Private Equity Comes to the Masses

Private financiers and multibillion-dollar private mega-deals are hogging the market spotlight, and retail investors can soon get in the game with an exchange-traded fund tracking private equity investments.

ETF provider PowerShares has a slate of 40 ETFs under registration, including the PowerShares Listed Private Equity Portfolio ETF, which is expected to hit the American Stock Exchange in mid-October.

The ETF will track a private equity index that was recently created by Denver investment adviser Red Rocks Capital Partners. The new index is a benchmark of about 30 publicly traded companies that invest in businesses that participate in private equity, including private equity firms, business development companies and banks that put the lion's share of their capital into private companies. ...