The problem is that there is a class of assets whose price is some best guess of the firms engineering them. Much like sub-prime.
> Accel-KKR’s investment in isolved, which the firm acquired in 2011, has generated a 19.2 times gross multiple on investment, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It pitched another continuation fund for isolved because the company has more room for growth, the people said.
If they haven't sold isolved, it means they are just saying it is worth 19.2 times as much as they paid for it. When they "roll" it into a Continuation Vehicle, they are effectively inflating assets by saying its value is 20x what it paid for and the reason is "trust us bro".
I have at some point noped out of a selection process after carefully reading the contracts and terms of service involved.
The company in question asked us new hires on the first day to "apply again" through this "matching platform". The person beside me happily agreed to everything and started. I said I need to go through everything and went home.
It was only after a couple of hours and several red flags that I found the trap: the terms of service for the "matching platform" mentioned abuse and described the exact thing the company did in detail as an example: recruiting and selecting off platform then offering a contract through the platform to use their 'temp agency' contract. It also said that candidates that failed to report this abuse would be liable to pay a fine of several thousand plus possible damages. In retrospect I can see some of the things they did onboarding the person beside me while I was spooked and reading everything that could later be pointed as cause for damages.
I was also shocked to share this with people close to me and get a lot of glazed over eyes and people not understanding it and focusing on the "weirdness" of wanting to read everything because apparently it's just normal to sign documents without reading them.
I can see now why this sort of thing happens. People really do just sign documents and go along with things without asking very basic questions. Luckily I have worked as an independent contractor long enough to never accept terms I do not thoroughly understand.