The paper finds a consistent relationship between the NAV gap and future LP distributions: funds with the lowest gap distribute materially more capital in subsequent periods than funds with the highest gap.

Using an out-of-sample analysis of 3,300+ private equity funds across Buyout, Private Debt, Growth Equity, Secondaries, and Venture Capital, the paper finds that funds in the lowest NAV-gap quintile distributed 2x to 5.6x more than funds in the highest NAV-gap quintile over the following quarter.

The effect remains economically meaningful over a four-quarter horizon, with ratios between 1.9x and 3.8x.

The paper discusses implications for LP liquidity planning, secondary market pricing, commitment pacing, cash flow forecasting, and GP performance evaluation.

This whitepaper extends Altius’s prior research, Seeing the Real Risk in Private Markets, which introduced a desmoothing framework for estimating the economic value of private market portfolios from reported NAVs.