AGM Alts Weekly | 10.29.23
AGM Alts Weekly #25: Making private markets more public, every week.
👋 Hi, I’m Michael and welcome to my weekly newsletter, the AGM Alts Weekly. Every Sunday, I cover news, trends, and insights on the continuing evolution and innovation in private markets. I share relevant news articles, commentary, an Index of publicly traded alternative asset managers, job openings at private markets firms, and recent podcasts and thought pieces from Alt Goes Mainstream.
Join us to understand what’s going on in alts so you and your firm can stay up to date on the latest trends and navigate this rapidly changing landscape.
Good afternoon from New York, where I’m in town for the next recording of the Monthly Alts Pulse with iCapital Chairman & CEO Lawrence Calcano and to attend an alts conference. If you’re in town, let me know — would be great to meet and talk alts.
Private equity investments in retirement accounts? Something that has been oft-discussed, but yet to be fully realized. This week’s news of Fidelity and Schwab offering KKR funds to their individual clients via brokerage accounts and investment retirement accounts represents the early days of a landmark shift in private markets. The industry is inching closer to tapping into the largest pool of liquid capital on earth. That should be a boon for both investors and fund managers alike, as private markets strategies should fit well into products, like retirement accounts, that are long-dated in nature by virtue of their structure.
The next phase of private markets is upon us, but it doesn’t come without raising some existential questions.
Another article covered this week about increased scrutiny of private asset valuations by regulators, particularly as more individual investors invest in private equity, brings us to the heart of some of the most pressing issues with private markets.
How do private markets continue to become more transparent and accessible without giving up the very features that make it different, unique, and alpha-generating relative to its more crowded (from an investor and AUM perspective, not universe of companies perspective) and efficient public markets counterpart?
There is no doubt that increased transparency and uniformity around private asset valuations are both necessary and positive for private markets.
It’s necessary because investors should be able to know the value of their investments in the most transparent, real-time manner possible. It’s necessary because investors, particularly individual investors who now have access to private markets, should be afforded every protection possible when being offered investments.
It’s positive because increased transparency will lead to better price discovery, which should enable better liquidity mechanisms. Better liquidity should lead to more capital flowing into private markets. Overall, that will be a positive for the space as it will grow in size and scale relative to its larger public markets counterpart.
But there are some nuances to this evolution in transparency that bear watching. More liquidity and transparency could potentially lead to more volatility in private markets. One of the benefits of private markets is that its current reporting cycle of quarterly and annual valuation marks force investors to be more patient with exiting investments. Less frequent valuation marks and an absence of frequent referendums on the current mark-to-market of an asset can enable a company to go through the contours of growth with less volatility. That can be good for both investors and executives / employees over the long-term.
More assets flowing into private markets may also lead to private markets beta within certain investment strategies.
I’ll call this beta in search of alpha.
There are — and will be — certain private markets strategies where investors will end up allocating to private markets beta rather than alpha. It doesn’t mean that this feature will make it a bad investment, but with more capital flowing into a space, it will make the alpha generating potential compared to other private markets strategies more muted on a relative basis. If the private markets investment opportunity still has better return generating possibilities net of fees relative to a public markets strategy, then it could still be worth allocating to that private markets strategy. But investors will have to be more cognizant that the private markets strategy they invest into may be more about gaining beta exposure rather than alpha exposure in private markets. This could force allocators to go further out on the risk curve to seek alpha. There’s plenty of data that illustrates this concept — interquartile dispersion between 1st and 4th quartile private equity buyout funds is much smaller than 1st and 4th quartile venture capital funds. Manager selection matters much more in venture than it does in buyout private equity strategies.
Perhaps allocators will begin to view the concept of alpha and beta within their private markets allocation strategy in a more prominent way — and be more actively focused on allocating a portion of their capital to higher risk, but potentially higher alpha generating strategies like lower middle market private equity instead of buyout or emerging manager venture instead of bigger, brand name funds as they seek to find true alpha within private markets and treat more beta-like strategies in private markets as more of an extension of overall equities exposure.
AGM Index
AGM has created an Index to track the leading publicly traded alternative asset managers.
Some of the industry’s largest alternative asset managers are publicly traded — and their net inflows can serve as a window into how private markets are being perceived by investors and allocators who are allocating capital into alternative investments.
Note: AUM figures are based on fee-paying AUM where applicable
AGM News of the Week
Articles we are reading
📝 Private Equity Wants a Piece of Your Retirement Savings | Miles Weiss, Bloomberg
💡Private equity is making its way into retirement assets. Bloomberg’s Miles Weiss reports that two of the world’s largest brokerage firms, behemoths Fidelity and Schwab, are working with KKR to offer KKR funds, KKR Infrastructure Conglomerate and KKR Private Equity Conglomerate, to individual investors. Both Fidelity and Schwab are listed alongside Morgan Stanley and Rockefeller Financial in regulatory filings as potentially receiving compensation through a private placement of these KKR funds. Individual investors offer private equity firms a largely untapped pool of assets for them to gather. “The amount of money that is in IRAs is the largest pool of liquid capital on Earth,” said David Himmelreich, a senior vice president at Wealth Enhancement Group. Alternative asset managers’ efforts to court the retail channel is buttressed by the trend that is seeing many baby boomers shift their retirement assets from employer-sponsored savings accounts like 401(k)s to individual retirement accounts (IRAs). IRA accounts offer much more leeway in what asset owners can invest into, paving the way for alternatives to end up in retirement accounts. Cerulli reports that almost $800B rolled over from defined benefit plans into IRAs in 2022, as the IRA space has seen a secular increase in assets over the past 10 years. And Cerulli predicts that rollover assets will surpass $900B on an annual basis by 2028. KKR is amongst the private equity firms taking notice. KKR plans to draw 30% to 50% of its new capital from the private wealth sector, up from about 15% now, Chief Financial Officer Robert Lewin said in a February conference call. KKR is amongst the firms that has focused on product structuring innovation to enable the retail channel to access private markets. They created the conglomerates during the past year with help from Rajib Chanda, a “trailblaz[ing]” Simpson Thacher partner who helped create products focused on the “democratization of access by ordinary investors to private market investments.” The model KKR is using resembles that of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. The conglomerates were formed as operating companies rather than investment funds, meaning they are direct owners of actual businesses and hard assets, like toll roads and airports, instead of securities and shares of other funds. KKR has structured these funds to directly co-invest in buyout and infrastructure deals that their main funds . Because these products are structured as operating companies, the conglomerates also qualify for exemptions from rules that would otherwise cap the amount of IRA money they can take in at 25% of net assets. Other large alternative asset managers are following suit. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has used this structure in the past and Apollo filed documents for an infrastructure entity akin to KKR back in June.
💸 AGM’s 2/20: Democratization has been a consistent theme as alts go mainstream — and this news affirms that the mainstreaming of private markets is fully underway as alternatives make their way into the portfolios of all investors. The ability for private assets to be held in retirement accounts is a massive win for both GPs and investors. It’s been long thought that retirement accounts are an appropriate structure for illiquid assets, given the long-dated structure of private assets matching the long-dated nature of an investment retirement account. GPs can now tap into the largest pool of retail assets in the world. LPs can now gain access to private markets. And it’s a win for private markets more broadly. If private markets are to grow to the $30T in 2030 as predicted by Goldman Sachs, true individual investor participation will go a long way in realizing this benchmark. There are many nuances about structuring investment products for retail investors, some of which is good and other of which investors should be skeptical (in certain places around fees and liquidity), but one feature of this KKR product really jumps out: co-investment. We’ve seen the trend in private equity with institutional investors lean more towards co-investment as big LPs, such as pension and endowments, have been able to convince large GPs to collaborate on co-investments. Now, it appears that individual investors are getting somewhat of that access (albeit possibly at different fee structures). This feature highlights the continued evolution of private equity and illustrates that both structures and ways of investing are changing for not only institutional investors, but individual investors as well.
📝 Goldman Sachs enters the geopolitical advice business | Joshua Franklin, Financial Times
💡As geopolitics and deglobalization continue to shape capital markets, Goldman Sachs is setting up an institute to analyze global trends, geopolitics, and technology. The Goldman Sachs Global Institute, which was announced this week, will initially be focused on geopolitics and the potential impacts of artificial intelligence. Goldman is betting that companies and investors will seek advice for how to navigate an increasingly complex world. The Institute will be led by Goldman Partners George Lee and Jared Cohen, who both lead the firm’s Office of Applied Innovation, which was established last year to help uncover commercial opportunities related to the impacts of technology and geopolitics. Goldman has a commercial objective in mind. Cohen says that “The goal here isn’t to create another think-tank … The goal here is to create a machinery that leverages the firm’s expertise, connects it with outside expertise and combines those things into useful, actionable and commercial insights for our clients.” The Financial Times’ Joshua Franklin cites Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an unexpected event that caught businesses and investors off-guard and led companies to look for ways to boost their geopolitical expertise. Goldman is not the first to launch an effort aimed at helping companies and investors get smart on broader macro events. Last year, Lazard launched a unit of advisors to counsel companies on geopolitical risks and McKinsey created the McKinsey Global Institute a number of years ago. Goldman views this institute as a value-added service to their clients. They won’t be charging clients for access to the Institute, which will provide a mix of content and analysis in addition to events. The Institute has already compiled a range of scenarios, titled “tabletop simulations,” which have examined a range of hypothetical situations, including the impact of tensions of the Taiwan Strait on the semiconductor industry and the challenges of bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a cease fire. Cohen’s role running public affairs at Goldman means that he and his team are communicating with world leaders on a “daily basis.”
💸 AGM’s 2/20: Macro matters. Possibly more than ever. Whether it’s geopolitical tensions or the rise of disruptive technology like AI, private markets are impacted by major global trends. This has always been the case, but it does feel like the world is becoming increasingly complex. Political tensions, technological innovation, the speed through which information (or disinformation) is disseminated through social media are all impacting markets. Investors must now be equipped with a different set of skills to be able to make sound investment decisions. If LPs didn’t think it was important before, I do believe that many LPs will seek to understand if GPs and their portfolio company CEOs have an understanding of macro and an awareness of how geopolitics or emerging technology trends may impact their businesses. The launch of the Goldman Sachs Global Institute is but one acknowledgement to investors and CEOs that it’s important for them to understand macro. In corners of the world like venture capital, many GPs and LPs have claimed that the macro doesn’t matter. Just focus on building a great company irrespective of the market cycle because innovation occurs in any environment, they said. Yes, there’s some truth to that. Great companies can be built in any market, in any cycle. But as VCs and founders will attest over the past few years, macro matters. Interest rate increases have had a meaningful impact on the venture ecosystem, reconfiguring valuations and locking up liquidity. Those who understood macro may have had a sense that low rates were unsustainable. The takeaway? Fund managers should have an awareness, if not an understanding, of macro forces and geopolitics as this could impact their investments and liquidity options — both now and in the future. I, for one, as a LP care about whether or not fund managers are aware of the forces at play beyond their industry or stage because, even though the world may be going through a deglobalization phase, markets and macro are increasingly and inextricably interlinked.
📝 iCapital wants to grow through more M&A | Daniel Gil, Citywire
💡iCapital, which has built the leading platform to enable the wealth channel to access private markets with over $166B in assets, is looking to grow through additional M&A. Chairman and CEO Lawrence Calcano discussed iCapital’s growth strategy with Citywire at Charles Schwab’s Impact conference this week, noting that they will evaluate “the fastest way to accomplish … what [they] need to offer to help [their] clients to help them succeed. Can we build it or do we buy it?” iCapital has leveraged an acquisitive mindset over the years to scale to the leading player in the space, making a number of notable acquisitions. One of the firm’s more recent large acquisitions was its purchase of UBS’s alternative investment feeder fund platform, UBS Fund Advisor, in mid-2022, which brought in around $7B in client assets at the time. Calcano said that iCapital will look to combine potential M&A opportunities with organic growth. “I’m a big believer that the best acquisition strategy for any company comes as a complement to any organic growth story. Making acquisitions is really hard and so we have a very clear view of how we want to grow the business organically and then we look at what other companies which can help accelerate that growth. It’s been a successful strategy for us to date and I would expect us to continue to be thoughtful about making acquisitions,” he said. iCapital’s destiny is in their own hands, due to a combination of strong performance and a healthy balance sheet. Calcano noted that iCapital has over $350M in cash on its balance sheet and is debt free. “We haven’t raised money in a very long time even though we’ve taken on new investors because all those new investors have said ‘we want to partner organically with you and have a seat at the table,’ and we’re happy to accommodate that,” according to Calcano. iCapital was founded in 2013 and services more than $166B in global client assets — of which roughly $28B comes from international investors — across more than 1,300 funds, according to the company.
💸 AGM’s 2/20: Citywire’s interview with iCapital Chairman & CEO Lawrence Calcano provides an interesting window into why one of the biggest companies in the alts space has grown to such consequential size and scale. iCapital’s ability to be acquisitive and buy up wirehouse feeder funds was a major driver of success in its earlier days, propelling the company to a position where it has more or less owned a good portion of the wirehouse flows into private markets. Lawrence and team have executed brilliantly on that strategy over the years by locking up wirehouse partners as both customers and investors. One, iCapital recognized that the wirehouse channel would still very much be a major driver of asset inflows into private markets funds while also understanding that investing in the RIA / independent wealth channel would help them to cover the entire surface area of the private wealth channel. Two, the team combined a unique and perfect mix of backgrounds to balance both organic and inorganic growth. Lawrence’s background as a former Goldman Sachs Partner and a leading tech M&A banker helped iCapital understand how to navigate and leverage an inorganic M&A growth strategy when appropriate. That skillset was accompanied by entrepreneurial backgrounds (Co-Founder Dan Vene was a serial entrepreneur, selling a prior business to Thomson Reuters) and a deep network in and an understanding of private equity (Co-Founders John Robertshaw and Phil Pool were responsible for building the private equity placement industry from its early days and Co-Founder Nick Veronis was a private equity investor who had an innate understanding of private markets from his investment in Ipreo). Now, as iCapital looks forward, it’s clear that they recognize that private markets infrastructure is going through its next phase of innovation. An explosion of technology solutions have been built over the past few years across the lifecycle of an alternative investment from pre- to post-investment. So it’s no surprise that a company at the size and scale of iCapital would evaluate build versus buy strategies. There are a number of strong point solutions across the value chain of a private markets investment that are building technology of value. The next few years will be about seeing if those solutions can use that initial wedge or customer as an entry point into a broader business or if those businesses fit better within a larger, end-to-end platform like iCapital. What are the takeaways here for alts founders and investors? 1/ The wirehouse channel is very much still a massive market. Yes, the RIA space is growing and hugely important to the continued growth of private markets, but the wirehouse channel will continue to represent a large portion of flows into private markets funds, particularly in other parts of the world. 2/ Partnerships with incumbents is critical in private markets, as is leveraging strategic investors. iCapital has navigated this challenging process with aplomb and has benefitted tremendously as a result. Others would do well to understand this strategy and figure out if this is possible for their business as they grow given that strategics are where much of the private wealth assets reside.
📝 Opaque practices await UK regulators in private asset valuations probe | Laura Noonan, Josephine Cumbo, Arjun Neil Alim, Financial Times
💡As private markets continue to mature, so too does transparency. UK regulator Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is expected to begin its review this year, representing a critical moment of truth for private markets. Properly tracking and monitoring valuations on private markets is more complex than that of its more liquid counterparts, publicly listed equities and bonds. The majority of private assets are generally valued manually and quarterly, with firms using a wide range of techniques. This lack of real-time data and opacity in private markets is a challenge for funds, investors, and regulators alike. “[It is] fundamentally a problem of data, which data is being used and how reliable is this data,” said Frédéric Blanc-Brude, founder of Scientific Infra, an offshoot of the French business school. “Each one of those assets should say in the annual report how they are valued, all the details. If those numbers are strange or they never change, then that would prompt them to ask some questions and maybe avoid nasty surprises later on,” he said. Regulators have good reason to be concerned. Private markets assets have more than doubled from 2017 to 2022, growing to over $11T of AUM. As more investors increasingly incorporate private assets into their portfolios, how these assets are valued will have an impact on the value of their portfolios. Methods for valuing private assets is very much a grey area. Owners are required to hold assets at “fair value” under accounting rules. However, how accurate these valuations are will only be determined when the asset is sold. Carl Astorri, head of investments, Europe at AustralianSuper, Australia’s largest superannuation fund with about A$9B in UK private markets, welcomed the review but said there is “an element of judgment in any valuation and its inputs. That, after all, is what makes a market.” Listed private equity trusts are showing large valuation gaps, calling into question valuation methods. UK private equity trust net asset values are currently trading 30% above share price valuations, data from the Association of Investment Companies shows. This gap represents close to a historic high, suggesting that share prices are cheap or asset valuations are in excess of what could be achieved if an investment were to exit.
💸 AGM’s 2/20: More transparency and real-time reporting on valuations is key to the next phase of private markets growth. Evolution in reporting of private assets will be critically important as the industry increasingly heads in the direction of work with the retail investor. If private assets are going to feature in investment structures like retirement accounts and in publicly listed vehicles, then uniformity, transparency, and speed will matter for valuations. The industry will have to figure out how to strike a balance between more transparent reporting and remaining different from public markets. Part of the benefit of private markets is that less frequent valuation marks and referendums on the current mark to market of a business can enable a company to go through the growing pains of growth with less volatility. This feature doesn’t just benefit the company; it benefits its shareholders too. Shareholders who have the patience to withstand the ups and downs of a business benefit from reduced volatility in the private markets portion of their portfolio. That can prove to be helpful to institutional investors, who are looking to meet a certain return target on an annualized basis. Transparency and better tools for private markets investors to value their assets is undoubtedly a positive for everyone in the industry. It will make private markets more efficient and inclusive for all investors. But on the flip side, how can private markets continue to remain different from public markets so it doesn’t become such an efficient market that the alpha begins to evaporate? That’s one of the big questions as private markets enters the next phase of its evolution as more investors begin to participate in alternatives.
📝 PE firms rely on organic growth for returns | Jessica Hamlin, PitchBook
💡Private equity firms are becoming increasingly reliant on the organic growth of their portfolio companies rather than using other methods to increase the value of their companies, such as leverage. Operational improvements and cash flow at PE-backed portfolio companies have always accounted for a portion of the asset class's returns, but now, as various alpha-generating avenues have closed, these elements are core to success in private equity investing. In other words, PE is exclusively relying on the profitability of portfolio companies to generate returns, said Jeremy Deutsch, Senior Vice President at Neuberger Berman. "You can't buy an average company, lever it and hope the market goes up," Deutsch said. "That worked when you had low interest rates, easy money, and when things were up and to the right, but it's not going to work anymore." From 2010 to 2020, PE firms in the U.S. accounted for over $6T in total deal value, per PitchBook data. This year, however, PE deal value hit a six-year low in Q3 2023 — down 54.7% from its Q4 2021 peak. Instead of pulling all the levers — leverage, multiple expansion, inorganic growth — PE suddenly found itself with one lever to pull, said Stephen Brennan, Head of Private Wealth Solutions at Hamilton Lane. "There's a flight to high-quality companies that will be able to grow organically despite a challenging environment," Brennan said. It was announced Monday that Vista Equity Partners will take private enterprise software company EngageSmart at a ~$4B valuation. EngageSmart reported a 28% year-over-year increase in Q2 2023 revenue, and a 61% increase in adjusted EBITDA. PE has shied away from traditional LBOs over the past two years. Platform deals, which rely heavily on leverage, have declined 42.9% from 2022. Debt as a percentage of total deal value in the leveraged loan market has fallen ~7% year-over-year. The market is also seeing multiple contraction, after a decade of expansion. US PE revenue multiples are down 16.5% since the end of last year — meaning another driver of returns is gone for the time being. Similarly, a slower M&A market due to wider bid-ask spreads and a constrained credit market has ruled out inorganic growth. What remains is organic growth, driven by healthy portfolios with cash flow-rich businesses. Deutsch said Neuberger Berman, which makes co-investments alongside PE firms, accounts for this in its due diligence and manager selection processes by pricing in factors including an impending recession, future rate hikes and continued inflation into the analysis of portfolio companies’ capital structures. “That’s a big shift in the landscape relative to what it was before,” he added.
💸 AGM’s 2/20: Warren Buffett’s famous words of “only when the tide goes out do you learn who has been swimming naked” certainly ring true in the current market. With rising rates making it harder for private equity firms to rely on leverage to grow their companies, the quality investors will rise to the top. Apollo’s Marc Rowan made a similar statement recently that echoed this view, saying we’ll see which investors truly have skill in a market with higher rates. What does this mean? Investors will seek to find businesses that have strong fundamentals and cashflows that can exhibit organic growth in the absence of leverage as a tool to grow. The current market is one where only the best companies will succeed as investors have internalized the fact that they can’t invest in average companies, apply leverage, and hope that multiples will go up. With leverage no longer a tool that private equity firms can rely on for growth and multiple expansion nowhere in sight, organic growth is all that’s left. Let’s see which founders and investors can navigate the current environment — those who do will emerge stronger on the other side.
📝 BlackRock Says Private Debt Will Double to $3.5 Trillion by 2028 | Silla Brush, Bloomberg
💡Bloomberg’s Silla Brush reports that BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, predicts that the global private debt market will double to $3.5T by 2028. BlackRock’s prediction represents one of the most bullish calls to date on the private credit industry, at a time when some are calling into question the future of private credit due to interest rate increases. BlackRock believes that private credit will fill the gap of banks pulling back from lending, stating that “tectonic shifts” in financial markets will spur more borrowers to seek out private funds for financing. “As the private debt market continues to grow in size, its capability to compete directly with the public debt financing markets will likely expand,” BlackRock’s Head of Macro Credit Research Amanda Lynam wrote, adding that there is growing appetite among institutional and retail investors for the assets. BlackRock expects private debt to grow at a 15% compound annual rate, taking the $1.6T market up to $1.75T by the end of this year. Preqin said this month that they are forecasting private debt to reach $2.8T by 2028. BlackRock is among the cadre of asset managers that are investing heavily into private credit. They’ve set up new funds focused on this space and acquired firms, such as Kreos Capital, a specialist private credit manager, as they prepare for what they see as a growth market.
💸 AGM’s 2/20: Private credit continues to be a major focus area for GPs and LPs alike. Despite some calls for concern about the risks associated with private credit and higher financing costs to borrowers amidst rising rates, many of the world’s largest investors continue to pile resources into building and distributing funds focused on private credit. BlackRock believes that a secular trend in private credit is underway. Their views on banks may serve as foreshadowing on what they believe lies ahead for the private credit market. They view the move from cash to money-market funds could impact lenders’ ability to finance many companies. And as banks retrench from lending markets, particularly to the SME cohort, BlackRock believes that private credit funds will fill the gap. If BlackRock’s thesis holds true, private credit will certainly be in for a continued rise so it’s no surprise to see asset managers aggressively pursue ways to build or acquire funds focused on the private credit opportunity. I’d expect to see continued consolidation in asset management as many larger firms look to add capabilities in private credit.
Who is hiring?
In order for alts to continue to go mainstream, we need the best talent to go into the space. Here are some openings at private markets firms. If you’d like to connect with any of these teams, let me know and I’m happy to facilitate an introduction if appropriate. If you’re a company or fund in private markets, feel free to reach out to share a job description you’d like to be listed here to highlight for the Alt Goes Mainstream community.
🔍 bunch (Private markets infrastructure investment platform & SPV infrastructure) - Head of Commercial. Click here to learn more.
🔍 iCapital (Private markets infrastructure investment platform) - Midwest, Regional Director, Senior Vice President. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Republic (Multi-strategy alternative investment platform) - Chief Technology Officer. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Isomer Capital (European VC fund of funds) - Investor, Secondaries. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Northzone (Global early-stage VC) - Investment Team, Stockholm office. Click here to learn more.
The latest on Alt Goes Mainstream
Recent podcast or video episodes and blog posts on Alt Goes Mainstream:
🎙 Hear Maelle Gavet, CEO of Techstars, take the pulse of seed and how Techstars has created an actively-managed index of innovation. Listen here.
🎥 Watch a roundtable on the European institutional LP vantage point on the current fundraising environment for VCs in Europe. EUVC, a top podcast championing European venture and fund syndicate platform, brought together leading institutional LPs in the European ecosystem, David Dana, Head of VC Investments at EIF, Joe Schorge, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Isomer Capital, Christian Roehle, Head of Investment Management at KfW Capital, and me to discuss how GPs in Europe can navigate a difficult fundraising environment. Watch here.
🎙 Hear Joe Schorge, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at one of Europe’s most active LPs, Isomer Capital, discuss why now is Europe’s time. Listen here.
🎥 Watch Marc Penkala, Co-Founder & Partner at Altitude, and I do a first-of-a-kind live podcast on EUVC. EUVC, the leading podcast championing European venture and fund syndicate platform, brought together one of their portfolio GPs, Marc Penkala of Altitude, and me for a VC / LP pitch session. Watch here.
🎥 Watch Lawrence Calcano, Chairman & CEO at iCapital, and I take the pulse of private markets on the fourth episode of our monthly show, the Monthly Alts Pulse. Watch here.
🎙 Hear the incredible story of “tech’s most unlikely venture capitalist,” Pejman Nozad, Co-Founder & Founding Managing Partner of Pear VC, on how they’ve built a seed investing powerhouse. Listen here.
🎙 Hear sustainable investments pioneer Bill Orum, Partner of $9B AUM OCIO Capricorn Investment Group, discuss how Capricorn has proven that doing well and doing good don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Listen here.
🎙 Hear wealth management industry titan Haig Ariyan, CEO of Arax Investment Partners, share his thoughts on the private equity opportunity in wealth management and why the intersection of wealth and alts is one of the biggest trends in private markets. Listen here.
🎙 Hear investing legends John Burbank and Ken Wallace of Nimble Partners provide a masterclass on investing with a macro lens from John’s background as a leading macro hedge fund manager at Passport Capital and on micro VC from Ken’s background backing some of the top emerging VCs at Industry Ventures. Listen here.
🎙 Hear $40B AUM Cresset Co-Founder & Co-Chairman Avy Stein and Director of Private Capital Jordan Stein live from the Allocate Beyond Summit discuss how private markets are changing wealth management. Listen here.
📝 Read how 73 Strings CEO & Co-Founder Yann Magnan and team are leveraging AI to build a modern and holistic monitoring and valuation platform for private markets in The AGM Q&A. Read here.
🎙 Hear $18B AUM Savant Wealth’s award-winning CIO Phil Huber talk about how LPs can build a strategy for investing in private markets. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Avlok Kohli, AngelList’s CEO, talk about how they are building the company of companies that is powering private markets. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Seyonne Kang, Partner and member of the private equity team at $134B AUM StepStone, discuss how the VC industry is dealing with today’s venture market. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Chris Ailman, the CIO of $307B CalSTRS, discuss how he manages a portfolio with ~40% exposure to private markets. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Robert Picard, Head of Alternatives at $117B AUM Hightower, approaches alternative investments. Listen here.
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Special thanks to Michael Rutter and Nick Owens for their contributions to the newsletter.
I want Prudent & Viability Analysis of Each Proposal before Pledging any "Support' to ensure it a Successful Commitment. Regards.!!!!!