美股与私募股权：二十年来最宽的股权回报差距

Allianz Research|18June2026 Public vs.privateequity: Thewidestequityreturngap intwodecades InSummary Ludovic SubranChief Investment Officer andChief Economistludovic.subran@allianz.com •Public equities have repriced the futurewhileprivate equity is still monetizing thepast.Since the October 2022 trough,the S&P 500 has compounded at more than 20% ayear for three straight years, whilePrivate Equitybuyout portfolios assembled at the2020-2021 peak,and now carrying more expensive debt into a thin exit market,havelagged on every benchmark and horizon.At this point in time, the gap between liquidand illiquid equity returnsseems to be thewidest in two decades. Jordi Basco CarreraHead of Private Marketsjordi.basco_carrera@allianz.com Nils BradtkeSenior Investment Strategistnils.bradtke@allianz.com •The rally that opened the gap is narrow and earnings-led, not a liquidity melt up.TheMagnificentSevenalone delivered more than half the S&P 500'sthree-year total return,strip them out and the index is an ordinary performer, and the equalweighted versionhas compounded at about half the pace,a gap unseen since the late 1990s. But the moverests on delivered earnings and a real AI capex supercycle rather than multipleexpansion, so the premium looks more durable than the dot-com peak. America Hernandez OrtizSenior Investment Strategistamerica.hernandez@allianz.com Yao LuInvestment Strategistyao.lu@allianz.com •Yet private equity's long-run premium is real, this cyclehas justinterrupted it.On alikeforlike basis, matched to public indices for geography, size, sector and leverage andnet of fees and carry, buyout has beaten public markets over three decades, with MSCIestimating pooled direct alpha of roughly400bpsa year since 1994. The exception is the2021-2023 vintages, which currently showa negativedirect alpha of about~800bpsagainst the MSCI ACWI, the first consecutive run to trail public markets in the series.Consequently, the data points to rough PE performance aheadevenallowing for the factthat these vintages arestill young and J-curvedistorted. Matteo PastoreResearch Assistant •Private equity can no longer count onrising valuations and must now drive returns bygrowing theunderlying business.For over a decade, buyout returns came mostly fromrising valuations,selling companies for a higher multiple than was paid. That ismostlygoneas borrowing costs have roughly doubled and exit valuations have stoppedclimbing, so returns now come from growing the business. The contraston the financingside is also large,withthe largest listed companies stillholdingmore cash than debt, sobenefiting fromhigher rates, while buyoutowned companies sit on floatingrate debtdue to be refinanced in 2026-2028, where higher rates only add to their interest bill.•Ascapital drains fromprivate equity, private debt is catching the outflows.The same jump in interest ratesthat made buyout deals more expensive madelending the moreattractive trade.Biglongterm investorscontinue tolikesenior private credit because itpays a steady,contractual cash yield,its value barely moves and losses have beenlow,none of whichbuyout hasdelivered lately. So new money is rotatingout ofprivate equityandinto private debt.•2026 will decide whether thepublic-private gap was a passing extreme or a lasting regime change.Our central case assumes an economic mix that keeps returnspositivebut well below the post-Covid peaks with public equity settlingin the low teens, whilebuyoutfollowsin the mid-teensthrough 2027-2028.All in all,the way forward for privateequityseems to be less about how much to own and more about how to own it.Thismeans favoring managers and vintages with a demonstrable edge over genericexposure, treating liquidity and valuation discipline as features to be tested rather thanassumed and resisting the temptation to buy the label without the underlying skill. Public markets have sprinted ahead Since the October 2022 trough, public equities have staged one of the sharpest re-ratings in modern memory.The S&P 500 has compounded at more than 20% a year for three straight years, with other large-cap benchmarksclose on its heels. But the headline flatters the market. The rally has been extraordinarily narrow:The MagnificentSeven(Mag 7-Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Nvidia, Meta (Facebook) and Tesla)alone deliveredmore than halfofthe S&P 500's three-yeartotal return.Stripped of those seven names,the index is a thoroughlyordinary performer.The dispersion shows up in valuation,too. The top ten names now trade ataroughly 50%forward price/earnings premium to the rest of the index,wide by any historical yardstick. But that premium rests onan earnings path well above the dot-com peak of the 2000s, a sign that the fundamentals are more resilient nowthan they were then (Figure 1). Earnings breadth is mending as well (Figure 2), if grudgingly:Barely a third of S&P500 members beat the index in 2025, up from a record low the year before.At the same time, s mall