Private Markets: Advisors Are Making Meaningful Allocations — And Still Have Room to Grow

A recent study suggests private wealth professionals allocate an average of 2% to 3% to private markets.² That figure is accurate but can be misleading as it blends private market allocators together with those who hold nothing.   

Ask just those who invest in private markets, and the picture changes: They're allocating an average of about 15% of AUM¹ — a meaningful commitment reflecting forward-thinking portfolio design.  

Still, even a 15% sleeve may fall short of what the longest-tenured allocators hold – and that gap can matter. It's worth examining how experienced allocators size their positions, and how those positions have driven long-term portfolio growth. 

What Other Investors Hold 

A useful benchmark comes from investors with the longest track record in private markets: pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations and family offices. 

• Institutional investors. A global sample showed that those who already held private markets reported an average allocation of 21.9% of AUM.¹ 
• Endowments in the U.S. Publicly available information on colleges, universities and affiliated foundations showed they held the largest allocation to private and alternatives strategies overall, at 54.5%. Among the largest U.S. endowments — those with more than $5 billion in assets — the figure rose to 62.5% in alternatives.³ 
• Family offices. Family offices are the closest structural analogue to a private wealth client. Globally, they reported holding 42% in alternatives overall in 2025, with private equity alone averaging 17%.⁴

Family Office Private Equity Exposure by Region

Source: UBS, Global Family Office Report 2026 (307 family offices), 2025 portfolio data. Private equity figures are not total private markets allocations.

Two things stand out. First, the highest allocations sit outside the U.S. Second, these are investors who don’t ignore liquidity — they budget for it.  A long horizon, careful liability planning and disciplined budgeting let them meet frequent, near-term spending needs without treating illiquidity as a reason to stay out. 

What a Meaningful Allocation Has Actually Done 

Peer allocation benchmarks answer one question: how much do other investors hold? They don’t answer the second question a client will ask an advisor: what would a larger allocation have done for me? 

Hamilton Lane modeled that question directly, comparing a traditional balanced portfolio against the same portfolio with 25% reallocated into private markets. The comparison window runs from 2000 through 2024 — a period that includes the dot-com bust, the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic drawdown and subsequent hype cycle, and the recent interest rate hike cycle. 

Impact to a Portfolio with 25% Private Markets Exposure Growth of $1 Million (USD)

Over that 24-year period, the portfolio with a 25% private markets allocation grew 386.34% cumulatively, compared with 290.79% for the traditional balanced portfolio — a gap of nearly 100 percentage points in cumulative growth.⁵  

In dollar terms, that same hypothetical $1 million invested in 2000 would have grown to about $4.9 million by 2024 with the 25% private markets allocation, versus about $3.9 million without it — a difference of almost $1 million over the period.⁵ 

This comparison is hypothetical and for illustrative purposes only. It does not represent the performance of an actual portfolio or Hamilton Lane product, and does not reflect fees, expenses, or taxes, which would reduce returns. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and there is no guarantee any private markets allocation will perform as shown. 

How Much, Client by Client 

The hypothetical comparison underscores how a larger private markets sleeve has historically influenced long-term growth. But it doesn’t imply that every client should hold 25% - Sizing comes down to return goals, liquidity needs, sophistication and temperament for each client.  

Access, once the biggest constraint, is no longer a major factor— evergreen structures have lowered minimums and simplified subscriptions and reporting. What’s left is a straightforward trade: less immediacy, in exchange for a wider opportunity set and a return stream worth quantifying rather than assuming. 

Where the Opportunity Sits Next 

Advisors already allocating at meaningful levels didn’t arrive there by accident. They worked through return goals, liquidity needs, sophistication and temperament for each client, and had a real conversation about where private markets fit in the portfolio. 

That process doesn’t end once a position exists. Hamilton Lane’s Global Private Wealth Survey found rising conviction among wealth professionals who already allocate: 86% of 2026 respondents planned to increase their allocations.⁶ The same disciplined approach that built a position of about 15% is the approach that can extend it — and the data suggests the sizing conversation remains relevant even for clients already invested. 

For help building a position across strategies, contact Hamilton Lane’s Private Wealth Solutions team. For more on the value of private markets in a portfolio, see Private Markets: A Lever for Diversification.