Ludovic Phalippou has spent twenty-five years studying one subject, every day, from every angle. Private equity for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as he puts it.

A Professor of Financial Economics at Oxford's Saïd Business School, he has read the limited partnership agreements, reconstructed the fee arithmetic, testified before the House of Lords, and built the models behind widely cited private-market return assumptions.

He is also, by his own account, not especially popular with the industry he studies.

In this conversation, Jonathan Treussard sits down with Phalippou to work through the actual mechanics of the asset class.

• Why private-equity-held companies really are run differently.

• What leverage does to returns on the way up and on the way down.

• Why internal rate of return is less a number you can eat than a story you can tell.

• And what the arithmetic of fees, funding costs, and valuations looks like when you write it out plainly rather than try to "market" it.

What holds the conversation together is a single discipline: separating what an investment has returned from what it will, and refusing to let the first quietly stand in for the second.

For more:

• Wealth, Empowered — the free newsletter: wealth-empowered.beehiiv.com

• Learn about Jonathan and Treussard Capital Management: treussard.com

• A conversation with Jonathan: scheduler.zoom.us/jonathan-treussard-ph-d/intro-call

This podcast is for entertainment and education only. Nothing here is financial advice. The views and figures expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect the views of Treussard Capital Management. Treussard Capital Management is a registered investment advisor. Please visit treussard.com for additional information and disclaimers.