January 2016 finds private equity in good shape. Like any successful industry it faces many issues – high valuations, increasing regulation, a crowded fundraising market, fee pressures – all of which are covered in more detail by my colleague Christopher Elvin, but the bottom line remains the same: private equity has delivered superior returns to its LPs, and most of them intend to increase their allocations to the asset class. What I would like to focus on here is what precisely we mean by the phrase ‘private equity’ and how that is evolving. The private capital industry has grown and...