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Global Private Equity Initiative

Welcome to GPEI

Vikas A. Aggarwal

Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise Academic Director, Global Private Equity Initiative

Our Mission & Expertise

The Global Private Equity Initiative (GPEI) is INSEAD’s private capital think tank which works hand-in-hand with private equity and venture capital firms, institutional investors and governments around the world to foster entrepreneurial ecosystems. It connects companies and entrepreneurs with the right sources of capital for their stage of development.

GPEI covers research topics ranging from early-stage venture capital to growth equity to buyouts of mature businesses. Your questions develop into research projects, addressed in a thoughtful environment and are then shared with a global audience. GPEI can also connect with a select group of peers in closed-door events.

Launched in 2009 to combine the rigour and reach of the school's research capabilities with the talents of INSEAD’s alumni and global professionals in the PE and VC industry, GPEI has created a suite of original and relevant content on a range of under-researched topics...

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Vikas A. Aggarwal

Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise Academic Director, Global Private Equity Initiative

In the Spotlight

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Southeast Asia Exit Landscape Report 2.0

In partnership with Golden Gates Ventures, the first edition of the Exit Landscape report has been published in 2019 . The report helped analyse some of the growth levers for the exit landscape across Southeast Asia. A combination of new capital investing in growth companies, increase of secondary transactions and regional unicorns acquiring startups, lifted the exits to new heights. In our second edition, we discuss the impact of the pandemic on the exit landscape forecast and the rise of SPACs in Southeast Asia.  
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GREEN SHOOTS: Can Private Equity Firms Meet the Responsible Investing Expectations of Their Investors?

GPEI has expanded on our first ESG report published in 2014 to include in-depth conversations with LPs and GPs in INSEAD’s network, to gain both perspectives on the changing nature of ESG in private equity. On the LP side, we examined the requirements and ‘asks’ of the LP community, while on the GP side, we identified key characteristics of best-in-class ESG approaches.
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The Institutionalization of Family Firms - Europe

In Phase 3 of our research series to understand how institutionalization can help a family firm achieve sustainable growth, the geographical focus shifts to Europe where family firms represent 70-80% of all business enterprises and account for 40-50% of employment. We surveyed 121 family businesses and interviewed 7 leading PE firms to examine the level of institutionalisation of family firms in Europe and also the nature of the family firm-PE firm partnership.
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Private Equity Real Estate Investors – Overcoming the Challenge of Sustainability & ESG: Pro-invest Group’s ESG Journey

This case describes the ESG journey of Pro-invest Group, an asset management and investment firm specialising in private equity real estate across the globe. The case explains how Dr. Sabine Schaffer, co-founder and co-CEO Europe, commits to implement ESG standards at every level of the company and highlights the decisions that were taken, the challenges faced, and the key learning along the way.
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To Buy or Not To Buy - The Agony of Choice: A Day in the Life of a Private Equity Partner

This experiential case simulates an investment committee meeting at the private equity firm Bridgepoint, a leading European mid-market private equity firm. In the first quarter of 2011, with Europe in a recession following the global financial crisis, forecasters are predicting the start of an economic recovery.
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The Private Capital Advantage

The use of private capital in investor portfolios has grown tremendously over the last 20 years, aided by the public success of U.S. endowments like Yale and Harvard, who were early adopters of venture capital and private equity. In this paper, the aspects of private capital’s history, its long-term growth prospects, and why an increasing number and range of investors are utilising the private markets globally are reviewed.  
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A Liquidity Cushion in Troubled Times: The PE Secondaries Market

The overall private capital industry has grown significantly over the last 20 years. Assets under management (AUM) have grown more than tenfold, from US$647 billion in 2000 to $4.8 trillion in 2019. This growth is driven to some extent by the strong performance of some primary PE funds. The PE secondaries market has also grown in line with the primary market. The key reasons are that secondaries allow investors to achieve liquidity early, rebalance their portfolios, modify exposures due to regulatory changes ‒ as we saw after the last global financial crisis ‒ and also lock in returns on their private equity investments.
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The Pervasive, Head-Scratching, Risk-Exploding Problem With Venture Capital

Is venture capital a risky asset class? Most VC funds choose to act in a risky manner by not diversifying, but that does not make the asset class risky. To de-risk venture capital, CIOs simply need to acknowledge that VC math is different from public markets math. The importance of low-probability, excess-return-generating investments means that proper diversification requires a portfolio of at least 500 start-ups.
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Introducing Excess Value: A Metric for Private Market Outperformance

The gains from private market investing are best understood relative to public benchmarks. But there has been no way to compare the two in currency terms – until now. Excess value method enables investors to measure the performance of their private market portfolios relative to a public benchmark in currency terms.
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Can Investors Save the Planet While Making a Profit?

Globally, climate change has dominated the public space in the past couple of years. This has propped up a strong investor demand. To wit, 84 percent of millennials invest with a focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) impact as their central goal as compared to less than 50 percent for baby boomers. Given that an estimated US$68 trillion will be passed down from baby boomers over the next 30 years, with up to 80 percent of investment goals being reconsidered in the process, a significant flow of investment towards impact – specifically, climate change – is expected.
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Has Venture Capital Strayed From Its Roots?

Has the time come for us to rethink VC in today’s world? Perhaps take a step back in time to observe how Georges Doriot – the founder of both VC and INSEAD – in 1946, set up a machine to fuel and fund innovation and development. A system that aligns incentives with founders and not funders. Doriot’s philosophy was steeped in a sense of integrity that perhaps deserves a comeback. Business, if treated as a force for good, can only create a system that generates returns in an ethical, balanced way.
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Impact Investing in Covid-19 Times: A Three-Step Mission

The term “impact investing” has only been around for about 20 years. However, the concepts of good business practice and social responsibility have been with us for centuries. The Covid-19 pandemic represents one of the greatest challenges yet faced by this new-old sector.
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Private Equity’s COVID-19 Recovery Plan

COVID-19 has accelerated many long-brewing developments in the business world, such as the ascent into respectability of working from home. Private equity (PE) has not been immune to this trend. By chilling the deal-making process for the time being, the pandemic has brought greater focus to PE's involvement in active ownership of portfolio companies, and an emphasis on operational improvements and other forms of long-term value creation. For the moment, PE firms have no choice but to concentrate on keeping their investees afloat, no easy task given the churning waters ahead.  
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Impact Investing Private Equity Market Mapping

This project entails a review and analysis of the private equity landscape for Impact Managers, including but not limited to; market mapping of impact managers, shaping narrative on impact investing themes and recommendation from the INSEAD team.
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Krakakoa – Exit Strategy

This project evaluates exit options for Krakakoa - a bean-to-bar chocolate maker from Indonesia, by comparing historical consumer packed goods (CPG) deals.
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Corporate Venture Capital

The main objective of this study is to understand how CVCs contribute to corporate strategy and how they affect deals and exits. The study also provides key learnings for corporations to setup successful CVCs.
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KK Fund – Growth Strategy for VCs

This project aims to describe the best practices globally by VC firms that KK fund - a Singapore based VC firm, looking to adopt innovative practices to scale presence in SEA - can model after by conducting in-depth analysis on VC successes and best practices through desk research and interviews with VCs and VC-backed firms.
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The Future of Boards and The Board of the Future

This project aims to develop a perspective on the trends affecting company board governance (the “Future of Boards”). Specifically, how trends such as diversity, remote work, ESG, amongst other items, are affecting and shaping boards, with a focus on differences between public and private boards have been analysed through a series of interviews with board directors. Based on these analyses the project also seeks to identify what the Board of the Future should look like in terms of operating model, use of technology, and impact of ESG on its function.
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The Defensible Startup

Based on 40+ interviews with VCs and Angle Investors the “Defensible Startup” report aims to offer a defensibility (moats) framework and set of examples of how different companies got started on their journey towards architecting and constructing their moats – i.e. to try to make a connection between early actions taken by founders and eventual moat outcomes.
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Corporate Innovation through Venture Building

The market has many different ideas as to what 1. Venture building means and 2. How to create ways to orient different goal within Venture Building. Hence, this study aims to better understand the market as well as find ways to better communicate the venture building ideas with the clients
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Investing at the Crossroads of Biotech & Food

Food sector continues to look like an attractive segment to be focused on, given strong fundamentals. There is a significant opportunity for biotechnology players in this segment, whether focused on improving current system (e.g. crop yield optimisation) or pushing new innovations (e.g. precision fermentation, cultivation). Funding in biotech x food space is growing quickly, increasing to €1b+ range within a matter of 5-10 years. This project aims to frame the intersection between biotechnology & food, map the relevant start-ups in this space, review the active funds and provides high-level recommendations for new investment entities.
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LEGO Ventures Analysis Proposal Investment Decision in Digital Play in Asia

LEGO Ventures is looking to invest in Digital Play which consists of video games, social play experiences, and support services in Asia. This project provides a summary of potential investment candidates sourced by the project team and validated by LEGO Ventures. In addition, each candidate contains a deeper and candidate-specific qualitative analysis based on questions proposed by LEGO Ventures.
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Southeast Asia VC HealthTech Landscape

The HealthTech sector in SEA saw record breaking funding levels in 2019 as deal volume rose at a 63 CAGR. 2 of the 5 largest SEA HealthTech deals in 2019 are based in Indonesia Halodoc and Alodokter while the others are based in Singapore. This project assesses the SEA HealthTech landscape from a VC lens by providing macro review of the healthcare and eHealth space and trends in addition to an overview of numerous startups and VCs currently active in the region.

Partners

It is GPEI's role to further INSEAD's ability to produce the unbiased, data-driven output and insights needed to fuel success in private equity and to provide a trusted forum for the exchange of ideas and learning within the industry. As a non-profit organisation we depend on support from individual and corporate partners.

How to become a partner

Become a Partner

INSEAD GPEI attracts funding from top international companies; our founding core supporters include General Atlantic, Boston Consulting Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Read Press Release.

It is GPEI's role to further INSEAD's ability to produce the unbiased, data-driven output and insights needed to fuel success in private equity and to provide a trusted forum for the exchange of ideas and learning within the industry. As a non-profit organisation we depend on support from individual and corporate partners.

Partnership options

Option 1: Alumni Partners – for INSEAD alumni in the PE industry
GPEI is supported and advised by a board of alumni in senior positions in the PE industry. These selected INSEAD alumni provide strategic guidance for the centre as well as resources needed for the centre to execute its vision. If you do not have the time to commit to our board, please consider supporting us on individual projects or with a donation to benefit the overall development of the centre via:

Give to INSEAD .

Option 2: Corporate Partners – for companies in the PE industry
Join GPEI's consortium of leading industry partners – a select group of partners with complementary backgrounds. This group of corporate partners, together with the alumni board, constitute GPEI's advisory board. The size of the group will be capped and in order to join we ask for a multi-year commitment.

Option 3: Research or Project Partners
If you are interested in being associated with specific areas of research or want to further knowledge development and its dissemination in the industry, please contact us for a discussion. To be clear, we do not engage in customised publications for paying clients ('research for hire').

Partnership Benefits

GPEI's partners enjoy the privilege of being associated with a vibrant and open research environment. Through their association with GPEI, our partners receive significant recognition and visibility through their involvement in high-profile events, publications and the distribution of our reports across global networks.

Partnership Benefits

Send us a message

Contact us if you have any questions or if you would like to make a referral to potential partners.

 

Corporate Partners

We thank our Corporate Partners for their multi-year commitment to GPEI and their longstanding support. It is not only a strong endorsement of our efforts, but allows us to extend the boundaries of private equity research and create a consistent dialogue between PE research and practitioners.

  

Alumni Partners

Many of INSEAD's alumni are either working in the private equity industry or have benefited from it as entrepreneurs and managers. Please consider supporting a specific research project or the overall development of PE at INSEAD. We are grateful to acknowledge support from the following alumni supporters:

 

Christoph Rubeli, INSEAD MBA '92D
Christian Stahl, INSEAD MBA '98D
Gilles Destremau, INSEAD MBA '87J
Mark Ellison, INSEAD MBA '83J
The Frank and Mary Dubczak Fund
Zhou Chuangen, INSEAD MBA '00D
Several anonymous donors

 

Advisory Board

Some alumni who hold senior positions in the PE industry support and advise GPEI on an ongoing basis through our alumni advisory board. All members commit to the advisory board for several years to have a measurable impact on the centre's strategy and execution.

We are looking for individuals who are passionate about the industry and INSEAD to help us define our role in the ecosystem. The following alumni constitute the advisory board. We are grateful for their support.

 

karim
Karim Khairallah

Managing Director Oaktree Capital Management Limited INSEAD MBA '98D

Christina Pamberg
Christina Pamberg

Managing Partner Alcyon Holding Ltd INSEAD MBA '97D

Deepak I. Shahdadpuri
Deepak I. Shahdadpuri

Founder and Managing Director DSG Consumer Partners INSEAD MBA '98D

Turestsky
Avi Turestsky

Director of Quantitative Research Landmark Partners INSEAD MBA '02D

Research and Project Partners

Our Research Partners support GPEI with access to their data and cooperate with us on individual research projects:

 

 

Partners on Specific Projects

We partner with companies on specific projects. In addition to sponsorship, we are looking for access to data allowing us to develop original research. A selection of our project partners is shown below:

       

Research Initiatives

Responsible Investing

 

Responsible Investing

 

 

Investors and companies have expressed a growing appreciation of the impact that nonfinancial factors can have on value creation, long-term company performance, and the health of society at large. Over the past half-decade, this rising level of awareness has been spurred on by several organisations and industry bodies – such as the United Nations and the Private Equity Growth Capital Council (PEGCC) – that have developed best practice guidelines. GPEI explores the full spectrum of responsible investment, with a particular focus on two streams: impact investing and ESG in private equity.

Impact investing is an element or sector within the spectrum of socially responsible investing that seeks to deploy capital for an acceptable level of risk-adjusted return while concurrently incurring benefits in environmental and/or social terms. Put another way, impact investing marries the effect of an investment dollar on measurable, socially beneficial goals or metrics and the deployment of capital for an expected positive return.

For GPs executing growth capital and layout strategies, the ability to manage environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment considerations is increasingly viewed by leading GPs as lever for value creation. Private equity firms on the fundraising trail are not the only GPs cognizant of this trend; cost-savings potential, competitor activity and regulation all contribute to the rising awareness of ESG factors in investment committee decision making.

Work in this area is led by Ian Potter, Distinguished Fellow at GPEI.

Research

GREEN SHOOTS: Can Private Equity Firms Meet the Responsible Investing Expectations of Their Investors?
By Sara Lim, Ian Potter and Bartek Walentynski
October 2020

ESG in Private Equity: A Fast-Evolving Standard
By Bowen White, Claudia Zeisberger and Michael Prahl
May 2014

News

COVID-19 Accelerates ESG Trends, Global Investors Confirm
Fiona Reynolds
UNPRI
September 2020

 

Investors Integrating ESG Can Indeed Do Well by Doing Good
By Charlie McGrath
Preqin
September 2020

 

ESG Goes Mainstream in Private Capital
Preqin
September 2020

 

Study Rebuts 'Widespread Claims' of ESG Outperformance amid Covid Turmoil
By Alf Wilkinson
Ignites Europe
August 2020

 

ESG ETF Assets Break $100bn Barrier

By Alf Wilkinson
Ignites Europe
August 2020

 

Impact Investing in Covid-19 Times: A Three-Step Mission
By Alexandra von Stauffenberg
INSEAD Knowledge
June 2020

 

Mainstreaming Impact Investing: What Do Investors Want?
By Kevin Lu, Shunsuke Tanahashi, Noelle Tan
The Business Times
June 2018

 

Impact Investing Comes Into Its Own
By Claudia Zeisberger and Kevin Lu
INSEAD Knowledge
April 2018

 

Building an Impact Investing Business that Makes a Real Difference

By Jasjit Singh

INSEAD Knowledge

March 2018

 

The Stars Are Aligning for Socially Responsible Investing
By Ian Potter
INSEAD Knowledge
March 2017

Getting the Big Money into Social Impact

By Ian Potter

INSEAD Knowledge

August 2015

 

Corporate Sustainability is More Than Just Ticking the Regulatory Box

By Jasjit Singh

South China Morning Post

September 2015

 

What are the Prospects for Impact Investing?
By Hugo Greenhalgh
Financial Times
December 2015

With Pressure from Investors: Private Equity Considers ESG
By Katie Gilbert
Institutional Investor
November 2014

Resources

Private Equity’s Role in Delivering the SDGs: Current Approaches and Good Practice

EMPEA

 

Case Studies

Private Equity Real Estate Investors – Overcoming the Challenge of Sustainability & ESG: Pro-invest Group’s ESG Journey
Claudia Zeisberger, Alexandra von Stauffenberg, Cindy Van Der Wal
April 2022

Credit Suisse: Building an Impact Investing Business in Asia
By Jasjit Singh and Joost Bilkes
August 2017

Events

INSEAD Team takes Top Prize at Social Impact Investing Competition

We congratulate this team of INSEAD MBA'17D students for winning this year's MBA Impact Investing Network & Training (MIINT) competition! Advised by Ian Potter, the team pitched an online medical venture to win the competition, which included six months of preparation and an intense two-day competition involving 125 students from 25 business schools around the world.

Corporate Venture Capital

Corporate Venture Capital

 

 

Corporations are in a race to stay ahead and relevant as new technologies and business models upend their businesses. While internal R&D is still the main source of innovation, Global 2000 companies have turned increasingly to strategic acquisitions and venture capital investments to drive top-line growth, accelerate time to market and exploit windows of opportunity, and to test the waters before entering new markets. By the end of 2017, three-quarters of Fortune 100 companies were actively deploying venture capital and CVC represented approximately 23% of all venture capital invested in 2017.

GPEI’s work in corporate venture capital seeks to illuminate the issues and questions that are driving interest and growth in this critical source of innovation funding. We will update this site regularly with insightful articles that highlight the role that CVC plays in driving innovation in corporations.

Work in this area is led by Deepak Natarajan – INSEAD Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise – who established Intel Capital's (Intel's CVC arm) SEA and ANZ operations in 2008.

Current Research

The team at GPEI are currently undertaking research to understand the nature of collaboration between corporations and startups, more specifically with the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) arm of large multinationals and their ability to attract startups into their portfolio.

We are currently looking for both CVCs and startups to offer their insight and opinions on partnering with each other. If you are interested in being part of the research study, click here to fill up a questionnaire.

Take Survey

Publications

Corporate VC Is Booming, but Is It What Your Start-Up Needs?

By Nicolas Sauvage, Claudia Zeisberger and Monisha Varadan

August 2022

 

Is Corporate Venture Capital Right for Your Startup?

By Nicolas Sauvage, Claudia Zeisberger and Monisha Varadan

July, 2022

 

Corporate Venture Capital

By Laura Rivera, Abhinandan Jain, Guillaume Iserin, Sangwoo Pak, Ingrid Vallee, Jermayne Chan (Class of MBA'21J)

April 2021

 

Case Study

Corporate Venture Capital Primer

By Peter Ziebelman, Claudia Fan Munce and Matthew Saucedo

December 2017

 

Resources

How Covid-19 Is Impacting Corporate Venture Capital Investment

CB Insights

June 2020

 

The 2019 Global CVC Report

CB Insights

March 2020

 

Unlocking Corporate Venture Capital

500 SU

October 2019

 

The Golden Mean of Corporate Venture Capital

Pitchbook

May 2019

 

The Two Ways for Startups and Corporations to Partner
By Shameen Prashantham
January 2019

 

A Guide to Corporate Innovation: 19 Strategies to Drive Innovation Now
CB Insights
November 2018

 

History of Corporate Venture Captial
CBInsights

 

PwC Corporate Venture Capital

 

Collaboration between Start-ups and Corporates: A Practical Guide for Mutual Understanding
World Economic Forum
June 2018

 

A Manual for CVC
By Iskender Dirik
August 2017

 

News

How to Approach (and Work with) the 3 Types of Corporate VCs
By Scott Orn and Bill Growney
Techcrunch
May 2020

 

Facing Disaster, Corporate Venture Capital to Undergo Key Stress Test
By Alexander Davis
Pitchbook News
March 2020

 

Making Corporate Venture Capital Work
By Patrick Flesner, Michael Wade and Nikolaus Obwegeser
MITSloan
June 2019

 

Your Next Check Could be Cut From One of These Atypical VC Firms
By Natasha Mascarenhas
Crunchbase News
June 2019

 

Why Corporate Centuring is More Like Hedging than Institutional Venturing
By Christian Vogt
Medium
May 2019

Corporate Venture Capital is Here to Stay
By Scott Lenet

Forbes
May 2019

 

Sovereign Wealth Funds Placed Record Venture Capital Bets in 2018

By Tom Arnold

Deal Street Asia

March 2019

 

5 Things Startups Should Know About Corporate Venture Capital

By Cato Gullichsen

CVC Insights

January 2019

 

The Most Commonly Cited Barriers to Innovation in Large Companies? Internal Politics

By Scott Kirsner

Harvard Business Review

July 2018

 

CB Insights State of Innovation Report 2018

CB Insights

July 2018

 

5 Thought Leaders Discuss Corporate Innovation in Podcasts
By Sramana Mitra
One Million by One Million Blog
April 2018

 

Notes From the AI Frontier: Applications and Value of Deep Learning
By Michael Chui, James Manyika, Mehdi Miremadi, Nicolaus Henke, Rita Chung, Pieter Nel and Sankalp Malhotra
McKinsey Global Institute
April 2018

 

Investor Spotlight: How Silver Lake's 'Four Amigos' Built a Tech Buyout Behemoth

By Kevin Dowd

PitchBook

April 2018

 

Can Corporate Venture Solve the Innovation Paradox?
By EY
April 2018

 

Is Corporate VC Hurting PE?

By Alex Lykken

PitchBook

March 2018

 

Corporate Venture Capital is Doing it Wrong
By Abarrera

The Aleph
March 2018

 

The Most Active Corporate VC Firms Globally

CBInsights

February 2018

 

3 Qualities You Need to Attract Corporate Venture Capital

By Paulina Karpis

Forbes

December 2017

 

What BMW’s Corporate VC Offers That Regular Investors Can’t

By Gregor Gimmy, Dominik Kanbach, Stephan Stubner, Andreas Konig and Albrecht Enders

Harvard Business Review

July 2017

 

Corporate VC is on the Rise: Here's What To Know
By Teddy Himler

Forbes
February 2017

 

Corporate VCs are Moving the Goalposts
By Pitchbook
November 2016

 

CVC-Startups partnerships: A “deal with the devil”?
By Kary Bheemaiah
August 2016

 

INSEAD & 500 startups partner to Uncover How the World's Biggest Companies Deal With the startup revolution
by INSEAD & 500SU
February 2016

 

Making Sense of Corporate Venture Capital
By Henry Chesbrough

Harvard Business Review
March 2002

 

Books

The Lean Startup

By Eric Ries

 

The Startup Way

By Eric Ries

Family Offices and Private Equity

Family Offices and Private Equity

 

 

Family businesses and family wealth play a powerful role in economies around the world. Our research focuses on two specific interactions between families and the private equity industry: the opportunity for private equity funds to partner with family businesses to catalyse growth and families' activity as investors in the PE asset class.

For family businesses looking to transform their operations, private equity can help catalyse change. In addition to an infusion of capital, a PE firm's process-driven approach to investing and the network of professionals can help a family business rapidly evolve its business. However, private equity's short investment horizon and different business model poses challenges to a successful partnership.

To share insight into the activities and attitudes of family investors, GPEI draws on its network of private equity LPs to engage with global family offices. In our publication on The Institutionalization of Asian Family Offices, we explore the growth and institutionalisation of family offices in Asia. The dominant role played by first generation wealth creators is a defining characteristic of our study. It places the family office industry in Asia at an earlier stage of institutionalization than Europe and North America. As regional wealth ages and the priorities of subsequent generations grow, we expect Asian family offices to increasingly mirror their Western counterparts.

Work in this area is led by Britta Pfister – Distinguished Fellow at GPEI.

Research

What Distinguishes Europe’s Family Business Champions from the Rest
By Alexandra von Stauffenberg and Claudia Zeisberger
2020

 

The Institutionalization of Family Firms – Europe
By Alexandra von Stauffenberg and Claudia Zeisberger
2020

 

The Changing Role of Family Offices in Europe
By Claudia Zeisberger, Caroline Decker-Lange and Knut Lange
2019

Latin American Family Firms and the Path to Longevity
By Alexandra Albers-Schoenberg and Claudia Zeisberger
2019

A Institucionalização das Empresas Familiares - América Latina (Portuguese Translation)
By Alexandra Albers-Schoenberg and Claudia Zeisberger
2019

 

La Institucionalización de las Empresas Familiares - Latinoamérica (Spanish Translation)
By Alexandra Albers-Schoenberg and Claudia Zeisberger
2019

 

The Institutionalization of Family Firms – Latin America
By Alexandra Albers-Schoenberg and Claudia Zeisberger
2019

 

Asian Family Office - The Way Forward
By Ronil Sujan
2019

 

The Institutionalization of Family Firms – From Asia-Pacific to the Middle East
By Bowen White, Alexandra Albers-Schoenberg and Claudia Zeisberger
2017

 

INSEAD–Pictet Report on The Institutionalization of Asian Family Offices
By Bowen White, Claudia Zeisberger and Michael Prahl
2014

 

Private Equity and Family Businesses – Making the Partnership Work
By Claudia Zeisberger, Michael Prahl and Jean Wee
2013

 

UBS Global Family Office Report

2018

 

News

INSEAD Publishes Research on Family-backed Enterprises in Europe

INSEAD’s Global Private Equity Initiative

PRNewswire

February 2020

 

Hedge Funds Face a New Threat From Richest Families in Asia

By Klaus Wille

Bloomberg News

September 2018

(The article was also published on The Business Times and The Malaysia Reserve)

 

Successful Family Firms Shoot for the Moon

By Randel Carlock

INSEAD Knowledge

August 2018

 

Strategy And Succession in Family Business – Charting The Future
By Martin Roll
Martin Roll Business and Brand Leadership
July 2018

 

Selling the Family Business in S-E Asia – Pitfalls and a Roadmap
By Claudia Zeisberger and Britta Pfister
The Business Times
March 2018

 

Money Returns to Hong Kong and Singapore

By Claire Coe Smith

City Wealth Magazine

February 2018

 

What Family Firms Need to Ensure Longevity
By Bowen White
INSEAD Knowledge
November 2017

 

How Family Firms Ensure Long-Term Value Creation
Podcast Interview with Claudia Zeisberger By Chris Riback
Working Capital Review
November 2017

 

Professionalisation of Family Firms: Key Elements

By Morten Bennedsen and Brian Henry

Salamander, INSEAD Alumni Magazine

October 2017

 

How to Avoid Conflict During a Family Business Transition
By Britta Pfister
Hubbis Expert Insights
April 2017

 

The Rise of Family Offices in Asia

By Jeremy Hazlehurst

Financial Times

June 2015

 

Why You Should Care About Family Office Values
By Britta Pfister
INSEAD Knowledge
May 2015

 

Family Offices in Asia, the Middle East to Double, Insead says

By Klaus Wille

Bloomberg Business

April 2015

 

Now Hiring: Family Offices in Asia

By Bowen White and Michael Prahl

INSEAD Knowledge

January 2015

 

The Asian Family and Private Equity

By Michael Prahl and Claudia Ziesberger

2014

 

Events & Outreach Activities

Invest Europe-INSEAD Single Family Office Day
Geneva, 26 March 2019

 

INSEAD Single Family Office Day, Asia 2018
Singapore, 7 November 2018

Invest Europe-INSEAD Single Family Office Day
Geneva, 24 March 2018

Family Enterprise Day: The Institutionalization of Family Firms 
Singapore, 27 January 2018

Invest Europe–INSEAD Single Family Office Day
Geneva, 28 March 2017

Invest Europe–INSEAD Single Family Office Day
Geneva, 15 March 2016

EVCA–INSEAD Single Family Office Day
Geneva, 17-19 March 2015

INSEAD's 3rd Asian Family Office Day
Singapore, 22 January 2015

European Forum of Family Investing
Paris, May 2014

Family Office Lunch

Singapore, 17 January 2014

 

INSEAD's 2nd Asian Family Office Day
Singapore, 9 May 2013

Infrastructure Investing

Infrastructure Investing

 

 

It is widely documented that infrastructure drives economic growth, creates jobs, and improves quality of life. However, there's a chronic underinvestment in infrastructure due to historical underinvestment and explosion in demand. A 2016 McKinsey study placed the gap in infrastructure spending at $800 billion annually through 2030 while the World Bank estimates that as of 2018, there is a $1.3 trillion annual funding gap for infrastructure projects for emerging economies.

From a public policy standpoint, in order to finance infrastructure development, how investors and financiers should approach infrastructure assets becomes critical. From the investor standpoint, it is equally critical to form a complete understanding of this asset class, which bears a number of differences from traditional equity or debt assets. In addition to investors, infrastructure development typically involves a large number of other parties, including government entities, project sponsors, contractors, financial/technical/legal advisors, multilaterals, etc. How investors interact and collaborate with these public and private sector players to best identify, de-risk and invest in infrastructure assets requires not only a good technical understanding, but a new mindset that recognises infrastructure as a brand new asset class. GPEI seeks to approach these key topics from a PE and project finance angle.

Work in this area is led by Kevin Lu – Distinguished Fellow at GPEI; Partner, Chairman of Asia and a Member of the Global Executive Board at Partners Group. 

Publications

How Private Investors Can Narrow the Global Infrastructure Gap
By Wissam Anastas
INSEAD Knowledge
September 2017

 

New Equities for Infrastructure Investment

By Justin Yifu Lin, Kevin Lu and Cledan Mandri-Perrott

Project Syndicate

March 2015

 

Infrastructure's Class of Its Own

By Kevin Lu and Justin Yifu Lin

Project Syndicate

April 2014

 

Financing Asia's Infrastructure Gap: New Ideas for the Public & Private Sectors

By Kevin Lu

November 2013

 

To Finance the World's Infrastructure, We Need a New Asset Class

By Kevin Lu and Justin Lin

The Huffington Post

October 2013

 

Infrastructure Finance: Liquidity is Over-rated

By Kevin Lu

The Wall Street Journal

April 2012

 

 

Venture Capital at INSEAD

Venture Capital at INSEAD

 

Venture capital and VC-backed companies provide a glimpse into what our world might look like in the years to come. The disruptive technologies and business models funded through VC investment impact a wide range of industries, from consumer to healthcare to financial services. The steady growth of annual VC investment over the past decade and the global expansion of the industry have increased the capital available to fund new ideas across developed and emerging markets alike.

GPEI focuses on providing a link between industry experts and the INSEAD community, from case studies presented in the classroom to the centre’s support of the INSEADAlum Ventures seed fund. Funding mechanisms and participants continue to change almost as fast as the ideas seeking capital and GPEI seeks to illuminate the issues and questions in this dynamic area.

GPEI’s work in venture capital is led by R. Todd Ruppert.

INSEADAlum Ventures

GPEI is among a strong contingent of INSEAD stakeholders and alumni lending support to a new venture underpinning entrepreneurship at INSEAD: INSEADAlum Ventures (IAV). Launched in August 2015, IAV is a Singapore-registered investment company focused on providing seed funding, value-added resources and mentorship to selected INSEAD alumni who become entrepreneurs after graduation. Learn more about the fund and how to participate here.

Research

Southeast Asia Exit Landscape Report 2.0
by Golden Gate Ventures, INSEAD Global Private Equity Initiative
June 2021

 

The Pervasive, Head-Scratching, Risk-Exploding Problem With Venture Capital
by Kamal Hassan, Monisha Varadan and Claudia Zeisberger
September 2020

 

Has Venture Capital Strayed From Its Roots?
by Monisha Varadan, Kamal Hassan and Claudia Zeisberger
July 2020

 

How the VC Pitch Process Is Failing Female Entrepreneurs?
by Kamal Hassan, Monisha Varadan and Claudia Zeisberger
January 2020

 

Southeast Asia Exit Landscape - A New Frontier
by Golden Gate Ventures, INSEAD Global Private Equity Initiative
September 2019

 

Getting Rid of Gender Bias in Venture Capital
by Monisha Varadan, Kamal Hassan and Claudia Zeisberger
August 2019

 

Y Combinator Accelerates the Hunt for Unicorns
by Claudia Zeisberger
July 2019

 

The Year of the Red Unicorns: A Preqin and INSEAD Study
by Alexandra Albers, Ian Potter and Claudia Zeisberger
November 2018

 

News

Investors Looking to Delay Startup Exits due to COVID-19: Survey 

By Vikas Aggarwal
AlKhalej Today
June 2020

 

Exiting the Dragon: Examining Options for Returning Capital 
by Ian Potter and Claudia Zeisberger
South China Morning Post
November 2018

 

tryb Fintech and Limited Partner Survey
by Herston Powers
tryb Group
November 2018

 

The Rise of the Red Unicorns

by Ian Potter and Claudia Zeisberger

INSEAD Knowledge

September 2018

 

Why Venture Capitalists Should Invest like Poker Players
by Kamal Hassan and Claudia Zeisberger
INSEAD Knowledge

July 2018

 

Tapping the Opportunities Offered by China Unicorns

by Khairani Afifi Noordin

The Edge Malaysia

July 2018

 

Will Late-Stage Venture Funding Pay Off?
by Bowen White
INSEAD Knowledge
September 2017

 

The Double-Edged Sword of Being a Lean Start-up

by Vikas Aggarwal

INSEAD Knowledge

July 2017

 

Indian Start-ups Must Compete Without Protection, Says Deepak Shahdadpuri

by Joji Thomas Philip

Livemint

April 2017

 

Three Make-or-Break Factors for Tomorrow's Start-ups
by Philip Anderson
INSEAD Knowledge
December 2016

 

Student Projects

KK Fund – Growth Strategy for VCs

by Max Sumargo, Ivanina Stoyanova, Grace Tham, Sky Song, Jacob John Kuttisseril, Charles Bernard

 

Corporate Innovation through Venture Building

by Alessandro Rampazzo

 

The Emerging Role of Venture Builders in Early-Stage Venture Funding

by Jonathan Bariller, Huub van Verseveld, Andrew Locke, Niel Wyma, Boris Spirov

 

China's Venture Capital: Bigger than Silicon Valley's?

by Ariel Lu, Jessie Chen, Frank Fu

 

Micro VCs: A Worthwhile Investment?

by Pasarn Intarangsi, Cristina Moldovan, Robin Szustkowski, Vivienne Xu

 

Featured Links

INSEAD LaunchPad: Station F

 

INSEAD Alumni Entrepreneurs

 

PitchBook Ranking 2017

 

Search Funds 

 

Turnaround and Distressed Investing

Turnaround and Distressed Investing

 

 

Our work in Corporate Turnarounds is centred on the Managing Corporate Turnarounds MBA elective. The course focuses on giving participants the opportunity to experience what it takes to turn around a company in a variety of cases, ranging from strategic turnarounds to deep-distress situations. Turnaround situations are relevant to managers even if they never end up in distress, as putting pressure on a system brings weaknesses to the surface and forces managers to sail sharp into the wind. It is no surprise that this elective has evolved since its launch in 2009 into one of the most popular courses in the INSEAD’s MBA programme.

This course introduces students to the challenges of managing critical turnaround situations in corporations globally. To consistently preserve shareholder value through the ups and downs of a business cycle, it is vital to understand the reasons why companies slide into decline and what the mechanics of executing a successful turnaround are. Naturally, the course builds on the earlier classes in the MBA programme and is a logical follow-on to courses in Entrepreneurship and Private Equity. It is particularly relevant for those who are interested in working with investors in struggling companies, the management of distressed assets or would like to pursue a career in turnaround management.

Students start their journey with eight in-class sessions with case studies and guest speakers from the industry. Once the theoretical foundations are in place, they test their skills in an intense computer-based simulation taught over a full weekend. The task: Rescuing a distressed car manufacturer by drawing on the management, finance and operational skills acquired in earlier classes. Participants face increasingly complex decisions impacting both their short-term liquidity and long-term value creation (or preservation). The challenge is to survive in the short run by generating enough cash to buy time to restructure and create a new future for the company. Depending on how well cash is managed in the early stages of the simulation, participants have more freedom in deciding on long-term financial and operational issues. A thorough debrief presents the learnings from the “winning” team’s strategy.

Work in this area is led by Nicholas Ward – Distinguished Fellow at GPEI. 

Alumni in Turnarounds

Adam Kingdon

Serial Entrepreneur & Turnaround Specialist

MBA'83J

 

Tariq Fancy

Founder of Rumie Initiative, Investor & Turnaround expert

MBA'08J

 

News from the classroom

TURNAROUND now with Simulation

 

Publications

The Three Steps of Successful Turnarounds

By Claudia Zeisberger

INSEAD Knowledge

August 2015

 

Family Ties Help When Firms Go Bust

By Massimo Massa

INSEAD Knowledge

May 2015

 

Value, Added

By Matt Golosinski

INSEAD Alumni Magazine

April 2014

Private Equity Real Estate

Private Equity Real Estate

 

PE Real Estate is a mature sector providing investors with a large spectrum of investment opportunities. By crossing multiple criteria: geography, asset types, size, risk return profile, investors get access to both main stream investment like core office in Manhattan or niches, like student housing in Central Europe or Data warehouse in Sweden.

Like the overall economy, Real Estate is not only affected by economic trends, like financial crisis, but also by structural trends, like uberization, digitalization. The recent Covid-19 pandemic seems to gather both. Like in recent past, with the first Gulf War, the TMT Bubble crash, the subprime, once again, following the global economy, the real estate markets are significantly affected by an external crisis. Talking about retail and Hospitality “affected” is an euphemism. But the second impact of the pandemic is an acceleration of major evolutions, Darwinian adaptation that will produce durable change: on-line shopping supremacy, teleworking, renting vs. owning and responsible and earth caring investment.

GPEI decided to launch a PE RE initiative, led by Lahlou Khelifi – Distinguished Fellow at GPEI.

Alumni in Real Estate

Hans Hammer, Germany

CEO at Hammer AG, Member of the Munich City Council

MBA'98J

 

Omega Poole, UK

Partner, Head of Debt Advisory at Mishcon de Reya LLP

MBA'09J

 

Marc Le Borgne, France

Managing Partner at Fairlead Real Estate

MBA'87D

 

News from the Classroom

Syllabus of RE Elective

 

News

How COVID-19 Could Drive ESG Adoption in the Real Estate Industry

Preqin

June 2020

 

Resources

2020 EisnerAmper & Preqin Private Equity Real Estate Outlook

Preqin

October 2020

 

2020 Preqin Global Real Estate Report

Preqin

February 2020

 

2019 Private Equity Real Estate Market Outlook

EisnerAmper & Preqin

March 2019

 

2018 Preqin Global Real Estate Report

Preqin

January 2019

 

Real Estate Spotlight 

Preqin

March 2018

 

2017 Global Market Outlook: Trends in Real Estate Private Equity 

Ernst & Young

2017

 

Global Market Outlook 2016: Trends in Real Estate Private Equity 

Ernst & Young

2016

 

Global Market Outlook 2015: Trends in Real Estate Private Equity 

Ernst & Young

2015

 

Student Projects

Real Estate Private Equity in Asia: Trends, Risks and Opportunities

By Charles Chen and Charul Patel

In the News

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Investors Looking to Delay Startup Exits due to COVID-19: Survey

June 2020 | AlKhalej Today This study offers an initial snapshot on how startups and venture capital investors are reacting to COVID-19 crisis. H1 2020 MENA Startup & VC Sentiment Report 
a

Boards and Value Creation

March 2020 | The Business Times In an age of disruption, businesses now more than ever need to find creative solutions to the challenges brought about by transformation in the forms of new technology, evolving business models and customer expectations.  
a

What Distinguishes Europe’s Family Business Champions from the Rest

February 2020 | INSEAD Knowledge Where do Europe’s family firms stand globally, in terms of creating sustainable, long-term value?  
a

INSEAD Publishes Research on Family-backed Enterprises in Europe

February 2020 | PR Newswire The Institutionalization of Family Firms, Europe examines how institutionalization can help European family-owned businesses secure long-term sustainability, unlock growth, and face challenges such as family ownership and succession planning, as well as access to capital.  
Faculty (MBA and Executive Education)

Vikas A. Aggarwal
Academic Director
[email protected]

Research and Outreach

Alexandra von Stauffenberg
Associate Director
[email protected]

Media and Communication

Mengu Kulahci
Centre Coordinator
[email protected]

 

   

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