Now that the allocation for Astrea V 3.85% bonds is released, everyone can go back to their regular activities and forget about it. However, if you, like myself, hope to one day get a piece of the equity portion of Private Equity (PE) investments, then we should continue to learn and understand more about PE. Today's discussion is on the lifecycle of a PE fund and where do the 3 Astrea bonds stand along the lifecycle. This has major implications on the risks of the bonds, as we shall discuss later. Fig. 1: Lifecycle of PE Fund In the first phase, the General Partner (GP) who runs the PE fund, will source for new investors and get their commitment to provide capital as and when needed to invest into promising companies. When capital commitments for the target fund size are obtained, the fund will close.  In the second phase,...