2025 Private Markets Investor Survey

June 12, 2025
  • Investor Services
In BBH Investor Service's inaugural private markets research report, 500 institutional investors and wealth advisors share plans to increase their allocations to private markets, with liquidity becoming ever more critical for both investor types

2025 Private Markets Investor Survey

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A note from our Alternatives Asset Servicing team

The launch of our inaugural Private Markets Investor Survey marks an exciting moment for BBH. As a service provider of private markets funds for over 25 years, we wanted to hear directly from LP investors to better understand their plans, ideas, and preferences for private market investments. This research will help us be a smarter service provider and ultimately, a better partner to GP sponsors and alternative asset managers.

The profile of a typical private market investor is evolving. Over the past decade, GP sponsors have increasingly created products that cater toward a broader universe of high-net-worth (HNW) and retail-like investors – an important and complicated universe of investors with their own requirements. To that end, we were intentional in hearing from two distinct investor types in this survey: institutional investors, who historically had the greatest exposure to private markets, and wealth advisors. This latter group represents the intermediaries who advise a broad spectrum of individual investors that range from accredited to ultra-high-net worth, which we’ll refer to throughout the survey as wealth investors or wealth advisors.

By considering the needs of both institutional and wealth advisor investors, we aimed to surface insights around key areas important to them and the industry. Our research covers topics such as asset allocation, portfolio construction, liquidity, and product and manager selection. While the responses to individual questions are astute, the broader story they tell across institutional and wealth audiences is even more interesting. We hope you’ll find the findings equally as insightful.

Top findings from the survey

Who we surveyed

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Investor Types by audience: institutional investors consisted of 53 pension fund, 46 sovereign wealth fund, 45 endowment / foundation, 38 family offices, and 68 insurance firms. Wealth advisors consisted of 43 banks, 82 RIA/financial advisors, 63 fund management, 28 private bank, and 34 wealth management. 

Total investor AUM: Institutional Investor AUM. 88 Investors $1B or higher. 62 Investors under $100M. $100M investors to under $1B. Wealth advisors AUM 97 under $500M, and 153 $500M or higher.

Percentage of AUM in private markets - 321 total investors invested in private markets, 250 institutional investors averaging 21.9% AUM, and 71 wealth advisors averaging 14.5% AUM. 179 total wealth advisors not currently invested in AUM private markets.

What investors are thinking

 

 

Our private markets research shows investors across institutional and wealth feel their exposure to private markets has been limited and they need to catch up.

98% of investors already invested in private markets reported delays in having their invested capital returned. Most suggest it materially altered their investment decisions.

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Chart: How have delays in recieving returned capital from prior private markets investments impacted your investment decisions? Graph shows What would prompt investors to either increase their planned investments or invest in private markets for the first time? Investors chose from the options: A downturn or increased volatility in public markets, Increased inflation, New regulation supporting increased transparency and investor protection, New products with increased investor liquidity provisions, A unique investment fund strategy capitalizing on market dislocations, positive macroeconomic growth GDP, exchange rates, market cycles.

Broad agreement on the importance of liquidity and access to capital.

  • 59% of all investors prefer products with a liquidity window of 4-6 years -- markedly earlier than the timeline for returning investor capital in typical closed-ended commitment-based funds.
  • Both institutional (47%) and wealth (48%) investors noted that new products offering increased liquidity would prompt them to increase their exposure to private markets.

Geopolitical volatility makes private markets more attractive.

  • Both institutional (79%) and wealth (77%) investors reported that the geopolitical uncertainty increased their interest in private markets.

An openness to innovative ETF products with exposure to private markets.

  • 34% of all investors plan to invest in ETFs with significant exposure to private market and 57% are curious to hear more about such products.
  • Only 5% think it’s a bad idea!

This liquidity data is incredibly powerful. It suggests many of the product innovations intended to attract wealth investors also have significant, lasting cross-over appeal to institutional investors."
Chris Adams Global Head of Alternative Funds Sales

A closer look at the wealth channel

The vastly under-tapped wealth sector is likely to be a major source of flows for private market managers moving forward.

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Chart 1: graph shows percentage of AUM anticipated being in private markets alternatives by 2030 among those who do not currently invest. Graph ranges from 0 percent to 35 percent. More than 35%: between 0 and 5%, 31-35% - 3%, 26-30% - 7%, 21-25% - 21%, 16-20% - 18%, 11-15% - 17%, 1-10% - 35%.

Chart 2: Of the 179 wealth advisors who do not currently have exposure to private markets, 39% plan to increase their exposure significantly and 60% plan to increase their exposure somewhat significantly over the next two years.

Chart 3: graph shows why investors have not included private markets alternatives as part of their portfolios. 63% chose Availability of products. 57% chose Knowledge about products. 47% chose Long lockup periods for capital. 45% chose Access to a trusted advisor. 37% chose Distrust of the products.

Considerations for GPs

For alternative asset managers looking to optimize their fundraising, our research provides numerous areas to consider:

1. Products offering flexible investor liquidity appeal to both institutional and wealth investors. 

This represents a huge opportunity for GPs, but product development and investor access need to be prioritized. According to 2024 research by Preqin1, the total amount of evergreen funds – products typically designed to invest in private market assets and are oriented toward wealth investors — nearly doubled to 520 in the last five years. Despite that considerable growth, wealth advisors continue to perceive a dearth of available products and/or challenges accessing the products that do exist. Despite that considerable growth, wealth advisors continue to perceive a dearth of available products and/or challenges accessing available products. This represents a huge opportunity for GPs, but product development and investor access need to be prioritized.

2. Investor education, particularly through the wealth advisory channels, remains a broad industry challenge. 

Investor appetite is clearly there, but products with complicated liquidity provisions that may also combine both liquid and illiquid investments need to be thoughtfully explained to new investors. Ultimately, both GPs and wealth advisors bear some responsibility to educate this new base of investors.

3. LPs rank brand recognition, firm reputation, and the track record of a manager as the most important determinants in manager selection. 

This is very similar to what others have reported in the traditional space, a sign of ongoing convergence across the broader asset management industry.

1Preqin – September 18, 2024 – Global alternatives markets on course to exceed $30 trillion by 2030 – Preqin forecast

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