Private Investment Benchmarks

Effective February 1, 2021 many of the private investments benchmark reports historically available to download at cambridgeassociates.com (the “benchmark reports”) will no longer be distributed free of charge. Cambridge Associates will continue to distribute, for no fee, five reports with limited performance statistics (horizon returns only) and several specialty reports (the “new public reports”). See the Frequently Asked Questions document for more details on which data will continue to be freely available on Cambridge Associates’ website.

We have decided to make this change in response to our benchmark users’ demands for more and increasingly complex private investments data to be delivered in diverse media and via more channels. Cambridge Associates (CA) has decided to (1) adopt distribution and commercial policies that are more in line with other performance/index data providers, and (2) partner with IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics, and solutions, to leverage their global financial markets data and index distribution platform. Cambridge Associates will continue to own the private investments benchmark data and be responsible for the collection of data, production of the benchmarks, and development, security, and confidentiality of the dataset. Consistent with the long-standing confidentiality agreements CA has with fund managers that participate in our benchmarks, IHS Markit will not have access to any benchmark constituent data—they will have access only to anonymous and aggregated data.

Cambridge Associates will continue to provide our benchmark data directly to several key market segments: (1) our clients, (2) fund managers that contribute their data to CA’s benchmark dataset, and (3) certain industry partners such as the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) and other industry coalitions. In addition, Refinitiv will continue to distribute CA’s benchmark data via their online application. However, with the exceptions of the market segments noted above, IHS Markit will become the exclusive distributor of CA’s benchmark data in PDF and digital-only formats to end users, analytics platforms, and redistributors.

Please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions document for more details. If you have further questions, please contact: PrivateBenchmarksChange@cambridgeassociates.com.

We hope to make this transition as simple and seamless as possible for those who have adopted our private investments benchmarks and thank you for your continued support.