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Kasper Wichmann
Founder, Balentic
In this conversation, Ahmad Ashrafi and Kasper Wichmann delve into the complexities of private equity and alternative investments.
Private equity in plain English: buy something, do something with it, sell it. Kasper Wichmann's deli analogy — buy well, improve the margins, and exit at a higher price — distills two decades at UBS, the Asian Development Bank, and his own fund-of-funds.
The data is private — that's the industry's real problem. There is no Bloomberg or Morningstar for private markets, so screening is laborious and even the largest LPs miss half of what's available; Balentic exists to digitize an anachronistically analog industry.
'Democratization' is a marketing gimmick. Kasper argues for commoditization instead: pushing complex, illiquid structures to retail investors who can't screen the market invites exits at the worst possible time — and a regulatory flashlight that burdens mid-market managers most.
Look for reasons to invest. You'll never be 100% convinced: cover the yellow flags in due diligence, build a 10-year forward-looking thesis for why a manager will be top-quartile, and let the investment committee stay a private, safe space for dissent.
