What Is Gabe Stengel's Biggest Business Uncertainty?

Gabe Stengel names how quickly private markets actually transform as the biggest uncertainty in his business. Asset classes have grown in transaction volume and liquidity when standardization made assets easier to track and trade. Private markets have stayed immune to standardization because so much of the data is unstructured, and AI should fix unstructured data. Whether a regulatory or market force forces more standardization, and speeds transparency and liquidity in private markets, sits a little outside his control.

How much alpha will remain in human relationships is still unclear to him. In microcap mergers and acquisitions, it is very hard to imagine fully automating the sale when an owner has spent 20 years building a business and wants a buyer they trust enough to shake hands before handing the business over. Sales of many sponsor-owned businesses, secondaries, private credit, and general partner and limited partner secondaries can be fully automated.

How long small and medium-sized businesses take, during generational turnover, to get comfortable clicking a button to sell instead of shaking someone's hand is a little up in the air to him.