Sullivan: Private equity sells winners in 4 years and holds losers for 12
Tim Sullivan · Tim Sullivan – Yale's Private Portfolio (EP.456) · Jul 14, 2025 · at 1:01:37
Tim Sullivan, longtime private investments director at the Yale endowment, discusses the behavioral traps and disposition dynamics of private equity managers.
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“What winds up happening is the good businesses get sold in three or four years. The bad businesses hang around for 10 or 12 years. The GPs just think, well, I can fix this, and two years from now it'll be better, and a lot of times when an asset isn't performing, it never performs.”
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