Two-thirds of institutional investors worldwide expect to reach or exceed their private equity target allocations by the end of 2009, according to Coller Capital’s Global Private Equity Barometer: Winter 2008-2009.
Some 28% of North American investors, 14% of European investors and 19% of limited partners based in the Asia-Pacific region expect to reach or exceed their target allocations by the end of next year.
Also, 97% of global investors expect to maintain or increase their target allocations to private equity in the next 12 months. However, a smaller percentage of survey respondents expect only to increase their private equity allocations in the winter 2007-2008 barometer, dropping five percentage points to 40%. Investors expecting to keep their allocations the same increased five percentage points to 57%.
Even so, the difficult economic environment is leading investors to a “flight to quality,” said Jonathan Gutstein, Coller partner.
More investors have declined to invest with some of their existing general partners over the past 12 months. For example, 79% of North American investors declined to invest in new funds of firms with which they have investments.
Coller Capital’s survey was conducted August through October by IE Consulting of limited partners in private equity funds.