AGM Alts & Wealth Weekly News Roundup | 7.4.25
The news of the week in private markets and wealth management
👋 Hi, I’m Michael.
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Welcome to the July 4th edition of the AGM Alts & Wealth Weekly News Roundup.
Happy 4th to those who are celebrating 🎆 and hope everyone enjoys the long weekend.
AGM News Roundup
🏦 Wealth Management
Cetera launches first alts allocation models | Tania Mitra | Citywire | Cetera’s first model portfolio consists of six private assets funds with exposure to private equity, private credit and real estate investments. The investments were chosen by Cetera’s due diligence and Cetera Investment Management’s research teams, in partnership with iCapital, which will continue to monitor the model and provide monthly and quarterly model-level reporting.
Apollo's product chief outlines alts push on wealth channel | Tania Mitra | Citywire | Apollo’s Chief Client and Product Development Officer Stephanie Drescher discussed the firm’s five year plan to grow its capabilities for the global wealth market. Drescher said that private wealth will account for a greater share of Apollo’s LP capital in the near future.
Vanguard will soon crush fees for even more investors | The Economist | Vanguard’s fee-cutting business model has been a key factor behind the tremendous scale and growth it has achieved over the past few decades and the firm expects to do the same with private markets products, according to this article.
Savers should be able to tap private assets through ISAs, says IA chief | Emma Dunkley | Financial Times | IA CEO Chris Cummings said that “exposure to private markets at somewhere between 5 [and] 10 percent of their portfolio would be sufficient to make a profound difference to their pension when they come to retire.” IA represents fund groups, wealth managers, and private equity firms overseeing £9.1T in assets.
Why Mark Casady invested in $2bn [AUM] Savvy’s Series B funding round | Alec Rich | Citywire | Casady, the former LPL Financial CEO, believes AI will “dramatically” change the landscape for RIAs and noted that Savvy is the first and only RIA investment his venture capital fund intends to make.
🌲 Evergreen Funds
Why Vanguard, Champion of Low-Fee Investing, Joined the “Private Markets” Craze | Matt Wirz and Anne Tergesen | Wall Street Journal | Vanguard, a pioneer of low-cost investing via index funds, is now looking to gain a foothold in private markets. The article discusses a new fund that Vanguard is developing with Blackstone and Wellington Management, which will offer a mix of public and private assets.
Hamilton Lane kicks off industry’s first Asian PE-focused evergreen fund | Emily Lai | PitchBook | The fund aims to meet growing investor demand for targeted, region-specific exposure. The Asia Private Assets Fund will focus on both direct PE deals and secondaries, and will source deals alongside Hamilton Lane’s partnered GPs in Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, Southeast Asia and China.
Calamos, Aksia team up to offer evergreen funds | Susan Barreto | Alternatives Watch | $40B AUM asset manager Calamos has teamed up with investment consultant Aksia, which has $377B AUA, to launch an evergreen fund. The Calamos Aksia Private Equity & Alternatives Fund (CAPVX) invests across buyouts, growth equity and venture capital. The firms also formed a new brand, AC Private Markets, that will bring the firm’s combined expertise to offer alternatives within evergreen fund structures.
💸 Private Equity
Global private equity dry powder continues to fall from 2023 peak | Dylan Thomas and Shambhavi Gupta | S&P Global Market Intelligence | Global private equity dry powder continues to decline from its recent all-time high. Global private equity funds collectively held $2.515T in dry powder as of June 30, down 7/7% from a record $2.725T in 2023, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
EQT, Eurazeo Lead $700 Billion Wave of Firms Eying the UAE | Hema Parmar, Swetha Gopinath and Alex Dooler | Bloomberg | Private markets firms, including EQT, Eurazeo, Pollen Street Capital, are setting up offices in Abu Dhabi as they look to expand their presence in the UAE due to its deep capital pools.
Tech venture firms deploy private equity “roll-up” strategy | George Hammond | Financial Times | Top venture capital firms are employing a strategy from the private equity playbook, investing into tech startups so they can “roll up” companies to build a sector-dominating conglomerate. Among those deploying the approach is Thrive Capital, a backer of OpenAI and Stripe, which is involved in a new $72M funding round for wealth management startup Savvy Wealth.
Private equity carve-outs are on the rise | Craig McGlashan | Private Equity International | Changing macro economic conditions and public market volatility due in part to tariffs are creating carve-out opportunities for private equity firms.
Private Equity Is Struggling to Overcome Doubts on Valuations | Claire Ruckin | Bloomberg | Blackstone, Apollo, and a host of large alternative asset managers have said they plan to to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in Europe over the next decade, but Bloomberg’s Ruckin notes that near-term exit and M&A activity for private equity remains uncertain.
💳 Private Credit
A Pioneer in Private Credit Warns the Industry Is Ruining Its Golden Era | Miriam Gottfried | Wall Street Journal | WSJ’s Miriam Gottfried profiles $115B AUM Sixth Street with an interview of the firm’s CEO Alan Waxman. Waxman discusses the “factory” model, which he says many of his firm’s peers have embraced, as he shares the view that private credit is transitioning from a bespoke type of investing with relatively high returns into a commoditized, lower-returning (and lower fee) business that will grow due to scale.
Hedge funds seek to expand into private credit | Amelia Pollard, Eric Platt and Harriet Agnew | Financial Times | Some of the industry’s biggest hedge funds, such as Millennium, Point72, and Third Point, are expanding into private credit as they look to establish themselves as diversified financial institutions.
The Web of Private Credit Lenders and Where We See It Heading | Michael McTamney and Timothy O'Brien | Morningstar DBRS | Private credit has grown to $1.8T AUM, which is now in line with the broadly syndicated loan and high-yield bond markets, Morningstar DBRS anticipates further growth. They expect well-established private credit managers to continue consolidate market share and loans in the private credit industry to become a larger portion of bank loan portfolios.
HPS Struts into BlackRock as Fink Bets Big on Private Credit | Silla Brush and Sridhar Natarajan | Bloomberg | BlackRock’s acquisition of HPS closed this past Tuesday, with the world’s largest asset manager bolstering its private markets capabilities with this landmark deal. BlackRock will be navigating how to integrate HPS (and GIP) into one firm, “One BlackRock,” while enabling a successful firm like HPS to maintain its culture, incentives, and brand that has made it a standout firm in private markets.
🏠 Real Estate
AXA IM Alts' Scemama: Macro forces reinforce interest in real assets | Isabelle Scemama | AXA IM Alts Global Head in PERE | Global Head of AXA IM Alts Isabelle Scemama highlights the importance of real assets in an increasingly volatile, changing world.
Texas Teachers assigns $950 million to real estate, private equity | Rob Kozlowski | P&I | Texas Teachers Retirement System committed $950M to real estate and private equity funds during June, according to an investment update email.
🥈 Secondaries
Secondaries Investor Advisory Survey 2025: Advisers broaden mandates beyond PE | Hannah Zhang | Secondaries Investor | Secondaries activity reached record highs in 2024, with other asset classes like private credit and infrastructure garnering attention in addition to secondaries activity in buyouts. Eight firms advised on over $1B in value in secondaries transactions, with Evercore, PJT Park Hill, Jefferies, and Campbell Lutyens representing the majority of the deal value.
AlpInvest, Ardian emerge as lead buyers on Stone Point multi-asset CV | Chris Witkowsky | Secondaries Investor | Stone Point's continuation fund process could raise between $2B and $3B, with AlpInvest and Ardian emerging as possible buyers on the multi-asset CV.
What surprised secondaries investors in 2024? | Hannah Zhang | Secondaries Investor | 2024 had pleasant surprises for advisers, and momentum is expected to continue throughout the rest of this year.
🛠️ Infrastructure
TPG Completes Acquisition of Peppertree Capital Management | Luke Barrett and Julia Sottosanti | TPG | Completion of the acquisition of $7.8B infrastructure specialists Peppertree bolsters TPG's presence in the highly attractive digital infrastructure sector and grows the firms AUM to over $258B.
The stabiliser: Infra's growing role in LPs' private markets portfolios | Zak Bentley and Joe Marsh | Infrastructure Investor | Infrastructure is becoming an increasingly popular asset class for investors as they navigate a period of increased volatility.
🥩 GP Stakes
Graham Partners partners with new GP stakes firm to launch its next era | Alfie Crooks | Buyouts | Graham Partners, a mid-market private equity firm focused on advanced manufacturing and technology-enabled services has positioned itself for long-term growth and organizational advancement by closing on a strategic minority investment from GP stakes firm PACT Capital Partners, which was founded by former Global Co-Head and Investment Committee Co-Chair of Goldman Sachs’ GP stakes and seeding business, Petershill.
Investing In Investors: Fund Manager M&A From GP Stakes To Strategic Acquisitions | Nicholas Page, James McCredie, Alice Temkin, Jeremy Moncrieff and Stephen Pike | Mondaq (with white paper by Macfarlanes) | London-based law firm Macfarlanes cites a "particularly noteworthy" increase in the number of GP stakes investors.
🔬 Private Markets Research
PitchBook Analyst Note: The Return of Evergreen Funds | Nizar Tarhuni, Daniel Cook and Zane Carmean | PitchBook’s research team dives into evergreen funds, analyzing returns, risks, and realities of interval and tender offer funds across strategies like private credit, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, and multi-asset portfolios. The evergreen, semi-liquid private fund universe has grown rapidly—crossing $427 billion in AUM with expectations to surpass $1 trillion within five years. While the evergreen fund universe has grown rapidly, it remains highly heterogeneous — both in portfolio construction and return outcomes. Using data from Morningstar, PitchBook finds that registered interval and tender offer fund returns show meaningful dispersion within and across strategies. Over the 12 months ending in April 2025, the median PE evergreen fund generated a 13.8% return, compared with 7.8% for private debt and 3% for real estate.
