Private equity is losing its mystique

THERE HASPEKKRAOL,PE long been an element of the gentlemen’s club about the private-equity () industry. It is still predominantly male. It has a buccaneering history filled with mystique. It cherishes discretion. And its fees are exorbitant compared with the services it provides. If anything covid-19 has made it even more exclusive. Despite what Preqin, a data gatherer, says was a slowdown in fundraising during the pandemic as in-person meetings stopped, the firms with the longest pedigrees have had the least trouble raising money, doing deals and earning bumper profits.That includes , a 45-year-old pioneer of the leveraged buyout market, which in five months has just amassed its biggest private-equity fund ever, at about $18.5bn, according to Reuters. It extends to Apollo, which on May 3rd agreed to spend $5bn acquiring two digital-media brands, Yahoo and from Verizon, a telecoms firm, weeks after taking part in a $6.25bn deal for casinos in Las Vegas. Meanwhile Blackstone, the biggest company of all, raised $95bn across all its funds in 2020, on a par with three previous years, and recently reported record quarterly profits.