Nearly all employer firms in the U.S. are private (with listed companies representing less than 1 percent), so the performance of private manufacturers is a key barometer of the sector as a whole.
China is unique among emerging markets in that its private-sector companies are largely listed overseas, where domestic Chinese investors are prohibited from investing.
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While the majority of his fortune comes from Xiaomi, he also owns minority stakes in a number of Chinese online enterprises, including Hong Kong-listed anti-virus firm Kingsoft, private e-commerce companies Vancl and Lakala, mobile browser provider UC Web, and YY, which hit the Nasdaq exchange last Wednesday.
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According to Divya Sharma at XE, the option for high-growth Chinese companies listed in the U.S. to go private and relist in Asia may be attractive given the likelihood of better valuations for these companies back home.
As Fidelity's Mr Gordon puts it, ultimately investors in private equity are backing the same companies that they held as listed groups.
Private equity investors deal in companies and assets that are not listed on stock exchanges, looking for returns of about 20% a year.
Private equity typically refers to more mature companies, which may either be listed or unlisted at the time of investment.
This law could perhaps be justified on grounds of equal treatment: the private-equity firms would be on a more even footing with other listed companies.
Perhaps less in doubt is that the most successful private equity firms, including those listed above, have proved pretty adept at selling out of potentially vulnerable companies when the going was good.
This month the Private Equity Industry Guidelines Group, a collection of big investors and private-equity funds, unveiled guidelines intended to help standardise the valuation of investments in non-listed companies.
They have profiled board members of the top 1, 000 Indian firms - private and state-owned - that account for four-fifths of the market capitalisation of companies listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in 2010.
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