November 4, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) – The Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) released a new whitepaper, Retail Capital in Private Markets: Primer and Questions for GPs, an in-depth analysis for Limited Partners (LPs) of the growing role of retail vehicles in private markets and the potential implications for institutional funds and overall market health.
“Retail vehicles represent a sea change for private markets,” said Jennifer Choi, ILPA CEO. “As these offerings expand, LPs must understand how they may affect investment allocation, transparency, governance, and the long-term health of the institutional and broader private markets ecosystem.”
The paper examines the rapid growth and key characteristics of retail vehicles, which enable retail investors to access private markets. This growth is only expected to accelerate; Deloitte, for example, projects a 76% CAGR in retail allocations to private capital through 2030 in the U.S.
It also highlights the regulatory and structural differences between retail vehicles and traditional institutional funds, including governance, liquidity, valuations, fees and expenses, and transparency, and their potential impact on alignment of interest between LPs and GPs.
The paper outlines how the growing introduction of retail vehicles may influence GP behavior, including co-investment allocation, investment discipline, attention dedicated to institutional funds, and broader conflicts of interest.
“The growth of retail vehicles is inevitable, but their design and oversight will determine whether they strengthen or strain the private markets ecosystem,” said Scott Ramsower, Head of Private Equity Funds at Teacher Retirement System of Texas and ILPA Board Chair. “This paper and others that follow will equip LPs and industry participants to engage GPs with informed dialogue on how to maintain alignment of interest through these changes.”
As part of the publication, ILPA also provides a detailed set of questions LPs can use when engaging GPs to assess how retail vehicle offerings may impact allocation, conflicts of interest, economics and incentives, transparency, and governance.
This is the first publication in a series ILPA will release on this topic.
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