The Long View Hilary Wiek: Perspective on Private Markets
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Feb 24, 2026 Hilary Wiek, principal analyst at PitchBook with 20+ years across asset owners and investment roles. She talks about the 2026 private markets outlook, why fundraising slowed, valuation and fee issues, the rise of evergreen and interval fund structures, pockets of outperformance like secondaries, and how ESG and private exposure in 401(k)s are evolving.
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Career Path That Shaped Her Private Markets Lens
- Hilary Wiek traced her private markets journey from a utility with a $1B private equity portfolio to launching South Carolina's private equity program and later directing investments at a foundation.
- Those roles gave her on-the-ground experience in manager due diligence and informed her PitchBook research focus on fund strategies and ESG.
Why Fundraising Slowed Across Private Markets
- Key drivers of the private-markets slowdown include lack of distributions, market uncertainty, and decline in institutional capital from pensions moving to defined contribution plans.
- Aging VC portfolios reduced LP liquidity, interest-rate-driven risk aversion limited new commitments, and managers are now creating products for individual accounts.
IRR Versus Time Weighted Returns Explained
- Private fund performance uses IRR while public funds use time-weighted returns, so IRRs often appear higher and are not directly comparable to public returns.
- Use public market equivalent (PME) conversions to fairly compare private and public performance over the same period.