A New Operating Model for Scalable Private Markets Investing

How collaborative technology is democratising private-markets investing

Today, more investors want access to the private markets. Once dominated by institutional capital, private assets have been attracting steady and growing interest from across the investor universe, most notably private wealth and retail investors, for at least a decade.

And that interest is now accelerating. Preqin estimates that private markets are the fastest-growing segment of global investing, with alternative assets projected to reach US$30 trillion by 2030.

Investors across the board want the benefits of private-market investments – optimised return potential and portfolio diversification – but have historically had to live with limited transparency, slow manual data processes, and the inherent challenges of an illiquid asset class.

Fostering an investment data ecosystem similar to that of public markets could unlock even greater growth potential for the private market. To make this happen, the industry will need to rely on a more robust operating model and collaborative technology stack.

Why technology matters

Private markets pose unique challenges. Unlike public assets, they lack standardisation; their data is fragmented, making portfolio construction and risk management extremely complex.

This is where investment technology must continue to evolve, from pre-investment activities like manager selection and fund due diligence, to operational efficiency and oversight, post-investment performance, risk analytics and cost transparency.

This requires the entire constellation of general partners, limited partners, service providers and technology providers to move faster and collaborate more closely, so that private-market investments can be managed with the same sophistication and transparency as public-market investments. The ideal is to manage the full investment life cycle on a single platform.

That collective effort is already making meaningful change. For example, platforms like BlackRock’s Aladdin, in collaboration with its global client community, are contributing to a more unified view of holdings across the whole portfolio. These innovations harmonise allocations and introduce a common language for portfolios, enhancing insights, decision-making and transparency for market participants of all types.

The data revolution

At the core of this common language for portfolio is standardised, high-quality data across asset classes. Here is where the industry’s collective work continues.

Currently, many private-market investments are still managed on disconnected and inflexible systems, propped up by costly manual data collection. Standardising both data sets and application programming interfaces (APIs – interfaces that allow different systems to communicate) are critical to enabling automation, reducing operational friction and building scalable solutions.

Expanding data integration makes it possible to deliver sharper analytics for secondaries during a liquidity crunch, whether it is caused by asset fire sales, tightening credit conditions or drops in trading volume.

In these instances, investors need detailed views of exposures through expanded data sets to run stress tests, scenario analysis and cash flow modelling – all of which are critical for assessing liquidity resilience in private-market transactions.

Those are just some of the more complex considerations.

When it comes to data, even something as straightforward as fee validation is ripe for innovation. For instance, new services have emerged that allow investors to validate and benchmark fees, track costs and gain clarity into underlying fund charges with confidence – through quarterly reports on individual funds and cumulative portfolios.

Beyond innovative data collection and collation, the next frontier is advanced analytics. The next generation of these tools must consider the idiosyncrasies of private assets, factoring in illiquidity, scenario planning and real-world constraints across asset classes.

Generative artificial intelligence can accelerate investor demand for better visibility into private-market exposures. For example, risk-based asset allocation models could generate grounded predictions on how private assets might behave in different economic conditions and scenarios.

Further enhancing data efficiency enables whole-portfolio management on a single platform, giving investors the ability to seamlessly manage assets, performance and risk across public and private markets.

Building on that foundation, combining high-quality data with advanced analytics fosters broader ecosystem participation. It also reduces barriers and attracts non-traditional funding sources, such as open-ended funds, to private-market investments. These funds offer greater flexibility through continuous capital inflows and periodic redemptions, making them well-suited for long-term private-market investing.

Collaboration is key

No single provider can transform the private-markets ecosystem alone. Progress depends on collective efforts to build an open, interoperable infrastructure. Such a unified framework will enable stakeholders to plug in seamlessly, reduce redundancies and accelerate transformation without reinventing the wheel.

Think of it as adapting institutional-grade technology – such as investment life cycle management, real-time risk analytics and an automated workflow – to meet the requirements of the private wealth segment.

What’s next?

There has already been significant progress in the democratisation of private markets. Investors are prioritising the whole portfolio. Collaboration is becoming more holistic, with a growing focus on partnerships and acquisitions that bring specialised capabilities to the table, particularly in private-markets data.

Over time, success will be defined not just by access to private markets, but by the ability to manage holdings with the same transparency, efficiency and control as public markets. By doing so, the next evolution in investment management comes quickly into view: one that is overflowing with rich, timely information to make better investment decisions for differentiated investment outcomes.

The writer is chief operating officer of Aladdin Asia-Pacific at BlackRock

This article was originally published on Singapore Business Times. Click here to view the original version.

協作型科技如何推動私募市場投資發展

時至今日，越來越多投資者希望進入私募市場。這個曾由機構資本主導的資產類別，在過去十多年間一直引起不同投資者的興趣，尤其是私人財富及零售投資者，而這股熱潮日益高漲。根據 Preqin 預測，私募市場是全球投資中增長最快的領域，預計到 2030 年，另類資產規模將增至 30 萬億美元。

投資者普遍希望獲得私募市場帶來的優勢，包括提升投資潛力及分散投資組合，但長久以來，他們面對著多種掣肘，例如透明度不足、數據處理緩慢且依賴人手操作，以及非流動性資產的固有局限。

建立類似公募市場的投資數據生態系統，或可釋放私募市場更大的增長潛力。要達成此目標，業界需要更穩健的營運模式和協作型科技架構。

為何科技至關重要

私募市場有其獨特挑戰。與公募市場資產不同，私募市場缺乏標準化，數據高度分散，令投資組合構建及風險管理變得極為複雜。

正因如此，投資科技必須不斷發展，應涵蓋投資前的管理人篩選及基金盡職調查、營運效率與監管，以至投資後的表現、風險分析及成本透明度等範疇。

這需要整個投資生態圈——包括普通合夥人（GP）、有限合夥人（LP）、服務及科技供應商等——加快步伐、加強合作，讓私募市場投資的管理達到與公募市場相若的精細度及透明度。理想情況是在單一平台上管理完整的投資生命周期。

這種多方協作已經促成了切實的改變。例如，貝萊德的 Aladdin 平台與全球客戶社群合作，提供更統一且完整的投資組合持倉視圖。這些創新協調資產配置，並為投資組合引入「通用語言」，從而幫助不同投資者提升洞察力、決策質素及透明度

數據革命

這一投資組合「通用語言」的核心，是跨資產類別的標準化、高品質數據。這正是業界持續共同努力的方向。目前，許多私募市場投資仍依賴分散且缺乏靈活性的系統，並以成本高昂的人手數據收集維持運作。要實現自動化、降低營運摩擦及構建可擴展方案，標準化數據集及應用程式介面（API，即允許不同系統之間通訊的介面）至關重要。

擴大數據整合能力，能讓投資者在流動性緊縮時期——無論因資產拋售、信貸收緊或交易量下降所導致——獲得更精準的二級市場分析。

在這些情況下，投資者需要透過擴展數據庫，檢視詳細的風險敞口，以進行壓力測試、情景分析及現金流模型建構，而這些都是評估私募市場交易流動性韌性的關鍵。

在數據應用方面，即使是費用驗證這類看似簡單的工作，也需要創新。例如，現時已有新的服務允許投資者透過季度報告，查閱及比較費用、追蹤成本，並了解個別基金及累積投資組合的底層收費情況。
除了創新的數據收集及整理外，下一個前沿領域是進階分析工具。這些工具必須考慮私募資產的特徵，包括流動性低、情景規劃以及各類資產的限制。

生成式人工智能可滿足投資者對私募市場風險敞口有更高透明度的需求。例如，基於風險的資產配置模型可推斷私募資產在不同經濟條件及情景下的表現，做出更可靠的預測。

透過進一步提升數據效率，就可以在單一平台上實現整體投資組合管理，讓投資者能統一管理公募市場及私募市場的資產、投資表現及風險。讓投資者能夠無縫管理跨公募與私募市場的資產、績效與風險。

在此基礎上結合優質數據與進階分析，有助吸引更多投資者參與，降低進入門檻，並吸引非傳統資金進入私募市場投資，如開放式基金。這些基金透過持續注資及定期贖回，提供更高靈活性，非常適合長期私募投資。

沒有個別服務供應商能獨力改變私募市場生態。相反，這需要業界群策群力，建立開放、互通的基礎設施。這種統一框架將使持份者能靈活整合，減少冗餘，加速轉型，避免重複工作。

不妨將其理解為將機構級技術，例如投資生命周期管理、即時風險分析及自動化工作流程等，進行調整以滿足私人財富市場的需求

展望未來

解鎖私募市場的投資機會已取得顯著進展。投資者正優先考慮整體投資組合管理。合作方式日趨全面，而業界越加重視建立合作夥伴關係及進行收購，以引入專業能力，尤其是在私募市場數據方面。

長遠而言，成功的定義不僅在於能否進入私募市場，更在於能否以與公募市場相同的透明度、效率及控制以管理投資組合。如此一來，投資管理的下一個發展階段即將到來：充滿豐富且即時資訊的時代，讓投資決策更精準，並實現差異化的投資成果。