How Investors Are Navigating the Tariff-Driven Stock Market

Mitchell Green, founder and managing partner at Lead Edge, wrote a note to his limited partners Monday morning:

As it relates to our business, private equity and venture funds that sold and generated DPI look smart right now. As a lot of these unrealized gains disappear, DPI will be boss. It is also unlikely we will see the much-anticipated 2025 IPO rush. We are now talking 2026 at the earliest and that means LP distributions follow 6-12 months later, so we are talking 5 years (2022-26) with very low LP distributions.

A lot of E&F’s and pensions are already overweight privates with still lots of unfunded commitments. These models are getting stretched. Throw on top of that the financial uncertainty and we believe our secondary/special situations team is going to be QUITE busy. If the market sell off continues this has the potential be a very target-rich environment for buying out LPs and GPs who are in desperate need of liquidity. It’s typically a good time to buy when others are forced to sell. It’s times like this where our creativity and price discipline should shine.