Private Equity: What Institutional LPs Really Want | John Renkema

With Ross Butler, John Renkema · Friday, September 25, 2026

Former APG private equity head John Renkema joins Ross Butler to dissect institutional portfolio construction, manager selection, and LP-GP dynamics. Renkema argues that market efficiency makes picking outperforming large buyout funds nearly impossible, placing the burden of alpha on broad diversification, vintage pacing, and structural governance advantages over public equities.

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Key takeaways

Former APG private equity head John Renkema argues continuation vehicles create severe governance conflicts that general partners fail to manage properly. Read more →
Building a mature institutional private equity program takes five to seven years of steady capital deployment across market cycles. Read more →
John Renkema, former private equity head at Dutch pension giant APG, rejects the conventional label of institutional LPs and fund GPs as equal "partners." Read more →
In private equity funds larger than $500 million, John Renkema argues there is no statistical evidence that limited partners can reliably select future outperformers over a 10-to-20-year horizon. Read more →