Kenan Institute Executive Director and Institute for Private Capital Research Director Greg Brown breaks down a recent white paper by Antii Ilmanen, Swati Chandra, and Nicholas McQuinn of AQR, which examines expected returns for Private Equity (PE). The paper’s authors claim that, when properly risk-adjusted, the returns on private equity are not attractive relative to public market stocks. The conclusion on lower returns is surprising to many because it’s at odds with what is now the well-documented outperformance of PE over the last few decades.