AGM Alts & Wealth Weekly News Roundup | 12.5.25

The news of the week in private markets and wealth management

👋 Hi, I’m Michael.

Welcome to AGM, the meeting place for private markets.

Every Friday, I share headlines and news on the continuing evolution and innovation in private markets.

If you also want deep and nuanced industry analysis, subscribe below so you don’t miss the long read and newsletter — the AGM Alts Weekly — delivered to your inbox every Sunday.

If you have relevant news or an article or research report to share, please email me at michael@theagmcollective.com.

---

AGM News Roundup

🏦 Wealth Management

Global Salon: Goldman Sachs On Multigenerational Wealth And Meaningful Management | Thomas Monteiro | Global Finance | Goldman Sachs’ Global Head of Wealth Management Tucker York discusses the increasing demand for private equity amongst wealthy investors and how investors can approach the increasing suite of products and structures in the space.

Nomura CEO Sees Big Growth Phase in Wealth, Asset Management | Takashi Nakamichi and Ryo Horiuchi | Bloomberg | Nomura is intensifying its focus on wealth and asset management fresh off the heels of its $1.8B acquisition of Macquarie Group’s US and European public asset management business.

Private Markets Firms Need to Go Big or Go Niche | Michael Sidgmore | Opinion in EQT’s ThinQ | In an Opinion piece in EQT’s ThinQ platform, EQT asked me to share some of the biggest challenges that asset managers are facing today and why I believe firms need to be either really big or really unique (and why I also believe that the drawdown fund very much has a future).

🌲 Evergreen Funds

Cap Group and KKR plan public-private TDF and model portfolios | Tania Mitra | Citywire | In the latest partnership between two asset management behemoths, Capital Group and KKR plan to launch a target date fund offering for defined contribution plans and model portfolios that will combine public and private markets asset classes.

PEI Keynote Interview: Why evergreen and closed-end funds can thrive side by side | Jennifer Collard | Permira for PEI | Permira’s Managing Director, Global Head of Wealth & Intermediaries Jennifer Collard discusses how both evergreen and drawdown funds can co-exist, particularly in asset classes like private equity.

Wealth managers warm to evergreen funds as demand for private markets intensifies | Steve Randall | InvestmentNews | A new report from With Intelligence highlighted that wealth management firms are favoring evergreen fund structures as a scalable way to offer client access to private markets.

StepStone Group: Not all evergreens are created equal | Neil Menard and Miguel Sosa | StepStone for PEI | StepStone’s Neil Menard and Miguel Sosa discuss “the institutionalization of retail private markets” and unpack the nuances of evergreen funds.

The benefits of evergreen structures extend far beyond retail investment - panel | Helen de Beer | PEI | According to panelists at PEI Group’s Women in Private Markets Summit, institutional LPs may also stand to benefit from evergreen structures.

🛠️ Private Markets Infrastructure

BNY, Nasdaq Join $50 Million Digital Asset Fresh Funding in Bet on Blockchain | Katherine Doherty | Bloomberg | Digital Asset Holdings, which has built public blockchain Canton Network that focuses on tokenization, has raised an additional $50M from strategic investors and institutions at the epicenter of financial market structure, including BNY Mellon, Nasdaq, iCapital, and S&P Global. This new funding round adds to the $135M raised earlier this year in a round led by DRW and Tradeweb, which also included participation from Citadel, IMC, and Optiver.

MSCI launches index combining public and private equities | Alan Livsey | Financial Times | Index provider MSCI launched a global benchmark, MSCI All Country Public + Private Index, that includes both public and private equities. The index will allocate a 15% weighting to private markets and combines the MSCI All Country World Investable Equity Index, which contains 8,300 listed companies, with the newly launched All Country Private Equity Index, which tracks the valuations of 10,000 private equity funds globally.

Exclusive: InspereX partners with Luma to launch alts distribution platform | Alec Rich | Fixed income-focused fintech InspereX has launched a new distribution platform, allowing advisors to trade new issue and secondary fixed income securities, track structured investments, and transact and manage private markets investments through a partnership with Luma.

💸 Private Equity

EQT weighs higher charges on large investors thanks to retail cash | Alexandra Heal | Financial Times | EQT is exploring the possibility of charging institutional investors on co-investment deals as the industry continues to figure out how to balance the capital influx from the wealth channel with long-standing institutional LP relationships. [Read the 11.30.25 AGM Alts Weekly for more on this topic and ILPA’s survey on how institutional investors are viewing the rise of evergreen funds].

Value of PE add-ons rises in Europe as traditional buyout activity stays muted | Andrea Gaini | PitchBook | GPs are leaning into buy-and-build strategies in Europe, spending €207 billion (about $240.4 billion) on add-ons this year, the second-highest total in a decade and the third consecutive annual increase.

💳 Private Credit

Private-Credit Fears Are Based on Four Myths | Marc Rowan | Apollo for Bloomberg Opinion | Apollo CEO Marc Rowan addresses the hot button topics that are dominating the conversation in private credit today with a myth-busting op-ed.

Blackstone, Apollo and KKR sign up to UK stress test of private credit | Alexandra Heal and Martin Arnold | Financial Times | Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR have agreed to participate in a stress test on private credit from the Bank of England.

🏠 Real Estate

Ares Launches Marq To Unify Its Logistics Real Estate Platform | Maddy McCarty | Bisnow | Ares is consolidating its logistics real estate platforms across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific under a new brand, Marq Logistics.

Nuveen Real Estate Raises $650 Million for Final Close of U.S. Strategic Debt Fund | PR Newswire | Nuveen Real Estate closed its U.S. Strategic Debt Fund at $650M, representing the first closed-end fund offering for the firm in the commercial real estate credit space. The fund received a $150M commitment from TIAA’s General Account.

🥈 Secondaries

Secondaries fundraising takes 3 quarters to rival 2024 record | Madeline Shi | PitchBook | Secondaries fundraising is going from strength to strength as investors allocate more capital than ever to secondaries funds. $105B has been raised through the first three quarters of the year, nearly matching last year’s record fundraising figures.

Don’t expect more secondary activity from endowments, foundations | Jessica Hamlin | PitchBook | Despite two major portfolio sales earlier this year by Harvard and Yale endowments, a report from Jefferies finds that secondary sales by endowments and foundations accounted for only 16% of total LP portfolio sales volume in H1 2025.

Secondaries and real assets see Europe grab a record share of the fundraising pie | Emily Lai | PitchBook | Europe’s share of global private capital fundraising hit an all-time high this year, with funds focused on secondaries and real assets recording some of the continent’s largest closes with European private market funds collecting $310.5B as of the end of September.

🛠️ Infrastructure

Infrastructure investors push for deals with big oil and gas groups | Malcolm Moore | Financial Times | BlackRock, Brookfield, and Apollo are amongst the infrastructure investors that are talking with oil and gas companies about buying their infrastructure assets.

BlackRock Halts Plan for Infra Fund Targeting Wealthy Europeans | Leonard Kehnscherper | Bloomberg | BlackRock scuppered plans to launch an infrastructure fund targeting European HNW investors, reportedly pausing the effort because the deals done by its Global Infrastructure Partners unit did not appear to be a better fit for a drawdown structure.

Q&A: DigitalBridge on the fundraising battle for digital infrastructure | Madeline Shi | PitchBook | DigitalBridge’s Global Head of Capital Formation and Investor Relations Leslie Golden sat down with PitchBook to discuss how the firm is positioning itself with increased competition in infrastructure investing and navigating AI.

🥩 GP Stakes

GP stakes: No longer a niche industry | Claire Coe Smith | Buyouts | 2025 proved that GP Stakes is “no longer a niche industry,” with a number of new firms entering the $80B market.

GP-Stake Divestitures Trending Upward in the Buyout Market | Dechert | Dechert’s GP Stakes survey finds that 77% of survey participants plan to make a GP-stake divestiture in the next 24 months, twice the number that had these plans two years ago, with motivations based on liquidity, succession, and growth.

🔬 Private Markets Research

Global Wealth Investment Playbook | Henry H. McVey | KKR | KKR’s Q4 Global Wealth Investment Playbook shares views that elevated valuations, tighter credit spreads, and a higher resting heart rate for inflation and nominal interest rates are potentially compressing forward returns and flattening the traditional efficient frontier.

The Case for Private Equity in Individual Investor Portfolios | Alisa Amarosa Wood and Paula Campbell Roberts | KKR | KKR shares the why and the how for individuals including private equity in their portfolios and why private equity is no longer an “alternative” investment, but a core, alpha-generating equity holding with a structural place in all portfolios seeking to optimize risk-adjusted returns.

The Deep End: 2025 Alternative Investments Review | Michael Cembalest | J.P. Morgan Private Bank | Top-quartile buyout and VC funds continue to outperform, but many managers are swimming in the deep end with a lack of exits and distributions.

Moonfare’s private equity outlook 2026: The PE flywheel spins back to life | Philip Meschke, Pavel Ermoline, Blazej Kupec and Mike O’Sullivan | Moonfare | Moonfare’s 2026 private equity outlook finds that PE deal value has hit its highest level since Q4 2021.

---

Some testimonials about AGM include:

“Alt Goes Mainstream is category of one.” Global Head of Marketing & Communications, $X00B AUM alternative asset manager.

“When it comes to the intersection of alternative investments and wealth management, Michael just gets it.” CIO, $18B AUM RIA.

“This is our primary resource for learning and reading about alts.” Head of Marketing, $250B AUM alternative asset manager.

“If you want timely and informative insights on everything private markets, Michael Sidgmore and Alt Goes Mainstream weekly update and podcast are fantastic resources.” CIO, $47B AUM RIA.

“The only email I never delete when clearing my inbox.” Senior distribution professional, $330B+ AUM asset manager.

---

---