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David Nowak, Brookfield

Brookfield’s field agents | David Nowak | Ep 80

David Nowak is President of Brookfield’s Private Equity Group. He leads Brookfield’s North American private equity business and its evergreen strategy, and brings a distinctly contrarian, operations-led perspective, shaped by more than a decade inside one of the industry’s most integrated investment platforms.

We explore how Brookfield identifies essential-service businesses that are misunderstood, how it deploys its information advantage across the broader Brookfield organisation, and why a dual-sponsorship model between investors and operators produces more repeatable value creation.

Contrarian by design: buying what others misread
Brookfield avoids thematic investing. Instead, the focus is on essential products and services where perceived risk diverges from actual risk. When everyone else is saying ‘climate change’ and renewables, they bet big on nuclear. When EVs make the combustion engine look uninvestable, they think outside the box.

One deal, two owners: the pilot / co-pilot model
Every investment has two equal sponsors: an investor and an operating leader. In underwriting, the investor is “pilot” and the operator “co-pilot”. In portfolio management, the roles reverse. Both remain on the file through exit, removing the typical tension between deal teams and operators. More than half of Brookfield’s private-equity returns come from operational improvement, not leverage.

Embedded asset and field agents
 Brookfield’s operations team comprises c.35 senior operators who sit inside the private equity floor, not alongside it. And before rising to senior vice president, every investor is seconded into a portfolio company for a year, often in remote locations. The aim: develop judgement, understand day-to-day constraints, and replace spreadsheet assumptions with operational reality.

Our man in Alaska
Value creation comes from repeatable, grounded work: retooling supply chains, introducing dynamic pricing, tightening working-capital cycles, and reshaping organisational design. Brookfield’s teams seconde into companies, work shoulder-to-shoulder with management, and stay for the full journey from carve-out to maturity. The model is simple but demanding: pick the controllable levers, apply rigour daily, and compound small gains.

Culture: humility, apprenticeship, and earned responsibility
Brookfield’s open-plan layout is intentional: no offices, a flat structure, and constant exposure to how decisions are made. Young professionals are given responsibility early, but are expected to put in their 10,000 hours, learn from senior leaders, and keep politics far from their career ambitions. As David says: “You have one reputation. Spend it wisely.”

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Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan, Fund Shack

Creative destruction, private equity and the making of the modern world | Jack Weatherford | Ep 79

Anthropologist and best-selling author Jack Weatherford, whose landmark book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World reshaped our understanding of history, joins Ross Butler to explore how the Mongol Empire fused creative destruction with long-term institution-building.

Far from being merely conquerors, the Mongols built one of the earliest global systems of commerce, meritocracy and capital allocation.

Jack explains how Genghis Khan dismantled corrupt elites, elevated artisans and merchants, and empowered women as investors through ortōq partnerships—private trading ventures that echo modern private equity. Ross describes Genghis Khan as the world’s most effective asset owner.

The discussion connects thirteenth-century portfolio thinking, religious tolerance, census and tax innovation, and technological transfer—from paper money to movable type—to the modern dynamics of private markets. What can investors learn from a society that turned warriors into shareholders and empire into enterprise?

This episode blends anthropology, finance and ethics to show why creative destruction only endures when creation wins.

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

📘 Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Company: Linear B Group

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Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

Apis Partners, Fund Shack

Agentic AI, Minority Report and the Future of Financial Services | Apis Partners | Ep 78

Ross Butler speaks with Matteo Stefanel and Udayan Goyal, Co-Founders and Managing Partners of Apis Partners, one of the world’s best performing growth-capital firms.

How did two former investment bankers build a globally recognised growth platform, and what does their story reveal about where finance is heading?

Building a Firm Before the Market Was Ready

Drawing on two decades in M&A at DLJ and Deutsche Bank, Matteo and Udayan applied deal-making precision to private-equity investing: identify the future buyer first, then build the company to fit that strategic template.

“We call the likely acquirers before we buy—then we build to their menu.”

The Network as an Edge

Having taken firms like Visa, Mastercard, and First Data public, the Apis founders knew the global payments ecosystem inside out. Many of their mid-level contacts from those deals now lead the organisations that acquire Apis portfolio companies. That continuity of relationships—spanning two decades—has been central to their consistent exit performance.

Fintech’s Next Frontier

For Apis, the most disruptive phase of financial services is happening now. Stablecoins already move more volume than Visa and Mastercard combined, and corporate treasuries are beginning to adopt them for 24-hour liquidity management. Micropayments, decentralised finance, and agentic AI are together redrawing the boundaries between credit, payments, and savings.

Embedded Finance and Subscription-Everything

From iPhones to cars, ownership is giving way to access. Apple’s device-as-a-service model and Jaguar Land Rover’s mobility subscriptions illustrate how financial products are becoming invisible—embedded in experiences rather than sold separately. In this world, the profit pool shifts to those who own the customer relationship, not the balance sheet.

Democratising Wealth

Apis sees the same technological forces opening private-market access to ordinary savers. Platforms such as Moneybox show how digital distribution and AI-driven personalisation can make investing in private assets feasible at scale. The challenge, they note, is balancing precision with fairness—ensuring that hyper-personalised finance doesn’t exclude the less advantaged.

Finance at the Centre of Societal Change

From universal basic income to machine-to-machine banking, Matteo and Udayan argue that finance sits at the core of every major social and technological transformation. Far from being a “boring” sector, it is the mechanism through which the future economy will be built.

Thank you to our episode partner 

Brookfield Private Equity: Global leader in acquiring and driving operational transformation in industrials and essential business services.

For more information, visit: www.brookfield.com/about-us/capabilities/private-equity

Listen & follow: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack and Linkedin

If this episode resonated, share it with a colleague who cares about value-creation over slogans.

Ross Butler Founder and Host Fund Shack

🌐 CONNECT on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/rossbutler1/

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Contact Information:

About Fund Shack:
Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and global media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group.

Contact:
Katie Mitchell
Email: katie@linearb.media
Company: Linear B Group

Subscribe Now on your preferred platform to gain expert insights into private capital.

Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

Adrian Letts, Brookfield Private Equity Group

Inside Brookfield’s operating engine | Adrian Letts | Ep 77

Ross Butler speaks with Adrian Letts, Managing Partner in Brookfield’s Private Equity Group and Head of Business Operations. Adrian brings a deep operator’s lens – from founding one of the UK’s first streaming platforms, to leading Tesco’s digital and global e-commerce, to scaling a UK retail-energy company from 500k to 5 million customers through M&A and transformation.

We explore how Brookfield’s “roll-up-your-sleeves” model aligns investors and operators from diligence to exit, and why organisation design, not checklists, is often the decisive value lever.

Alignment from day one: one team, one carry

Brookfield embeds operating leaders alongside investors with identical compensation structures, including carry. Operators sit in origination, diligence, capital reviews, value-creation planning, and exit. The result: no “second-class citizen” dynamic – just a single team accountable for outcomes.

Organisation before levers

Adrian’s first question is organisational: do we have the right people, accountabilities, spans and layers, cadence, and scorecards? With that foundation in place, Brookfield prioritises the three to five highest-return initiatives—rather than twenty half-started projects—so change sticks inside the company.

A small, senior, generalist ops bench

Brookfield’s core team is lean and high-impact—executive-chair types and transformation leaders who stay with a company from diligence through exit. Deep specialist work (e.g., pricing) is brought in from best-in-class partners when needed, keeping innovation high and avoiding a cookie-cutter playbook.

Digitisation & AI: accelerants to existing levers

AI isn’t a magic new lever—it speeds up pricing, procurement, working-capital, and commercial-ops work with greater certainty. A practical example from the portfolio: AI-driven demand and inventory models that correlate seasonality, weather, and vehicle mix to optimise production and free up working capital.

Pace with stability

Transformation moves at the speed the organisation can absorb. Brookfield maps current processes, designs the target model, and sequences change so performance improves without destabilising day-to-day operations—capability that endures after the consultants go home.

Listen & follow: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack and Linkedin

If this episode resonated, share it with a colleague who cares about value-creation over slogans.

Ross Butler Founder and Host Fund Shack

🌐 www.fund-shack.com CONNECT on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/rossbutler1/

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Contact Information:

About Fund Shack:
Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and global media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group.

Contact:
Katie Mitchell
Email: katie@linearb.media
Company: Linear B Group

Subscribe Now on your preferred platform to gain expert insights into private capital.

Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

William Benjamin, HSBC Asset Management

Talking Alternatives, with HSBC | William Benjamin | Ep 76

In this episode of Fund Shack, Ross Butler speaks with William Benjamin, Head of Alternative Solutions at HSBC Asset Management, about the evolution of private markets, evergreen fund structures, and the democratization of alternatives.

William has held senior roles across HSBC’s alternatives platform — including CIO, CEO, and Head of Hedge Funds — as well as time at Goldman Sachs. With HSBC Alternatives now managing around $75 billion, he reflects on how private markets have shifted from niche strategies into a mainstream, essential part of diversified portfolios.

From private equity and credit to infrastructure and venture capital, Benjamin explains how HSBC leverages its global footprint to access opportunities across the spectrum. He argues that investors haven’t “missed the boat” on alternatives: with listed markets shrinking and private companies multiplying, alternatives remain a growing engine of value creation.

The conversation explores how HSBC partners with managers, balances mega-buyouts with mid-market opportunities, and applies strict allocation and risk management disciplines across client portfolios. Benjamin also shares views on evergreen fund design, the operational demands of democratizing access, and the cultural and career dynamics shaping talent in private markets.

Looking ahead, he anticipates continued, steady growth in alternatives, with private credit, infrastructure, and venture capital all playing expanding roles in the global investment universe.

This is a deep dive into how one of the world’s largest financial groups is positioning itself in alternatives, and why Benjamin believes the next phase of growth will be defined not just by institutions, but also by the rising participation of high-net-worth investors.

Ross Butler Founder and Host Fund Shack

🌐 www.fund-shack.com CONNECT on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/rossbutler1/

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Contact Information:

About Fund Shack:
Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and global media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group.

Contact:
Katie Mitchell
Email: katie@linearb.media
Company: Linear B Group

Subscribe Now on your preferred platform to gain expert insights into private capital.

Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

Alex van Someren on Fund Shack

Venture Capital, Defence, National Security, and the Future of Technology | Alex van Someren | Ep 75

Alex van Someren has lived at the frontier of technology entrepreneurship, venture capital, and national security. As a teenager he joined Acorn Computers, the company that seeded ARM Holdings and the UK’s early computing revolution. He co-founded nCipher, a London-listed cryptography firm, later became a partner at Amadeus Capital Partners, and between 2021 and 2024 served as the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser for National Security. In this Fund Shack conversation, Alex shares deep insights into:

🔹The UK’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSIF) and its parallels with DARPA and US defence-linked venture capital.

🔹The cultural clash between government risk aversion and venture capital risk-taking.

🔹The future of dual-use technologies across AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, and space. 🔹The ESG debate around nuclear energy and small modular reactors.

🔹Why, despite all the hype, venture capital is still one of the hardest ways to make money. Alex’s perspective, as founder, investor, and government adviser, is a rare window into how capital, technology, and security policy interact in today’s geopolitical and financial environment.

Thank you to our episode partner Brookfield Private Equity: Global leader in acquiring and driving operational transformation in industrials and essential business services.

For more information, visit: www.brookfield.com/about-us/capabilities/private-equity

💼 Learn more at: Paladin Capital Group

🌐 www.paladincapgroup.com Alex van Someren www.paladincapgroup.com/people/alex-van-someren/

Ross Butler Founder and Host Fund Shack

🌐 www.fund-shack.com CONNECT on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/rossbutler1/

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Subscribe now to unlock expert interviews!

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Contact Information:

About Fund Shack:
Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and global media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group.

Contact:
Katie Mitchell
Email: katie@linearb.media
Company: Linear B Group

Subscribe Now on your preferred platform to gain expert insights into private capital.

Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

Emerging managers with Kim Pochon and Joe Briggs

Emerging managers: what it takes | Kim Pochon, Unigestion & Joe Briggs, BCF | Ep 74

Ross Butler speaks with Kim Pochon, Global Head of Primary Investments at Unigestion, and Joe Briggs, Founder of BCF for this launch episode of Fund Shack’s Emerging Manager Series.

What drives experienced professionals to leave established firms and launch new platforms? How do LPs assess the viability of emerging teams? And why the earliest decisions—on team structure, alignment, and strategy—can determine long-term success or failure.

Why “Emerging Manager” Is a Misnomer
Most “emerging managers” are highly experienced professionals. They are not new to investing, but new to firm-building. And while the term may not resonate with GPs themselves, it has real weight in the LP ecosystem, where it defines eligibility for dedicated programs and mandates.

Why LPs Value Early Access
Backing a first-time fund is not just about returns; it’s about relevance and franchise value. Early LPs often benefit from enhanced access, strong alignment, and deep relationships that persist long after the first fund closes. In many cases, Unigestion now co-invests or partners with these managers on continuation vehicles and secondaries—a long-term payoff for early conviction.

The Rise of Independent Sponsors and Hybrid Models
The deal-by-deal model—often called independent sponsorship—has flourished as a path to proof for aspiring GPs. Especially in Europe, emerging teams start with individual transactions, then evolve into structured vehicles. Joe Briggs highlights the growing hybrid space: mini-funds and “short-duration funds” that offer speed, alignment, and stepwise scalability before raising an institutional flagship.

Team Dynamics: The Make-or-Break Factor
The biggest risk in early-stage private equity isn’t deal flow—it’s the people. Joe and Kim stress that LPs are not just investing in a strategy, but a partnership. Decision-making processes, equity splits, and even how teams handle setbacks are all scrutinised.

Culture, Conviction, and the Push to Spin Out
So why do seasoned professionals walk away from high-paying roles? You’ll have to watch to find out…

Know Your Why
The most compelling emerging managers are those who can clearly articulate the value they bring—not just for themselves, but for LPs. As Briggs puts it, emerging GPs must “know why they deserve to exist.” That clarity, combined with operational discipline, is what separates scalable franchises from short-lived experiments.

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Contact Information:

About Fund Shack:
Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and global media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group.

Contact:
Katie Mitchell
Email: katie@linearb.media
Company: Linear B Group

Hashtags: #PrivateMarkets #PrivateEquity #PrivateCredit #Emergingmanagers

Subscribe Now on your preferred platform to gain expert insights into private capital.

Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

How Goldman channels private markets to wealth | Kyle D Kniffen | Ep 73

In this Fund Shack episode, recorded at SuperReturn in Berlin, Ross Butler talks with Kyle D. Kniffen, Managing Director and Global Head of Alternatives for Third Party Wealth at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

With over $500 billion in alternative assets under management and nearly four decades of experience, Kyle discusses the firm’s expansive platform, which spans direct investing and open-architecture manager selection across private equity, private credit, infrastructure, hedge funds, and more. This dual capability allows Goldman Sachs to provide flexible, multi-asset solutions tailored to wealth intermediaries seeking access to institutional-grade strategies.

Private Markets Are Now Mainstream – Even for Wealth

Kyle outlines the structural changes that have brought private markets to the centre of modern portfolio construction. The number of public companies has declined sharply, while private companies are staying private longer. Innovation in sectors like healthcare and AI increasingly happens outside public markets, making private equity and private credit essential exposures.

Goldman Sachs is responding to this shift with innovative fund structures that reduce complexity and broaden access.

Why Wealth Clients Are Underallocated – And How That Changes

Kyle estimates that global individual investors hold just 5% of their portfolios in alternatives, versus 20-30% for institutions. The education gap is significant, and Goldman Sachs is investing heavily in curriculum-like frameworks to support wealth managers and their clients through this transition.

Evergreen Alternatives: A New Era of Product Design

Kyle explores the trade-offs between traditional drawdown vehicles and new evergreen formats. While evergreen funds offer reduced complexity and optional liquidity, they introduce duration management challenges. Goldman mitigates this by integrating secondary strategies and maintaining a high bar for product design.

The discussion also highlights how private credit’s liquidity characteristics make it especially well-suited to evergreen formats. However, Goldman applies the same innovation to private equity, infrastructure, and real assets, combining directs and secondaries to reduce duration risk while preserving exposure.

Risk, Returns, and Manager Alignment

Risk management remains a priority, with diversification across and within asset classes. Kyle stresses alignment: Goldman Sachs’ own balance sheet and employee capital are significantly invested alongside clients. The firm takes transparency and reporting seriously, delivering post-sale support that includes events, frequent updates, and tailored communications.

Private Wealth Is Still Early in the Journey

According to Kyle, private wealth is at the earliest stage of its alternatives adoption curve. That presents an enormous opportunity for managers who can deliver not just investment performance, but a high standard of care, education, and partnership. As alternative investments become more foundational to long-term portfolio outcomes, Goldman Sachs is positioning itself as a trusted guide through the complexity.

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Thank you to our episode partner, Edelman Smithfield, a specialist Public Relations and Communications consultancy for the financial markets. Their deep expertise in Private Capital spans fundraising, portfolio company communications, strategic positioning, and reputation management. 

Learn more at www.edelmansmithfield.com

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Subscribe now to unlock expert interviews!

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Contact Information:

About Fund Shack:
Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and global media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group.

Contact:
Katie Mitchell
Email: katie@linearb.media
Company: Linear B Group

Hashtags: #PrivateMarkets #PrivateEquity #PrivateCredit #EvergreenFunds #WealthManagement #GoldmanSachs #AlternativeInvestments #PortfolioConstruction #FundShackPodcast #SuperReturn #Secondaries #InvestorEducation

Subscribe Now on your preferred platform to gain expert insights into private capital.

Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

Matt Hougan, Bitwise, Fund Shack podcast

Bitcoin: The Alternative You Can No Longer Ignore | Matthew Hogan, Bitwise | Ep 72

In this episode of Fund Shack, Ross Butler speaks with Matthew Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise Asset Management, the firm that launched the first crypto index fund and now oversees over $10 billion in assets. Previously CEO of ETF.com and chairman of Inside ETFs, Matthew has been at the vanguard of two financial revolutions: exchange-traded funds and now crypto investing.

They explore why Bitcoin is no longer an asset institutional investors can afford to ignore, why it fits comfortably into modern portfolios, and how it is evolving into a global macro asset, one that could redefine value, collateral, and even the foundations of finance itself.

From Retail Phenomenon to Institutional Essential

Bitcoin has long been dismissed as a retail-driven speculation. But institutional adoption is accelerating fast. Since 2023, US Bitcoin ETFs have amassed over $37 billion in assets, eclipsing every ETF launch in history. A third of that capital is institutional, and Bitwise alone has seen its AUM tenfold in just 18 months.

Institutions are realising that Bitcoin, when stripped of its reputation, offers a compelling asset profile: high historical returns, low correlation with stocks and bonds, deep liquidity, and rising relevance in macro portfolios.

Rethinking Bitcoin’s Role in the Portfolio

Many asset allocators are re-examining where Bitcoin fits. Some bucket it within high-beta equities or emerging tech. Increasingly, though, it’s being treated as an alternative asset due to its unique risk-return characteristics and lack of correlation.

Institutions are beginning to see that a 1–2% Bitcoin allocation can materially improve a portfolio’s Sharpe ratio. For the first time, regulatory clarity and ETF wrappers allow them to express that view efficiently, with custody, liquidity and compliance challenges largely solved.

Bitcoin as Digital Gold… and More

Bitcoin is optimised not for speed or smart contracts, but for decentralised value storage. Its clearest comparable is gold, yet it improves on it by being portable, programmable, and verifiable in real time. Today, Bitcoin’s market cap is under $2 trillion; gold’s is over $21 trillion. That gap represents upside for investors who believe in the digital gold thesis.

But Bitcoin isn’t just a store of value. It’s a non-political currency in a fragmenting world. As global trade moves away from sole reliance on the US dollar, Bitcoin could become a neutral bridge currency, used by countries that want a settlement mechanism free from geopolitical alignment.

A Macro Asset in the Making

Macro hedge funds increasingly use Bitcoin for after-hours positioning, risk-on trades, and global hedging. It trades 24/7, settles instantly, and provides pristine collateral, all features traditional finance struggles to match.

Bitwise’s own ETFs give institutions this exposure in a low-cost, fully regulated wrapper, with Coinbase custody, cold storage, and full on-chain visibility.

Looking Ahead: Finance on the Blockchain

Bitcoin’s potential doesn’t stop with passive holding. The crypto ecosystem is already redefining capital markets. On-chain lending, instant collateralised loans, and programmable money are standard in decentralised finance. For traditional dealmakers and credit investors, this foreshadows faster, more transparent, and radically more efficient transaction rails.

Hougan believes traditional finance is slowly merging with this future. Complexity is not a flaw but a sign of technological evolution. In time, Bitcoin’s programmability and security could replace many financial intermediaries, not just as an asset, but as a layer of infrastructure.

Advice for Professionals and Allocators

For financial professionals, Matthew’s message is simple: start experimenting. Buy Bitcoin. Try DeFi. Use it as tuition for a new era of finance. He draws a parallel to the ETF boom, those who got in early didn’t just profit; they rewrote the rules.

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Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.

Cyril Demaria, Fund Shack, private wealth

The complexities of introducing private markets to HNWs | Cyril Demaria | Ep 71

In this episode of Fund Shack, Ross Butler is joined by Cyril Demaria-Bengochea, Head of Private Market Strategy at Julius Baer, Associate Professor at EDHEC Business School, and author of multiple leading books on private equity. Cyril has worked as an expert for Invest Europe, ILPA, and the European Commission, and he brings a unique perspective that combines academic rigour with practical industry insight.

Together, they explore the ongoing transformation of private markets, focusing in particular on the challenges, and limitations, of accessing capital from private wealth clients.

A shift from institutions to individuals

Institutional capital has long been the cornerstone of private markets, but fund managers are increasingly turning their attention to the private wealth segment. However, as Cyril points out, this market is fundamentally more complex. Individual investors are highly heterogeneous, each with unique goals, constraints, and levels of financial sophistication.

The Challenge of Democratisation

Much has been made of the “democratisation” of private equity, but Cyril believes the term may be misleading. True access remains limited, especially when trying to balance diversification, cost-efficiency, and liquidity. Although evergreen structures have been hailed as a solution, Cyril estimates they still represent just 1–2% of total assets under management in private markets—highlighting how early-stage the trend really is.

Private Markets: A Three-Dimensional Investment

One of the major hurdles for private wealth clients is understanding the time dimension of private markets. Unlike traditional public investments, private equity involves long holding periods, delayed distributions, and a lack of liquidity. Cyril argues that much of the complexity in private markets stems from this third dimension—and that many investors (and advisers) still struggle to properly account for it in portfolio construction.

Fund Structures: No One-Size-Fits-All

While closed-end funds remain the dominant structure for good reason—offering embedded discipline and clear payout timelines—other structures are growing in relevance. Cyril sees increasing use of evergreen and semi-liquid structures, particularly for clients seeking operational simplicity.

Rather than any one structure “winning,” he envisions a world where different vehicles coexist and serve different needs. The key is understanding the investor’s objectives and building a tailored toolbox that balances access, complexity, and outcome alignment.

Podcast Sponsor:
This episode was designed and produced by Linear B Group, a leading content marketing agency focused on financial and professional services.

Subscribe Now on your preferred platform to gain expert insights into private capital.

Contact Information: About Fund Shack: Fund Shack is a private equity podcast and digital media channel for alternative investment professionals. Fund Shack is produced by Linear B Group Limited.