Public to Private Equity in the United States: a Long-Term Look
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Counterpoint Global Insights Public to Private Equity in the United States: A Long-Term Look A Long-Term Look CONSILIENT OBSERVER | August 4, 2020 Introduction AUTHORS Over the past quarter century there has been a marked shift in U.S. Michael J. Mauboussin [email protected] equities from public markets to private markets controlled by buyout and venture capital firms. This change has had reverberations for asset Dan Callahan, CFA managers, investors, executives, and policy makers. [email protected] In this report we seek to answer the following questions: • What have been the major drivers behind the shift from public to private equities in the U.S.? • Why are there fewer public companies today than there were 25 years ago? • What are the long-term trends in buyouts? • What are the long-term trends in venture capital? • Where do we go from here? Markets have become more sophisticated over time as the result of the growth in institutional money management, financial innovation, and sharply lower technology costs. Large institutional investors, including pension funds and endowments, face the prospect of swelling future liabilities and diminished expected returns for most asset classes. As a result, they have reduced their portfolio allocation to public securities and have increased their allocation to private equity, where returns have historically been higher. From the end of World War II through the early 1970s, many companies went public to raise capital to fund their growth. Today, young companies often rely more on intangible assets and have a less voracious appetite for capital. They also have unprecedented access to capital through the private markets. Consequently, many young companies have elected to stay private longer than did the companies of prior generations. Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 4 Lay of the Land .................................................................................................................................................. 5 Investor Flows ............................................................................................................................................ 5 Risk and Reward ........................................................................................................................................ 7 Distribution of Investment Returns ............................................................................................................. 9 Persistence .............................................................................................................................................. 10 Drivers of Change ............................................................................................................................................ 12 Investors .................................................................................................................................................. 12 Technology .............................................................................................................................................. 16 Legislation ................................................................................................................................................ 22 Public Equities .................................................................................................................................................. 25 Buyouts ............................................................................................................................................................ 33 Origins ...................................................................................................................................................... 33 Industry Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 33 Exits ......................................................................................................................................................... 38 Outlook ..................................................................................................................................................... 40 Venture Capital ................................................................................................................................................ 42 Origins ...................................................................................................................................................... 42 Industry Structure ..................................................................................................................................... 44 Exits ......................................................................................................................................................... 45 Outlook ..................................................................................................................................................... 52 Where From Here? .......................................................................................................................................... 53 Endnotes .......................................................................................................................................................... 57 References ....................................................................................................................................................... 67 Books ....................................................................................................................................................... 67 Articles and Papers .................................................................................................................................. 69 © 2021 Morgan Stanley 3654905 Exp. 07/31/2022 2 Executive Summary • Over the past quarter century there has been a marked shift in U.S. equities away from public markets to private markets controlled by buyout and venture capital firms. This change has had reverberations for asset managers, investors, executives, and policy makers. • U.S. domestic equity mutual funds manage about $8.4 trillion, with active funds controlling $5.6 trillion and index funds $2.8 trillion at year-end 2019. Buyout funds in the U.S. have $1.4 trillion in assets under management (AUM), including $560 billion in “dry powder.” Venture capital funds have AUM of approximately $455 billion, which includes dry powder of $120 billion. The equity capitalization of the U.S stock market is roughly 27 times the size of AUM for buyout funds and more than 80 times the size of venture capital funds. • The median public market equivalent (PME) return has been about 1.2 for buyout funds and 1.0 for venture capital over the last 30 years. These headline figures belie a lot of complexity. For example, competing data sources produce different results, and the returns for managers are highly dispersed. • Returns for top venture capital funds are persistent, whereas there is limited evidence for persistence in buyout funds since 2000. • Drivers of the shift from public to private equity include investors seeking higher returns, changes in institutions and technology, and legislation. • There are about 3,600 public companies in the U.S. today, about one-half as many as there were in 1996 and three-quarters as many as there were in 1976. The drop reflects active M&A activity and a low level of initial public offerings (IPOs). More than 90 percent of the stocks that have disappeared since 1996 were those of small- and micro-capitalization companies. • The drop in listings means that public companies today are much larger and older on average than the past population of companies. M&A has led to more concentration in most industries, and listed companies also have a high proclivity to pay out capital. • Buyout activity has been up in the last few years, albeit still below the peak of 2007. On average, deals are now larger and more expensive than those of the past. • Exits for buyouts are dominated by strategic sales to other companies. In recent years, there has been rapid growth in sales to other private equity firms. • There is a strong negative correlation between the average price paid for businesses and subsequent PMEs in the buyout business. Multiples in 2019 were at a record. This concern is partially mitigated by low interest rates. • Venture capital is more cyclical than either public markets or buyouts, and recent annual investment levels have been high. • Exits in venture capital (VC) used to be primarily via IPOs, but today sales to other companies dominate. The average age of a company at IPO is higher than before, and VC firms wait longer to do IPOs. © 2021 Morgan Stanley 3654905 Exp. 07/31/2022 3 Introduction We can point to a few drivers of the move from public to private equity. There has been a meaningful evolution in the form in which companies invest. Tangible investment was double that of intangible investment in the mid- 1970s, and intangible investment is one-and-a-half times tangible investment more recently.1 As a consequence, companies need less capital to fund their