How Are Private Equity ETFs Doing?

Do exchange-traded funds (ETF) designed to make private equity available to individual investors beat the market? To investigate, we consider five ETFs, as follows:

• • Invesco Global Listed Private Equity ETF (PSP) – invests in 40 to 75 private equity companies, including business development companies, master limited partnerships, alternative asset managers and other entities that are listed on a nationally recognized exchange.
  • iShares Listed Private Equity UCITS ETF (IPRV) – tracks the return of the S&P Listed Private Equity Index via exposure to large, liquid and listed private equity companies in developed markets that invest directly into or buy out private companies.
  • VanEck BDC Income ETF (BIZD) – invests at least 80% of its total assets in securities associated with its benchmark (Business Development Company) index.
  • ProShares Global Listed Private Equity ETF (PEX) – invests in the most actively traded private equity companies that directly hold private equity, or in instruments with similar economic characteristics.
  • FlexShares Listed Private Equity UCITS ETF (FLPE) – tracks price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the Foxberry Listed Private Equity SDG Screened USD Net Total Return Index.

We use Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund ETF (VTI) as the benchmark. We focus on monthly return statistics, along with compound annual growth rates (CAGR) and maximum drawdowns (MaxDD). Using monthly total returns for the five private equity ETFs and VTI as available through March 2025, we find that:

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