Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 85% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Gilmore: Total Portfolio Approach Allocators Tend Toward Higher Private Market Exposure

Stephen Gilmore · Stephen Gilmore – CalPERS' Total Portfolio Approach (EP.486) · Feb 9, 2026 · at 45:50

Stephen Gilmore, CIO of CalPERS, discusses misconceptions about Total Portfolio Approach adopters and private market asset allocations.

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“And if you look at the TPA adherence, they tend to have a bigger exposure to private markets.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Institutional allocators adhering to the Total Portfolio Approach tend to maintain larger allocations to private markets.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Stephen Gilmore, then-CIO of CalPERS, claimed that institutional allocators adhering to the Total Portfolio Approach (TPA) tend to maintain higher exposures to private markets. Industry peer studies and benchmarking reports from the Thinking Ahead Institute (TAI), the CAIA Association (October 2025), and CEM Benchmarking confirm this structural relationship. The pioneer and core cohort of TPA adopters (such as CPP Investments, Australia's Future Fund, NZ Super, and GIC) consistently maintain significantly larger allocations to unlisted assets (private equity, infrastructure, real estate, and private credit) than the broad institutional average. Furthermore, CAIA and TAI documented that the operational need to manage large, expanding private market books without the rigid constraints of traditional Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) silos has been one of the primary drivers of TPA adoption.

Thinking Ahead Institute (TAI) peer studies (2024-2025) identified leading TPA adopters (including CPP Investments, Future Fund, NZ Super, and GIC) as maintaining substantial allocations to unlisted and private market assets compared to traditional SAA peers.
CAIA Association and TAI research published in October 2025 ('From Vision to Execution: How Investors Are Operationalizing the Total Portfolio Approach') demonstrated that growth in private market allocations is a primary catalyst prompting allocators to transition from SAA to TPA.
Institutional research from CEM Benchmarking, BlackRock, and MSCI confirms that funds implementing TPA frameworks typically hold larger private market allocations to maximize total fund flexibility and risk-factor allocation.

Checked against

[1] i3-invest.com [2] buyoutsinsider.com [3] russellinvestments.com [4] alliance-globaladvisors.com [5] buyoutsinsider.com [6] blackrock.com [7] i3-invest.com [8] investordaily.com.au

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

private markets TPA adherence

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