Insights Survey 2025

Private Funds CFO’s exclusive survey of CFOs

The increasing speed at which the global markets have changed over the past few years has forced many CFOs to take a more proactive approach to their firm’s development.

Private Funds CFO’s Insights Survey 2025, conducted in partnership with RSM, portrays the extent to which CFOs have been pivoting to position their firms for future success as and when the macroeconomic environment improves.

Read the full report to discover CFOs’ latest thinking on the industry’s biggest issues.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE INSIGHTS SURVEY

Insights Survey 2025: Seven key findings

The Private Funds CFO Insights Survey 2025 reveals the breadth of challenges and opportunities that CFOs are currently grappling with.

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METHODOLOGY

PEI Group’s research and analytics team surveyed 120 private fund finance leaders across July and August 2024. We wanted to know, directly from the people doing the job, how the roles and responsibilities of the chief financial officer are changing while the private markets industry experiences rapid growth and change.

We targeted CFOs, but if they were unavailable, we asked for responses from other professionals, including COOs and controllers, provided they were aware of their firms’ practices.

Emails were sent to the most appropriate professionals at all the leading private fund management firms. We asked respondents to fill out a short questionnaire, the results of which were collated and analysed by PEI Group’s research analysts.

The survey is entirely confidential. No names of the individuals or firms that responded are revealed. While the emphasis is on private equity, firms managing real estate, debt and infrastructure funds have been included. Many of the challenges facing private equity firms are as relevant to managers of other closed-end alternative asset classes funds. 

PREVIOUS SURVEYS

Private fund CFOs are facing a wave of challenges heading into 2024. Fundraising activity levels have been hit by liquidity pressures and the denominator effect, while the fund finance market is facing a shake-up in the US. These factors, combined with increasing regulatory pressures, mean LPs are scrutinizing their managers’ internal processes more than ever. But Private Funds CFO’s Insights Survey 2024, conducted in partnership with Aztec Group, finds that CFOs are tackling such challenges with a healthy degree of optimism as many expect growth over the coming year.

Insights Survey 2024: Seven key findings

The Private Funds CFO Insights Survey 2024 paints a picture of optimism against an otherwise uncertain macroeconomic background

Roundtable: The many hats of the modern CFO

Few areas of operational strategy fall outside the responsibility of today’s private markets CFO. Five industry leaders discuss how they are navigating a challenging macroeconomic environment while managing their in-house operations

Insights 2024: Fundraising hits hard times

Firms are extending timelines and moderating targets as they navigate a difficult fundraising environment.

Insights 2024: LPs dig deeper on due diligence

Questions around back-office functions are intensifying as LPs double down on compliance and reporting.

Insights 2024: New SEC rules cause confusion

Frustration is building among CFOs as they attempt to navigate the new marketing rules with limited guidance from the SEC.

Insights 2024: The advantages of administrative outsourcing

Regulatory complexity and LP demands keep the trend towards outsourcing continuing unabated.

Insights 2024: The advent of AI

CFOs are exploring how artificial intelligence could transform their asset classes

Insights 2024: Rebuilding banking relationships

CFOs navigate a fund finance market in flux in the wake of the regional banking crisis

Insights 2024: Methodology

How we conducted the Private Funds CFO Insights Survey 2024

Private markets are more buoyant than ever. Fund sizes continue to grow as opportunities for value creation abound. That’s good news, but it’s also true that larger funds come with a larger regulatory requirement and greater exposure to investor scrutiny. Respondents to the 2022 Private Funds CFO Insights Survey, conducted in partnership with TMF Group, said that coping with increased investor requests is now the most challenging aspect of raising a larger fund.

Read the full report to learn more about why CFOs are saying that the private markets are in the midst of a back office boom.

The Private Funds CFO Insights Survey drills down into the challenges facing chief financial officers and their counterparts at US private funds. This year’s findings shine a light on how firms are adapting to covid-19 and the trends that have been accelerated by the pandemic, from digitalization to LP scrutiny of back office functions.

The annual Private Funds CFO Insights Survey is a chance to take the pulse of one of the most vibrant positions in private equity. The CFO’s role has changed beyond all recognition over the last decade – something reflected in this year’s survey, where it is clear that the modern day finance chief has a huge amount of challenges on his or her plate. Funds are getting bigger — 65 percent of CFOs expect the next vehicle to be larger — which means more LPs and additional due diligence questions.

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