The rise of private marketsThe rise of private markets

To reach and exceed those heights, an IPO was a given. Going public was how you raised big capital, created liquidity for employees, and gave investors a piece of the action.

That gravitational pull has shifted. The most sought-after companies can raise billions privately, often at valuations higher than their listed peers. So how and why did staying private become a power move?

I’ve observed the rise of private equity and the quiet retreat of private markets firsthand over the last decade. These are my reflections on the tertiary impacts, what might happen next, and why liquidity is about flexibility, not just exits.

Why companies are staying private

At the Milken Institute Asia Summit this month, there was a consistent implication across the discussions and panels. Private markets are no longer the pre-listing waiting room. They’ve become a destination in their own right.

And the reasons are convincing.

• The price of listing. Banks often underprice IPOs by 10-20%, and costs of listing can be in the order of 7% of total proceeds. Those are material costs to step onto an exchange.

• The compliance burden. Audits, assurance, climate disclosures— the list gets longer each year.

• The availability of capital. More financial heavy-hitters have taken an interest in private markets. As Bill Gurley put it, “money’s everywhere.”

Staying private lets companies raise capital quietly and easily, avoid quarterly scrutiny, and sell shares on secondary platforms when liquidity’s needed.

The flipside: investors need liquidity

For investors, this new reality is more complicated. While companies have never had more choice, investors have never needed liquidity more.

Many Milken panelists echoed what commentators have observed: growing uncertainty and volatility. The next decade will likely bring more frequent dislocations in prices, sectors, and geographies, compounded by energy transitions, AI adoption, and trade fragmentation. And that changes what liquidity means. 

Liquidity used to be about getting your money out. Now it’s about portability: the ability to redeploy capital quickly when the facts change.

If you can’t pivot, you can’t protect or grow. If you can’t access liquidity, you can’t take advantage of dislocation. Liquidity provides optionality, and optionality is invaluable in volatile times. 

Private markets in the equity sphere

On the equity side, private markets have matured fast. They’re no longer opaque pools of capital chasing startups. They’re structured, deep, and even sometimes more disciplined than public markets.

The market is also innovating on liquidity and access to private markets. While Stripe has stayed private, it offers liquidity for employees and early investors via regular tenders.

On the access side, platforms are starting to experiment with tokenising private shares. Robinhood has recently introduced this to give their retail investors access to the likes of SpaceX, but only once the underlying stock is held on their balance sheet.

A mirror image in credit

This pattern is also playing out in credit. As banks retreat, private credit has surged to fill the gap. Private lenders are structuring asset-backed deals, long-duration loans, and tailored credit that banks can’t and won’t match.

Like private equity, it’s a story of creativity and control. It also raises the same risks: who holds the liquidity? And how tight is the discipline when the market grows this fast?

What’s at stake?

Private markets have expanded what’s possible for companies. But if too much value creation happens behind closed doors, public markets risk losing their purpose—broad access, price discovery, and participation.

At the same time, the volatility of this next decade could make liquidity, and therefore public markets, more essential than ever.

Because when uncertainty rises, mobility matters. The ability to move from one company, asset class, or geography to another—to adapt—is what keeps investors resilient.

Investors need liquidity to succeed in a mercurial market.

The blend ahead

The rise of private equity and credit provides more choice and freedom for companies, and that is a good thing. Rather than a binary shift, I’d like to think the future isn’t private or public, but both.

Private markets will keep providing patient, structured capital, with increasing maturity and sophistication. Public markets will reassert their strength in price discovery and liquidity, especially in a highly unpredictable environment. Tokenisation and AI will likely blur the lines between them, and the systems and institutions around these markets will adapt and innovate in response. But the principle won’t change: in an uncertain world, liquidity is what lets you move.