AGM Alts & Wealth Weekly News Roundup | 10.17.25
The news of the week in private markets and wealth management
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AGM News Roundup
š¦ Wealth Management
Wall Street Is Pushing Private Assets Into 401(k)s. We Asked Whether Anyone Wants Them. | Miriam Gottfried and Anne Tergesen | WSJ | Do 401(k) investors want access to private markets via their retirement accounts? A Harris Poll survey of US adults finds 10% of investors say they are dissatisfied with their current 401(k) investment offerings.
Blackstone Joins Race to Bring Private Assets to 401(k) Market | Miriam Gottfried | WSJ | Blackstone is building out its team that will focus on creating products for the defined contribution market and managing strategic partnerships. Goldman Sachs alum Heather von Zuben will lead the new unit as Global Head of Retirement Solutions and Tom Nides will be the unitās chairman.
Apollo advocates for rethinking public-private asset allocation | Eva Thomas | Citywire | Apolloās Neil Mehta said this week at the CAIS conference that allocators and fund managers should not think of public and private assets as separate buckets.
Blue Owl swoops for State Street vet in 401(k) push | Tania Mitra | Citywire | Former Head of Defined Contribution Intermediary at State Street, Greg Porteous, has joined Blue Owl in a similar role as the firm makes a push into the 401(k) space following a partnership with Voya.
Hereās what Edward Jones is adding to its private markets platform | Tania Mitra | Citywire | Edward Jones is looking to build out its private markets offerings to its wealth advisors and clients.
Aberdeen says honest conversation needed on risk/return in private markets | Selin Bucak | Citywire | Aberdeen Group has said that opacity, difficulties in assessing performance, valuation struggles, and a lack of liquidity are creating barriers to investment by individuals into private markets.
š² Evergreen Funds
Wellington boosts evergreen fund capability with new hire | Selin Bucak | Citywire | Wellington Management has hired former Bow River Capital executive Michael Trihy as Head of Portfolio Management for their venture growth evergreen fund.
Exclusive: $100bn US real estate manager readies second evergreen fund | James Phillipps | Citywire | US real estate manager Hines is lining up for the launch of its second evergreen fund, which will be total return focused and aimed at the US wealth market.
AllianceBernstein launches evergreen asset-based finance fund | Selin Bucak | Citywire | AB has launched an evergreen private credit fund focused on asset-based finance for investors outside of the US.
šø Private Equity
EQT Says Investment Exit Plan Continues While Fundraising Remains Strong | Dominic Chopping | WSJ | EQT said that it is on track to deliver 30 exits this year as fundraising momentum continues, with BPEAās IX fundraising progressing in line with plan, and interest in its European real estate fund, healthcare growth fund, and evergreen core infrastructure fund has been strong.
PE says hello again to IPOs | Madeline Shi and Janelle Bradley | PitchBook | IPOs of private equity-backed companies in the US has already topped last year, but it remains to be seen if this trend represents a sustained recovery in the market for PE-backed listings on US exchanges.
Specialist healthcare boosts its share of PE fundraising | Emily Lai | PitchBook | Specialist PE healthcare funds have captured a larger share of PE capital raising, raising $9.5B in North America and Europe in H1, which is 4.5% of PE fundraising across both regions.
š³ Private Credit
S&P warns on US insurersā growing bet on private credit | Lee Harris | Financial Times | Ratings agency S&P Global has warned of risks from the complexity and lack of disclosure in the private credit market.
Dimonās āCockroachā Fear Revives Threat of Cracks in Credit | Sridhar Natarajan | Bloomberg | JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that his āantenna goes up when things like that happen in reference to the bankruptcies of Tricolor Holdings and First Brands Group.
š Real Estate
Derby Lane Racks Up $1.8 Billion For One of Biggest Real Estate Debuts | Patrick Clark and Sridhar Natarajan | Bloomberg | Adam Piekarski, who was previously Co-Head of the Real Estate Credit business at BDT & MSD Partners, has raised $1.8B in commitments for his new firm, Derby Lane Partners, which is one of the largest first-time funds in the sector. Fortress and Koch Real Estate Investments are among the LPs backing Derby Lane.
StepStone, Greykite strike largest-ever deal with ā¬1.5bn recap | Evelyn Lee | PERE | StepStone Group will acquire a majority stake in Vitalia through its StepStone Real Estate Partners V fund in a ā¬1.5B, one of the largest real estate secondaries deals to date.
š„ Secondaries
Secondaries veteran Cari Lodge puts a decades-proven thesis to the test | Jessica Hamlin and Madeline Shi | PitchBook | Commonfundās Cari Lodge launched her new fund last week, Aqualis Partners, which will focus on smaller transactions in the secondaries market ($100,000 to $100M transaction sizes) and concentrate on acquiring LP stakes in buyout funds across the US and Europe.
VC secondaries continue to grow, but GP-led deals are lagging | Michael Bodley | PitchBook | Annual GP-led VC secondaries have reached around $14.6B and are projected to grow by $1.5B in the next two years, according to a PitchBook analyst note.
š ļø Infrastructure
Ardian Raises Record $20 Billion for Europe Infrastructure Bets | Swetha Gopinath and Claudia Cohen | Bloomberg | Ardian has raised $20B for its flagship infrastructure platform that will invest predominantly in Europe. The fund, which has already deployed over 40% of the capital in the fund to assets that include Londonās Heathrow Airport, hit its hard cap of $13.5B and includes co-investments alongside the fund.
BlackRockās AI Consortium to Buy Aligned Data Centers in $20 Billion Deal | Jack Pitcher and Connor Hart | WSJ | BlackRockās new AI consortium, which includes Mubadalaās MGX and BlackRockās GIP, has agreed to buy Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie Asset Management for $20B.
Partners Group to acquire Life Cycle Power, a leading provider of mobile generation solutions in the US | Partners Group | Partners Group has agreed to acquire Life Cycle Power, a provider of bespoke, turn-key mobile power generation solutions in the US from an investment partnership controlled by Arroyo Investors.
š„© GP Stakes
Goldman Buys Industry Ventures for as Much as $965 Million | Todd Gillespie | Bloomberg | Goldman Sachs has bought $7B AUM venture capital investment platform Industry Ventures for up to $965M, representing a continued push by Goldman Sachs into venture and growth. [Read AGMās take on this acquisition here on LinkedIn]
Brookfield to Acquire Remaining Oaktree Stake for $3 Billion | Dinesh Nair and Charlie Wells | Bloomberg | Brookfield has acquired the remaining 26% stake in Oaktree for $3B, implying a valuation of $11.5B as assets have grown 75% since Brookfield took a majority stake in Oaktree six years ago. [Read AGMās take on this acquisition here on LinkedIn]
Latest Trends in GP Stake Financing | Tom Alabaster, Chris Townsend, Kasia Thevissen, Madalina-Georgiana Asandului | Ropes & Gray | Ropes & Gray shares trends on GP Stakes.
Creative capital: how sponsors are funding increasingly large GP commitments | Danielle Kline and Sarah Strong | Torys | As GP commitments increase in size from 2-4% and higher, GPs are increasingly looking to find creative ways to fund GP commitments.
š¬ Private Markets Research
European Private Credit Monitor | Taron Wade and Julia Avdoi-Green | PitchBook | PitchBookās European Private Credit Monitor covers the regionās private credit market activity.
Rethinking Access to Private Equity | Mehdi Alighanbari, Padmakar Kulkarni, Yaonan Zhang, Gregory Kohles | MSCI | MSCI published its MSCI World Private Equity Return Tracker Index (World PERT Index), which is designed to capture the portion of private equity returns that can be systematically measured and attributed to identifiable and persistent general factors.
Excelent roundup Michael. The convergence of several themes here really captures what's happening in the industry right now. The wealth management push by Blackstone, Apollo, and Blue Owl into 401(k)s is creating a new competitive dynamic, and while Ares Management isn't mentioned in that section, they're just as aggressively building out their defined contribution capabilities and have been hiring from the same talent pool. The AllianceBernstein evergreen ABF fund launch is particularly relevnt because Ares has been one of the early movers in combining ABF strategies with evergreen structures for the wealth channel, so AB is playing catch up in a space where Ares already has scale. The private credit warnings from S&P and Jamie Dimon's cockroach comments apply to everyone including Ares, but what's intersting is that Ares' Joel Holsinger was just on Bloomberg saying private lenders are better positioned than public markets to weather stress, which suggests Ares is taking a somewhat contrarian view. The infrastructure deals you highlighted (Ardian's $20B fund, BlackRock/GIP buying Aligned Data Centers) show how much capital is chasing the same opportunities that Ares has been targeting with their infrastructure debt platform. Great snapshot of where the industry is heading.