Private equity investments are typically locked up for many years, which means investors don’t know at any point in time how much their stakes are worth. Should they take at face value the valuations that PE firms provide? Chicago Booth’s Steve Kaplan has detected patterns in private equity valuation reports that reveal whether the company will be sold at a premium, and when that exit might happen. So how can investors get a better sense of when and how big their payoffs will be?
