Evergreen funds and ELTIFs: when private wealth changes the pace of private markets
To welcome individual savers, private equity is adopting open-ended vehicles that accept subscriptions and redemptions throughout their life. This change of format alters the pace of the asset class, all the way down to portfolio companies.
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From closed-end to open-ended funds
The traditional private equity fund is closed-end. Investors commit at the outset, the manager draws down capital as investments are made, then returns it when companies are sold, usually over around ten years. An investor can only leave before the end by selling their units on the secondary market.
This format suits institutional investors. It is less suited to private wealth, which wants to invest at any time and keep some ability to exit. Evergreen, or semi-liquid, funds meet that need: they stay open, accept regular subscriptions and organise redemptions at set intervals. The manager then has to balance, at all times, the capital coming in, the capital that must be able to leave and the investments still to be made.
This shift comes with growing inflows from individuals. In France, they contributed €3.1bn to private equity in 2025, of which €2.6bn came through life insurance policies (France Invest, 14 April 2026, accessed 12 October 2026).
The ELTIF, a European framework open to individuals
The ELTIF (European long-term investment fund) is a European framework created in 2015 to channel savings into long-term investments, including private companies (Regulation (EU) 2015/760 of 29 April 2015, accessed 12 October 2026).
Its reform, adopted in 2023 and applicable since 10 January 2024, removed in particular the €10,000 minimum investment that applied to individual investors. It also allows, under conditions, redemptions during the life of the fund (Regulation (EU) 2023/606 of 15 March 2023, accessed 12 October 2026).
These vehicles follow precise rules on distribution and investor information. Savers and managers alike should review them with their advisors.
Liquidity, a promise with limits
A semi-liquid fund invests in assets that are not liquid themselves. The liquidity offered to unitholders relies on a cash buffer, on distributions from portfolio companies and on exits, including on the secondary market and through continuation transactions.
That liquidity has limits. Redemptions usually require notice and can be capped when requests exceed a given threshold. This cap, known as a gate, protects the unitholders who stay in the fund from a forced sale of assets.
More frequent valuations
In a closed-end fund, holdings are valued for the periodic reporting sent to investors. In an open-ended fund, every subscription and redemption is made at the net asset value, meaning the value of one unit of the fund on a given date. It has to be established at every entry or exit window.
This frequency flows down to portfolio companies. The value of a stake does not always follow from the percentage held: preference shares, convertible bonds and management instruments change how the price is shared between shareholders. That is the role of the waterfall, the order and the amount each shareholder receives on exit, which the manager must be able to recalculate at every valuation.
For the finance teams of portfolio companies, information requests become more regular: current capital, outstanding instruments, expected dilution. The quality of this data drives the quality of the valuation and, at the end of the chain, the information given to savers.
Conclusion
Opening private equity to private wealth does not only change how funds raise money. It speeds up the pace at which portfolio companies report on their capital. Able helps companies and their investors keep an accurate, shared view of their capital structure at all times.