AGM Alts & Wealth Weekly News Roundup | 5.8.26
The news of the week in private markets and wealth management
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AGM News Roundup
đŚ Wealth Management
THL fintech head talks RIA investing following $6.4bn fund raise | Alec Rich | Citywire | THL Managing Director Ganesh Rao said the firm is eyeing new investments in fintech and into potential RIAs following the close of its $6.4B THL Equity Fund X. The firm has backed Hightower Advisors, first investing in the RIA platform in 2018.
Raymond James to Expand Managed Investment Options for Advisors | Alex Ortolani | Wealth Management | Raymond James is working to bolster its asset management offerings for advisors, with moves including model portfolios and separately managed account options. The firmâs push to expand Asset Management Services is led by Doug Brigman.
High-touch service is key to client referrals, Cerulli finds | Peter Saalfield | Citywire | New research from Cerulli Associates finds that building and maintaining strong relationships with clients could be more important to wealth management firms than brand recognition when it comes to referrals.
Wealth managers insist AI can work in their favour | Emma Dunkley | Financial Times | Wealth management executives believe that AI will make the industry more productive. St. Jamesâs Place CEO Mark FitzPatrick said, âAI will enable advisers to be more productive and see a lot more clients than they do today.â FitzPatrick noted that AI is helping advisers by cutting paperwork and time spent on data entry, reducing their overall workload by around 20%.
Anthropic rolls out AI agents for financial services | Sam Bojarski | Citywire | Anthropic has rolled out agentic templates for the financial services industry. These AI agents are designed to help financial services professionals build pitchbooks, prepare for meetings, create financial models, and perform market research.
RIAs completed a record-high 142 M&A deals in Q1: Echelon | Faye Kilburn | Citywire | RIA M&A activity continues to reach new heights, according to a deal report published by investment bank Echelon Partners. In the first quarter, the wealth management industry recorded $1.67T worth of deals in terms of assets transacted, an all-time high for a single quarter. The investment bank recorded 142 deals, surpassing the record high of 125 set in Q3 last year. Based on this hot start, the bank is forecasting RIAs to announce a total of 475 deals on the year, saying 2026 will likely be a âbanner yearâ for the space.
đ˛ Evergreen Funds
The next evolution of semi-liquid structures | Carmen Mendoza | Private Equity International | The next generation of evergreen vehicles will be engineered around the asset, not just the type of investor.
Semi-liquids' valuation conundrum | Adam Le | Secondaries Investor | Apollo CEO shared perspectives on valuations in secondaries processes and liquidity mechanisms in evergreen funds.
đ ď¸ Private Markets Infrastructure
StepStone Launches Evergreen Strategies on LSEGâs Digital Markets Infrastructure (DMI) | StepStone Group | StepStone has joined LSEGâs Digital Market Infrastructure platform, launching evergreen strategies that are fully integrated within LSEG Workspace.
StepStone Group and PitchBook Announce Partnership to Deliver Deal-Level Performance & Operating Metrics to Private Market Participants | StepStone Group | StepStone and PitchBook announce a partnership that will bring institutional-grade deal-level benchmarking into private markets workflows. The partnership combines deal-level performance and operating metrics from StepStoneâs proprietary SPI platform with PitchBookâs industry-leading private capital market data, research, and advanced AI and machine learning toolsâdelivering insights through aggregated and anonymized outputs.
đ¸ Private Equity
Private equity tech investor Hg marks down holdings after software sell-off | Alexandra Heal | Financial Times | HgCapital Trust, the listed UK investment trust that has exposure to Hgâs portfolio of high-growth private software and technology companies, said on Thursday that 14 of its 20 largest portfolio companies have had markdowns in the last quarter due to a âsignificant contraction in the valuation multiples of comparable companies.â Hg noted that revenue and earnings growth in the portfolio was 16% and 19%, respectively, over the past 12 months.
This KKR Portfolio Company Just Sold for $4.75 Billionâand Its Employees Are Getting an 8x Salary Bonus | Brian Contreras | Inc | KKR recently exited on its investment in CoolIT for $4.75B and employees made an 8x salary bonus on the exit through KKRâs Broad Based Employee Ownership (BBEO) program.
Apollo chief says retail fund mark-ups âmake no senseâ | Antoine Gara | Financial Times | Apollo CEO Marc Rowan warned about âday one mark-upsâ of evergreen funds and said the âpractice makes no senseâ in an âevergreen format.â He said, âthis leads to mispricing on a short-term basisâ and âturns out to be very importantâ in evergreen funds.
Hunter Point Says Resumes Are Flooding in From Larger Firms | Preeti Singh | Bloomberg | Hunter Point Capital CEO Avshalom Kalichstein said that private equityâs slowdown in dealmaking and exits is causing executives at larger firms to seek out jobs with boutiques.
Intertek primed to reject EQTâs latest ÂŁ10bn takeover bid | Aaron Kirchfeld and Ivan Levingston | Financial Times | FTSE 100 testing company Intertek is gearing up to reject EQTâs latest takeover offer, a week after EQT raised its bid.
TPG: AI shift from defensive to offensive play is 'positive weapon' for PE | Carmen Mendoza | Private Equity International | TPGâs software bet has held strong as its portfolio achieved 20% growth year-over-year, with the firm seeing AI as a âpositive weaponâ for PE.
Carlyle Seeds Buyout Fund With $5 Billion in Novel Credit Deal | Allison McNeely and Scott Carpenter | Bloomberg | Carlyle arranged a financing that will commit more than $5B to seed its next flagship buyout fund while providing liquidity to investors in some of its older vintages. The structured credit deal will total $8.5B, composed of bank debt, preferred equity and common equity, with Carlyle taking a significant minority position in the common equity.
Apis Raises $1.2 Billion to Invest in Financial Infrastructure | Swetha Gopinath | Bloomberg | Private equity firm Apis Partners has raised $1.23B for its latest generation of funds that will invest in financial infrastructure and services.
đł Private Credit
KKR CEO: Wealth outflows are 'small dollars in the grand scheme of things' | Selin Bucak | Citywire | Institutional investors are starting to allocate to direct lending again, according to KKR Co-CEO Scott Nuttall. Nuttall said that institutions are increasingly intrigued by direct lending as the wealth channel pulls capital out of private credit funds.
Apollo Raises $6.5 Billion for Hybrid Debt-Equity Strategy | Laura Benitez | Bloomberg | Apollo has raised $6.5B for the third iteration of a fund that will provide financing that sits between credit and private equity. Apolloâs hybrid strategy employs a more hands-off approach than a typical buyout fund, offering debt and structured-equity capital to founders who want to develop their companies without relinquishing control.
Blue Owl will reduce private credit exposure to software | Isla Binnie | Reuters | Blue Owl will look to reduce its exposure to software in its BDCs, according to Blue Owl Co-President Craig Packer. The firmâs share of software assets in Blue Owl Capital Corp (OBDC) declined to 16% from 19% in Q1.
Blackstone cuts value of private credit fund in first quarter | Matt Tracy | Reuters | Blackstone has cut the value of its private credit fund, Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (BXSL), in Q1. The fundâs NAV per share dropped 2.4%, in part due to markdowns of investments exposed to software. BXSL had around 20% of its portfolio exposed to software companies, according to its quarterly report.
BlackRock Private Credit Fund Cuts Asset Value on Markdowns | Silla Brush | Bloomberg | BlackRock cut the value of its publicly-traded private credit fund by around 5%.
Pantheon leads $3.2B private credit continuation vehicle for Crescent Capital Group | Pantheon | Pantheon has completed a $3.2B private credit continuation vehicle, one of the largest deals of this type completed to date by both FMV and total LP dollar commitments. The CV was formed to acquire a mature, high-quality, and diversified portfolio of private credit investments across primarily first-lien and unitranche positions, diversified across industries and backed by a range of US based private equity sponsors.
đ Real Estate
Brookfield Bets on Dubai Real Estate, Defying War Concerns | Dinesh Nair | Bloomberg | Brookfield Asset Management is setting up a new property joint venture in Dubai with Alshaya Group to develop a 480,000 square-foot mixed-use project in the Dubai Hills neighborhood. The move reflects Brookfieldâs âconviction in the long-term fundamentals of the region,â according to Jad Ellawn, Managing Partner and Regional Head for Brookfield Middle East.
Galvanize Expands Its Strategy of Greening Commercial Real Estate | Gautam Naik | Bloomberg | Galvanize, the alternative asset manager co-founded by billionaire Tom Steyer, is expanding its commercial real estate portfolio as a spike in oil and gas prices supports its strategy of flipping properties after making them more energy efficient.
BGO Buys Toronto Tower as Cityâs Office Market Begins to Thaw | Paula Sambo | Bloomberg | Real estate firm BGO is buying a downtown Toronto office property, marking a return to Torontoâs financial core. BGO sees a recovery in leasing and a tightening supply backdrop in Torontoâs core, with vacancy for top-tier AAA office space having dropped to around 3%.
Billionaire Duke of Westminster to Sell ÂŁ700 Million of US Real Estate Assets | Natasha Voase | Bloomberg | Grosvenor Group Holdings Ltd. plans to sell its direct US real estate holdings, valued at around ÂŁ700M, as it pivots toward indirect investments in the region.
đĽ Secondaries
Ares leads on Baird Capital's life sciences single-asset CV | Nina Lindholm | Secondaries Investor | Baird Capital has closed an oversubscribed single-asset continuation vehicle for Blue Matter Consulting, a consulting company for the life sciences industry. Ares Secondaries funds and other blue-chip institutional investors led the transaction of a $450M CV.
Bridge Growth Raises $790 Million to Extend Hold on Solace | Liana Baker and Preeti Singh | Bloomberg | Bridge Growth Partner has raised $790M of equity in a secondary transaction to hold Solace for longer. The private equity firm and its affiliates will represent 15% of Solaceâs total equity.
Hamilton Lane Serves as Sole Lead Investor in MidOceanâs Close of Single-Asset Continuation Vehicle for Cloyes | Hamilton Lane | MidOcean Partners announced the closing of a single-asset CV for Cloyes Gear and Products. The CV has secured approximately $300M in commitments, with Hamilton Lane serving as the lead investor.
JPMorgan Hires Morgan Stanleyâs Boyle to Lead PE Secondaries | Bailey Lipschultz and Anthony Hughes | Bloomberg | JP Morgan hired Will Boyle from Morgan Stanley to lead its team that advises private equity firms on structuring secondaries deals. The move is in response to the growth of the secondaries market which is expected to see continued growth in what is a $100B GP-led secondaries market.
Private equity investor body sounds alarm on âconflict vehiclesâ | Alexandra Heal | Financial Times | ILPA has called continuation vehicles âconflict vehicles.â ILPAâs Neal Prunier noted that âconflicts of interest are one of the biggest points of [buyout firm] behaviour that has shifted in the negative sense.â
đ ď¸ Infrastructure
Blackstone and Goldman among backers for $1.5bn joint venture with Anthropic | Antoine Gara and Ryan McMorrow | Financial Times | Anthropic has formed a $1.5B JV with private equity and Wall Street firms, including Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic, Leonard Green, Apollo, Sequoia, and GIC, to deploy Anthropicâs AI across their portfolio companies. The new companies will embed Anthropic engineers in midsized businesses.
Mexicoâs MIP Seeking to Invest $12 Billion for Infrastructure | Michael OâBoyle | Bloomberg | Mexican infrastructure investment manager MIP Real Assets is looking to invest more than $12B for projects involving renewable energy and highways in Mexico.
Blackstone, KKR in Talks With Google to Bring AI Models to Portfolio Firms | Preeti Singh, Dawn Lim and Allison McNeely | Bloomberg | Blackstone, KKR, and EQT are in talks with Alphabet to give companies they own access to Googleâs AI models. The joint ventures could one day hire hundreds of engineers to handle contracts ranging from $1M to $10M, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.
𼊠GP Stakes
Stable Announces Strategic Partnership and Agreement to Sell Portfolio of Revenue-Share Interests to Navigator Global Investments for $195 Million | Business Wire | Stable Asset Management, one of the largest and most-tenured GP stake builders focused on GP seed and acceleration investing, announced a definitive agreement to sell a portfolio of minority, net revenue-share interests in alternative asset managers to Navigator Global Investments (ASX: NGI) for $195M. Stable and NGI also announced a long-term strategic partnership (the âStrategic Partnershipâ), through which Stable will continue to manage and monitor the Target Portfolio on behalf of NGI. The transaction value implies a price to CY25 distributions multiple of 7.6x.
đŹ Private Markets Research
2026 Credit Focus: Keeping Calm and Carrying On | Nayef Perry | Hamilton Lane | Private credit remains resilient despite geopolitical risk, AI disruption and lateâcycle uncertainty, with stress largely idiosyncratic and defaults contained.
PitchBook Analyst Note: US Private Equityâs New Fundraising Reality | Kyle Walters | PitchBook | Capital is consolidating around a shrinking list of the largest, most established managers, leaving midsize and generalist funds competing for an ever-narrowing pool of LP commitments. Despite this trend, specialist managers accounted for 73.9% of all capital raised in 2025 relative to generalist managers.
PitchBook Analyst Note: LP Co-Investments in US VC: Chasing AI at a Price | Kaidi Gao | PitchBook | LP co-investment in US VC has gained significant momentum in recent years â and two forces are amplifying it now.
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