- The annual report explores this year's global private markets landscape, analyzing performance trends, liquidity dynamics, the impact of AI and highlighting compelling opportunities across private credit and secondaries.
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Hamilton Lane
Key findings from the report:
AI Reshapes the Investment Landscape
- The report highlights that AI is now the single most important determinant of returns and investment activity. Public markets are highly concentrated in a small group of AI-linked companies, with a particular focus on LLMs, while private markets – specifically venture capital – can provide broader exposure.
Secondaries in First
- This is a market with strong underlying dynamics and tailwinds. Both GP‑ and LP‑led secondary markets remain robust, supported by a relatively slow exit environment, LP desire to rebalance and shed "non-core" relationships, and the encouraging early performance of GP-led secondary deals. Supply continues to outpace capital, creating attractive entry pricing and offering investors portfolio‑level flexibility and faster deployment. Representing only ~2% of NAV, this market has room to grow.
The Silver Age of Private Credit
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Hamilton Lane does not believe there is a private credit bubble. The private credit forces that have been reshaping the credit landscape globally have only grown during a bull market for credit, and the market is showing limited signs of stress. Private credit is also expected to be more resilient across cycles, holding up better than broadly syndicated or bank‑held loans. It has outperformed its public benchmark every year for the last 24 years, and over the last 10 years has outperformed by hundreds of basis points.
Key Metrics: Performance, Distributions and Valuations
- Private markets performance in more recent years lags due to an unusually strong run of public equity performance. The question is whether the Mag 7 stocks driving the bulk of that performance will continue their climb in a rapidly-changing world. Private equity shows long-term outperformance in most periods, while infrastructure and private credit have been the relative bright spots recently, and the report highlights private equity's value as a diversification tool amid increasingly concentrated AI-driven public markets.
- Data suggests private equity and secondary-focused evergreen funds outperform closed-end fund peers across one- and three-year periods. This runs counter to the narrative that investors may sacrifice returns for a friendlier structure and the option for liquidity. Still, this is a young market and early returns can be both higher and more volatile.
- 2025 marked the second highest year on record for aggregate distributions, yet the rate of distribution activity in private equity and real assets remained subdued, reflecting a cautious exit environment.
- The valuation multiples of unrealized deals from the 2021 – 2022 cohort have increased over their hold periods, causing some to raise concerns about valuations. The report supports the belief that on average, valuations remain aligned with fundamentals and valuation increases in listed assets.
Access the full 2026 Hamilton Lane Market Overview.
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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hamilton-lane-2026-market-overview-302710433.html
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