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Explainers

Coverage, charts, video and research on Explainers for universal owners.

Latest in Explainers
Private Markets

Private Equity Secondaries, Explained

The market for second-hand private equity stakes set another record in 2025. How secondaries work, who sells, who buys, and why the market has become core institutional infrastructure.

UAO Editorial · Jun 10, 2026
Private Markets

The Denominator Effect, Explained

Why falling public markets can leave pension funds and endowments 'overallocated' to private equity without buying a single new asset — and what allocators actually do about it.

UAO Editorial · Jun 10, 2026
Asset Allocation

What Is an OCIO (Outsourced CIO)?

How institutions delegate their portfolios to an outsourced CIO, why the model grew into a multi-trillion-dollar market, and what they give up in return.

UAO Editorial · Jun 10, 2026
Private Markets

What Is Private Credit? An Allocator's Guide

How non-bank lending became a multi-trillion-dollar asset class, why pensions and sovereign funds keep allocating to it, and where the risks sit.

UAO Editorial · Jun 10, 2026
Pension Funds

Liability-Driven Investing (LDI), Explained

LDI matches pension assets to pension promises. How it works, why leveraged versions broke in the UK in 2022, and what allocators learned.

UAO Editorial · Jun 8, 2026
Institutional Investing

The Endowment Model (Yale Model), Explained

Pioneered at Yale, the endowment model trades liquidity for higher long-run returns through private equity, venture and real assets. How it works and where it strains.

UAO Editorial · Jun 8, 2026
Sovereign Wealth Funds

The Norwegian Model of Investing, Explained

Low cost, broad diversification, near-index public-market exposure and active ownership: how Norway's sovereign fund became a template for long-horizon investing.

UAO Editorial · Jun 8, 2026
Pension Funds

The World's Largest Pension Funds

Who the biggest pension funds are, how much they manage, and why pension capital is concentrating into a handful of giants.

UAO Editorial · Jun 8, 2026
Sovereign Wealth Funds

Sovereign Wealth Fund vs Pension Fund: Key Differences

Both are giant long-horizon investors, but they answer to different owners and different liabilities. How sovereign wealth funds and pension funds actually differ.

UAO Editorial · Jun 8, 2026
The Daily Brief

The morning briefing for the people who allocate long-horizon capital.

Research, charts, video and podcast analysis for the institutions investing at the scale of the world.