Vanguard built its reputation on democratizing investing, bringing institutional products to the masses and doing so cheaply. Its retail-investor-friendly moves – index funds and low fees — have endeared it to millions of investors.
But the asset manager’s recent push into private-equity markets is giving some fans pause.
The $7 trillion asset manager began providing institutional clients – pension funds, endowments and the like – access to private-equity investments in 2020 through HarbourVest Partners, an $85 billion, independent global private markets investment firm. It expanded into wealthier individuals earlier this year.
Some advisers think Vanguard’s entry into private equity underscores that the firm is no longer the firm founded by Jack Bogle in 1975.
“I suspect [Bogle] will roll over in his grave.”
The greed and leverage boys overran our democracy. Now they've invaded democratic investing.
Politicians Red and Blue love PEU. Vanguard wants in on that high fee love. I doubt the PEU boys share.
