Strategy and Business Model

Seeking to maximise capital growth

We aim to deliver attractive and consistent returns to shareholders over the long term, and at relatively low risk.

An investment in PIP offers shareholders exposure to a growing global market, which is estimated to reach US$8.5tni by 2028, where the best private equity managers might otherwise be in accessible to shareholders.

It is our mission to generate sustainably high investment returns through a well-managed, institutional grade portfolio built by investing with the best private equity managers globally. PIP’s manager, Pantheon, has a well-established platform built on three strategic pillars of primary, secondary and co-investments, with each offering their own merits. We believe that by combining the three ways of accessing private equity investments, we are able to:

  • Build and maintain a well-balanced portfolio in a combination that we monitor and manage with the aim of maximising capital growth;
  • Manage the maturity profile of our assets so that our portfolio remains naturally cash-generative on a sustainable basis;
  • Ensure that the vehicle remains as cost-effective for our shareholders by reducing any potential drag on returns.

As portfolio companies are sold by our private equity managers, PIP’s share of the cash that is generated from those sales is deployed into new investment opportunities.

Business Model

Our investment process

01

Deals are originated via Pantheon's well‑established platform

02

Within our diversified portfolio, we aim to back the best managers globally that are able to identify and create value in growing companies

03

Cash generated when those companies are sold is returned to PIP and redeployed into new investment opportunities

Our investment strategies

Primary

We invest in a new private equity fund when it is established

  • Captures exposure to top-tier, well recognised managers as well as to smaller niche funds that are generally hard to access.
  • Targets leading managers predominantly in the USA and Europe, with a focus on funds rarely available in the secondary market.

Limited Partner Secondary

We purchase the interests of an investor in a fund or funds typically late into, or after, the investment period. 

  • Targets favoured funds and companies at a stage when the underlying assets’ performance is visible and the funds are realising investments, returning cash to PIP more quickly.
  • One of the advantages of investing in secondaries is that earlier fees will have been borne by the seller so total expenses are lower.

Manager-led Secondary

We invest in a company directly, alongside a private equity manager, that the manager has already owned for a period of time and therefore knows well.

  • We partner with high-quality private equity managers to acquire, as single transactions, their most attractive portfolio companies via a continuation fund.
  • Allows the private equity manager to hold onto a prized asset, which they believe has potential for further growth, when the fund in which it is held comes to the end of its life.

Co-investments

We invest in a portfolio company directly, alongside a private equity manager.

  • Invests in the securities of individual companies with attractive characteristics at the exclusive invitation of Pantheon’s private equity managers.
  • This boosts performance potential because there are typically very low or no fees, making it cost-effective way of capitalising on the high value added by Pantheon’s selected managers.
  • Co-investments are through invitation only and are therefore not accessible to most investors.

Objective and investment policy

The Company’s policy is to make unquoted investments. It does so by subscribing to investments in new private equity funds (“Primary Investment”), buying secondary interests in existing private equity funds (“Secondary Investment”), and acquiring direct holdings in unquoted companies (“Co-investments“), usually either where a vendor is seeking to sell a combined portfolio of fund interests and direct holdings or where there is a private equity manager, well known to the Company’s Manager, investing on substantially the same terms.

The Company’s policy is to adopt a global investment approach. The Company’s strategy is to mitigate investment risk through diversification of its underlying portfolio by geography, sector and investment stage. Since the Company’s assets are invested globally on the basis, primarily, of the merits of individual investment opportunities, the Company does not adopt maximum or minimum exposures to specific geographic regions, industry sectors or the investment stage of underlying investments.

Read our investment policy in full

How we manage risk

Navigating the challenges and mitigating the risks

As with any investment type, there are a number of risks in private equity. PIP has a robust approach to managing risk at all stages of the investment process.

Read more