The good thing here is that all PE funds outperformed public markets at one time or another, so we won't be going away anytime soon, but the bad thing is that these numbers are bolstered by a handful of big hits. The real winners in this game are the top tier firms and the funds of funds.
A good friend of mine recently told me that all the Boston firms are shrinking, because their fund are underperforming. This may be true to some degree, but only if they started their funds back in 2000-2003. Again, the issue here is that it doesn't matter where you invested five years ago, nobody is doing that great. Take a look at any three year old fund and you'll see a better indication of what the current climate looks like. Just look at one year old funds--they're doing great!
In many ways, these numbers don't mean anything, except that there was a big bubble that boosted long term and short term investment horizons and that same bubble killed the five year horizon in the middle. Anyone else who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
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