikes the term “semi-liquid”. If everyone can gate at the same time, the promise of liquidity becomes more marketing than reality. The real test for evergreen products is not the steady-state environment, it is how they behave during stress, when the best opportunities often appear and the worst time to become a forced seller arrives.

Listed private equity vs unlisted evergreen: liquidity, volatility and correlation

Ross makes the case that listed private equity vehicles can offer much of the same exposure as evergreen funds, with the benefits of public-market liquidity. Cyril’s response is a useful portfolio construction lesson. Listed vehicles bring stock-market noise, particularly discounts to NAV, and they tend to correlate strongly with broader equity indices.

Unlisted evergreen products, by contrast, can behave more like an “anchor” through smoother NAV progression, which can matter to clients who value predictability and lower mark-to-market volatility. The key point is not that one structure wins universally, but that the right choice depends on what the investor is optimising for: liquidity, stability, diversification, or simplicity.

Private credit: filling a void, not creating a new systemic bomb

On private credit, Cyril takes a measured view that avoids both complacency and sensationalism. Stress exists, particularly as rates stay higher and liability management exercises rise, but that does not automatically translate into a hidden reservoir of catastrophe. He also notes the governance dynamic that often gets missed: direct lenders hold their loans and live with outcomes, which can impose a different kind of discipline.

The information problem: why private share trading is not a “plumbing” issue

In private markets, information is expensive to produce and due diligence is deep. Trying to mimic public market trading without public market disclosure is, in Cyril’s view, an unhealthy direction of travel.

What the industry still needs to fix: transparency in evergreen

If private wealth is going to be a sustainable relay of growth, evergreen products need better transparency and more usable granularity for due diligence. Closed-end structures have well-developed data room discipline. Evergreen, by contrast, can be harder to analyse precisely because the investor base is wider and information often becomes more controlled.