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Why invest in private markets?

February 13, 20267 min read
Why invest in private markets?
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01 — The Landscape

Public markets are only part of the picture

When you buy stocks or bonds through a brokerage, you’re trading on public exchanges where prices update by the second and anyone can participate. Private markets operate differently. They include established asset classes like private credit, real estate, and private equity, and they’re bought and sold through direct negotiation or specialized funds.

For decades, private markets were the domain of institutions and ultra-high-net-worth investors. That’s changing. Willow Wealth is opening access to these same asset classes with a single platform for your entire portfolio.

$13T+
Global private market AUM1
85%
Of companies with 500+ employees are private2
02 — Beyond Stocks and Bonds

Your portfolio may be more concentrated than it appears

Over the past decade, public equities and fixed income have exhibited increased correlation, reducing the diversification benefit that allocation was designed to provide.3

Correlation between stocks and bonds, rolling three-year average from January 2000 to December 2024

Public markets also represent a shrinking slice of the real economy. The number of US-listed companies has fallen by nearly half since 1996.4 Many of the largest companies in healthcare, logistics, technology, and business services remain privately held, keeping much of their value creation outside the reach of a standard brokerage account.

Number of US listed companies: 8,090 in 1996 vs 3,943 today
03 — The Asset Classes

Exposure to economic activity that public markets no longer capture

Private Credit

Non-bank lending

Investing in loans made to businesses or borrowers outside of the traditional banking system.

Real Estate

Debt and equity

Exposure to a broad range of property types. Returns driven by rental income and property appreciation, with direct exposure to underlying assets.

Private Equity

Ownership stakes

Acquiring stakes in private companies, creating value through active management over a multi-year horizon before exiting the investment.

In periods of market stress, these different return drivers have historically translated into smaller drawdowns relative to public equities.5

Private markets vs stocks in a crisis: drawdown comparison across four major downturns
04 — Portfolio Construction

How private markets fit into sophisticated portfolios

Institutional investors such as pensions, endowments, and family offices have long allocated a meaningful share of their portfolios to private markets. U.S. family offices, for example, allocated an average of 34% of their portfolio to private investments in 2025, spread across private equity, real estate, private credit, and related strategies.6

As access to these asset classes broadens, individual investors can begin incorporating private markets into their own portfolio construction.

Family offices average portfolio allocation: 39.5% public equities, 34.3% private investments, 10.7% fixed income, 15.5% other

1. Source: McKinsey & Company, “Global Private Markets Review 2024: Private markets in a slower era.” Based on Preqin data. AUM as of June 30, 2023.

2. Source: DeMarche, “Is There an Imbalance Between Your Portfolio and the Economy?

3. Source: Willow Wealth analysis. See also CFA Institute Research Foundation, ‘Macroeconomic Drivers of Stocks and Bonds‘ (July 2025), which finds that inflationary pressures and monetary tightening have pushed the stock-bond correlation into positive territory, reducing the diversification benefit of traditional stock-and-bond portfolios. Stocks represented by the S&P 500 Index; Bonds represented by the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Index.

4. Source: World Federation of Exchanges, World Bank. This data appears in the Apollo Global Management “After 60/40” paper (January 2026), which cites WFE and World Bank as of June 30, 2025, representing companies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia with LTM revenues greater than $100 million.

5. Source: Willow Wealth analysis. Past performance is not indicative of future results. “Stock market” performance is represented by the S&P 500 Total Return Index. The “Private Markets Portfolio” is a hypothetical composite index comprising 40% Preqin Private Equity Index, 30% Preqin Private Credit Index, and 30% Preqin Real Estate Index. The composite is not an investable product and is presented for illustrative purposes only. Chart reflects periods in which the S&P 500 declined more than 10% from peak to trough, measured in quarterly returns. These periods were selected based on drawdown magnitude, not randomly, which may create a favorable comparison for private market assets. Private market index returns are based on periodic valuations rather than daily market pricing, which tends to smooth reported volatility and may understate actual risk. This valuation methodology means private market returns are not directly comparable to public market returns on a like-for-like basis. The composite allocation does not reflect the allocation of any Willow Wealth product or portfolio. Investors cannot invest directly in an index. Diversification does not guarantee a profit or protect against loss.

6. J.P. Morgan Private Bank, “2026 Global Family Office Report.” Survey of 333 single-family offices with an average net worth of $1.6 billion. Data reflects average portfolio allocations as reported by respondents. Family office allocations may not be representative of individual investor portfolios.

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