The pool of one sort of “traditional” assets – the stocks of publicly listed U.S.-based companies – is shrinking. Companies that once would have gone public are staying private. According to a recent report by Morgan Stanley Asset
Management, Public to Private Equity in the United States: A
Long-Term Look, young companies have a less voracious appetite for public capital than they used to, and the capital-raising needs they do have can be satisfied privately, so they elect to “stay private longer than did the companies of prior generations.”