Austin Long

Austin M. Long III is a private-markets specialist and co-founder of Alignment Capital Group, an Austin-based private equity consulting firm. Alignment Capital says it was founded in 2000 by Long and Craig J. Nickels, and that Long continues to lead the firm. The firm provides strategic advisory services to institutional investors in private equity, with services spanning portfolio evaluation, asset allocation, cash-flow projection, commitment pacing, benchmarking, investment-process review, and due diligence assistance.

Long has been active in private markets since 1987, when he co-founded what became the private investment group of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO). According to Alignment Capital's biography, by the time he left in 2000 he had grown UTIMCO's private equity program to $2.2 billion in commitments. He later co-founded Alignment Capital Group in 2001, according to the firm's principal biography.

He is best known in private equity performance measurement for co-inventing the Index Comparison Method, also known as the Long-Nickels Public Market Equivalent method, with Craig Nickels. Alignment Capital states that the method became an industry-standard benchmark for comparing private-market IRRs with public-market index returns. The original 1996 AIMR conference paper, "A Private Investment Benchmark," lists Long and Nickels as authors at The University of Texas System.

Long's education includes a B.A. from Baylor University, a Master's in Professional Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin, and a J.D. from DePaul University. He is a CPA and has been admitted to the bars of Illinois and Texas. His LinkedIn profile also lists publications in private equity benchmarking, performance attribution, reinvestment risk, private-market return variability, and private equity due diligence, along with patents related to private-market performance attribution and risk analysis.

• Alignment Capital's stated philosophy is built around "alignment of interests" and avoiding conflicts among investors, intermediaries, and investment managers. The firm says it became a strategic consultancy rather than a combined consultant/asset manager to avoid conflicts inherent in advising plan sponsors while also managing portfolios.
• The firm focuses on institutional private equity portfolio management rather than a conventional angel-investor thesis. Its advisory areas include evaluating existing portfolios, asset and sub-asset allocation, cash-flow projection, pacing, customized benchmarking, investment-process review, and due diligence assistance.
• Alignment Capital emphasizes quantitative analysis combined with qualitative manager knowledge. Its due diligence process starts with quantitative screening of a manager's track record against private-equity universes and opportunity-cost benchmarks, then moves to management presentations, structured qualitative diligence, negotiations, and monitoring.
• In the 1996 AIMR paper, Long and Nickels argued that private-investment benchmarks should be "unambiguous," "investable," "measurable," "appropriate," "reflective of current investment opinions," and "specified in advance."
• The firm appears more appropriate for institutional LPs, family offices, pensions, endowments, and fund allocators than for typical seed-stage startup founders seeking angel capital. Public databases do show some historical venture/private-company investments, but the firm's primary public positioning is advisory.