AGM Alts & Wealth Weekly News Roundup | 5.22.26
The news of the week in private markets and wealth management
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AGM News Roundup
š¦ Wealth Management
Deloitte: Private Market Allocations in DC Plans Could Hit $1T by 2030 | Elaine Misonzhnik | Wealth Management | New research from Deloitte finds that allocations to private investments could reach 6.1% of all DC plan assets by 2030, amounting to over $1T.
StepStone Hires BlackRock Veteran to Build U.S. Defined Contribution Business | CityBiz | StepStone is expanding its push into the retirement market by hiring former BlackRock executive Taylor Benson.
H.I.G. Capital Expands Capital Formation Team with Three Appointments in Private Wealth | H.I.G. Capital | H.I.G. Capital, a global alternative investment firm with $75B AUM, announced three hires to its Private Wealth Management team, adding MD Brian Dutzar from Monroe Capital, Principal Adam Whitman from Sculptor Capital, and Principal Steven Stack from Neuberger Berman.
Tech-forward RIA Farther raises $150M in funding round led by General Atlantic | Sam Bojarski | Citywire | Farther, a tech-enabled RIA that has surpassed $23B in recruited assets, has raised $150M in a Series D round led by General Atlantic.
š² Evergreen Funds
AllianceBernstein, Brookfield, and Carlyle Unveil Turnkey Private-Markets Solution for Defined Contribution Plans | PRNewswire | AllianceBernstein, Brookfield, and Carlyle announced a collaboration to deliver an innovative, turnkey private markets solution for Defined Contribution (DC) plans. ABC [ONE] is intended to be a single source of private markets exposure for a DC planās Qualified Default Investment Alternative, dynamically adjusting private asset allocations across private credit, private real assets, and private equity.
Franklin chief commercial officer sets out revamped distribution and product plans | Tania Mitra | Citywire | Franklin Templetonās Chief Commercial Officer Daniel Gamba outlined its private wealth strategy that is moving to a āone Franklinā solutions model, which bundles public and private markets into integrated portfolios for RIAs.
Julius Baerās Berri warns on āzombieā evergreen funds | John Schaffer | Citywire | Julius Baer's head of fund selection warns that evergreen funds that fail to reach critical mass risk becoming "zombie" funds. These funds may be unable to raise new assets, leaving the funds stuck holding old assets, with trapped investors potentially waiting years to exit at steep discounts.
š ļø Private Markets Infrastructure
Berlin-based bunch bags ā¬30.1 million Series B to modernise Europeās private markets infrastructure | Rahul Raj | EU Startups | bunch, an AI-native fund operations platform for private markets, raised a ā¬30.1 million ($35M) Series B to upgrade private markets workflows for fund managers and LPs. [Congrats to Levent, Enrico, and team bunch on the continued progress. We are thrilled to see the progress since the Seed round].
CAIS Integrates with Anthropic's Claude to Give Advisors Instant Access to Alternative Investment Intelligence | CAIS | CAIS has announced a new integration with Anthropicās Claude that brings alternative investment intelligence to the tools advisors use, lauching a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables advisors to query fund data, analyze performance, and surface portfolio insights ā all without leaving their primary workspace.
šø Private Equity
SpaceX Fuels More Than 3,000% Return for Washington University | Janet Lorin | Bloomberg | Washington University invested $50M of the schoolās endowment in SpaceX almost a decade ago, which has grown to become more than 10% of the schoolās $17B of assets.
Top EQT Executive Seeks to Buy Software Firms Scarred by Selloff | Swetha Gopinath | Bloomberg | EQT is looking to buy software companies that have been left with funding issues after a selloff in the sector. āThe market will kind of reset and people will have to sell and the opportunities to buy assets is looking very good,ā Bert Janssens, Co-Head of EQTās Private Capital business for Europe and North America, said in an interview.
Japanās Nikkon Said to Weigh Going Private, US Funds May Bid | Taro Fuse, Hideki Suzuki, Manuel Baigorri, and Takako Taniguchi | Bloomberg | Nikkon Holdings Co. is considering going private and is preparing to hold a first round of bidding in June, with firms including Bain Capital, Warburg Pincus, and Blackstone all expected to take part in the process.
AI is Driving the Venture Capital Market ā But Not Fixing It | Michelle Celarier | Institutional Investor | Anthropic and OpenAI funding rounds continue to dominate venture capital, but a broader recovery in VC could slip into 2027, according to a report by PitchBook.
Cleveland Browns Said to Sell Stake to Private Equity at $9 Billion Valuation | Randall Williams | Bloomberg | NFL team Cleveland Browns sold a stake to Arctos Partners, the sports investment firm that was recently acquired by KKR. The total investment is said to be for 10% of the club at a valuation of more than $9B.
š³ Private Credit
Barings Closes Over $19 Billion for Global Direct Lending Strategy | Barings | Barings announced the successful close of over $19B in committed capital for its Global Direct Lending strategy.
Software companies need more than strong revenue to secure private credit loans | Madeline Shi | PitchBook | Lenders are growing more selective about the deals they underwrite. Among the eight software loans that Lincoln International placed in the first four months of 2026, none were annual recurring revenue loans, according to Ron Kahn, the Co-Head of the investment bankās Valuations and Opinions Group. The loans were priced as a multiple of EBITDA.
Citi and HPS Announce ā¬15 Billion Private Capital Program to Expand Direct Lending in EMEA | HPS Investment Partners | Citigroup and HPS Investment Partners, part of BlackRock, announced a ā¬15 Billion Private Capital Program, a strategic collaboration to expand comprehensive capital solutions and access to private financing for corporate and sponsor-owned borrowers in the region over an initial five-year term.
Private credit spreads in spotlight on both sides of Atlantic as market dynamics shift | Zack Miller and Nishant Sharma | PitchBook | Spreads in the US have widened by 50-100 bps while European direct lending spreads have barely moved.
š Real Estate
Brookfield, GIC close A$6.7B take-private of self-storage REIT | Muskan Arora | Markets Group | Brookfield and GIC have closed their acquisition of the National Storage REIT (NSR), Australia and New Zealandās largest owner and operator of self-storage facilities, in a transaction that values the business at approximately A$6.7B.
Wall Street crowds into niche corner of real estate private credit | Rich Bockmann | The Real Deal | Wall Street is rapidly expanding into real estate private credit through non-traded mortgage REITs that lend against property assets and offer evergreen exposure to wealthy investors.
Private equity giant takes charge at $3b healthcare property player | Nick Lenaghan | Australian Financial Review | Private equity firm Hillhouse Investment Partners is stepping up its expansion into Australiaās alternative real estate sector, taking a majority stake in local fund manager Barwon Investment Partners, which oversees a $3B portfolio of healthcare and commercial property.
Private Equity Accelerates REIT Buying Spree as Discounts Create Opportunity | CityBiz | Private equity firms are increasing their acquisitions of real estate investment trusts (REITs). Industry giants, including Blackstone, Brookfield, Ares, and Blue Owl, have aggressively moved into the REIT space in recent months. Recent transactions include Brookfieldās acquisition of National Storage REIT, Ares Managementās purchase of Whitestone REIT, and Blue Owl Capitalās acquisition of Sila Realty Trust.
š„ Secondaries
Canadian Pensions Scrap $3 Billion Stake Sales on Valuations | Echo Wong | Bloomberg | Two Canadian pension funds, CPPIB and CDPQ, have halted efforts to sell private equity fund stakes after valuations missed expectations, according to people familiar with the matter. CPPIB was looking to sell fund stakes anticipated to be worth around $1.5B. CDPQ was looking to sell an estimated $1.5B of Chinese private equity assets.
Cari Lodge's Aqualis sets target for debut secondaries fund | Kirk Falconer | Buyouts Insider | Aqualis is seeking $750M for its debut secondaries fund, targeting smaller transactions in an underserved part of the market.
Private equityās new escape hatch keeps unsold companies in limbo | Sun Yu | Financial Times | Private equity firms are increasingly recycling assets from one continuation vehicle into another "CV squared" fund, raising concerns about deferred reckoning on $3.8T in unsold companies, inflated valuations and investors trapped in a perpetual illiquidity cycle.
Alpine targets $1B fund to invest in its own businesses | Jessica Hamlin and Rod James | PitchBook | Alpine Investors, a buyout firm known for rolling up companies in the software and business services sectors, is aiming to raise at least $1B to invest in companies it already owns. Alpine has floated Apex as a strong candidate for investment from the Heroes Fund. Apex had returned nearly 14x investorsā capital, excluding fees, by the time the company was transferred into a $3.4 billion continuation vehicle in 2023.
š ļø Infrastructure
I Squared Among Bidders for $5 Billion Trafigura, Mubadala Port | Vinicius Andrade and Cristiane Lucchesi | Bloomberg | I Squared Capital was among firms that advanced to the second phase of a bidding process to acquire a $5B port in Brazil owned by Trafigura Group and Mubadala.
The Goldilocks Asset Class: Why Financial Advisors Are Betting Big on Private Infrastructure | I Squared Capital | I Squaredās inaugural OpenInfra Index survey finds that financial advisors are increasingly allocating to private infrastructure, with most expecting higher exposure by 2027 as they view it as a growth-oriented, diversified asset class tied to long-term structural trends like digital infrastructure and energy demand. Nearly half of advisors (47%) said clients currently allocate 6% to 10% of their private markets AUM to infrastructure, and a majority (75%) expect their clients to increase allocations to private infrastructure by 2027
Investors in France find a safe haven in real assets in Q1 | Emily Lai | PitchBook | Fundraising for vehicles in the country targeting real assets, which mostly comprise infrastructure, hit ā¬10.2B (about $11.9B) in the first three months, making up 67% of the ā¬15.2B of French private capital raised in the period
Blackstone Announces Joint Venture with Google to Create New TPU Cloud | Matt Anderson, Cynthia Horiguchi | Blackstone | Blackstone and Google formed a joint venture to build a large-scale AI-focused data center and TPU cloud platform, backed by an initial $5B Blackstone investment to expand accelerated computing capacity.
š„© GP Stakes
Pact Capital targets $1bn for inaugural mid-cap GP stakes fund | Kirk Falconer | Buyouts Insider | Pact Capital, the newly formed GP stakes firm founded by former Goldman Petershill investor Christian von Schimmelmann, is targeting $1B for its first GP stakes fund focused on the middle market.
š¬ Private Markets Research
Private Markets Outlook 1H 2026: Balancing Opportunity and Complexity | Neuberger Private Markets Team | Neuberger Berman | Neuberger Berman explores three themes shaping private markets today: how to navigate a widening array of investment structures, where they see the PE cycle heading into mid-2026, and what AI disruption could mean for private companies.
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