According to ILPA Institute Faculty Member Joncarlo Mark, Founder of Upwelling Capital and former ILPA Board Chair, today’s private markets environment has raised the bar for limited partners. LPs face unprecedented challenges: fewer easy returns, heightened competition for access to strong managers, and a constant influx of administrative and investment related requests from GPs.
In Joncarlo’s view, the ILPA Institute plays a critical role in equipping LPs with the tools they need to navigate this increasingly complex landscape. From evolving curriculum designed to stay current with industry change to the longstanding ILPA emphasis on peer networking, he sees education as essential to LP success.
What inspires you to be a part of the ILPA Institute faculty? Why is LP education so important?
It is more challenging today for an LP to be successful more than ever before. Easy returns are hard to come by and the market is incredibly competitive for allocation to good managers and outsized returns. LPs are also bombarded with a variety of requests from their managers each day (amendments, extensions, CVs, etc.) which add to their workload of investment underwriting and monitoring. The ILPA Institute is designed to help LPs develop increased knowledge and professional tools to position them for success in this demanding environment. The curriculum also evolves to keep up with the changes in the industry. Last, the benefits of peer networking through the Institute is a core ILPA principle.
You teach GP Value Creation – what do you see as the biggest challenge for LPs to be aware of in this area today, and how does the course address that?
Market efficiency, excess use of leverage, GP conflicts of interest are all detractors to creating value, particularly given the lack of liquidity in the market. LPs have one shot to get it right on the front end when they select managers. This course provides LPs perspective on how to better differentiate between GPs as they construct their portfolios, particularly when all managers claim they create value with their portfolio companies. We focus on the tools and strategies the GPs use to create value and help LPs identify which GPs are best positioned to deliver acceptable returns using their value creation tools.
