AGM Alts Weekly | 1.11.26: Integration nation - private equity edition
AGM Alts Weekly #137: Making private markets more public, every week.
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Good morning from Washington, D.C.
‘Twas two nights before Christmas, when all through the alternative asset management house / Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
While most people in the industry were likely getting ready for the holiday this past December, Eric Platt of the Financial Times provided us with quite a stocking stuffer.
Platt’s December 23rd article, titled “Ares Management chief eyes private equity as the group’s next target,” provides a window into what could be a major strategic move on the horizon for one of the industry’s largest alternative asset managers.
Ares CEO Mike Arougheti told the Financial Times that the nearly $600B AUM firm could look to acquire a large private equity firm.
Arougheti said in an interview, “I could see a world where we look to expand the private equity franchise, either by getting larger, geographically diversifying, looking at sector-specific capabilities that would be additive to other parts of the franchise. In this world of defined contribution plans opening up to alternatives over time, diversified private equity will become more and more important.”
Ares’ roots lie in the credit space. And what a franchise they have built.
The firm, which spun out of Apollo in 1997, has grown its credit business to over $390B in AUM, as the below chart from the firm’s Q3 2025 Investor Presentation illustrates.
The credit business is punctuated by the firm’s flagship $35B direct lending fund, which has helped to drive Ares’ growth and a $57B+ market capitalization, Platt noted.
Ares’ private equity franchise sits at $25B today, not yet reaching the heights of the credit strategies, as the below chart from the FT illustrates.
$25B in AUM is by no means a small figure, but in a world where size is relative (in 2023, CVC raised the largest single private equity fund in history at €26.8 billion) and where scale matters, Ares’ private equity business is markedly “sub-scale” relative to its peers.
That could very well change.
Ares’ Q3 2025 Investor Presentation provides some hints that “accretive inorganic growth opportunities” are part of its plan to drive value and growth.
Last year, the firm reportedly held discussions with European private equity firm Astorg, which boasts over €23B in AUM and 27% annualized returns since inception (according to its website).
A pure-play European buyout firm focused on the middle market, like Astorg, could represent a good fit for Ares’ burgeoning private equity platform.
It seems like the firm has its sights set on expanding further into private equity, particularly in Europe, based on its Q3 2025 Investor Presentation.
The acquisition of a private equity firm would provide Ares with an even bigger footprint in a market where they have less than 0.5% market share, as the below chart highlights.
To that end, Arougheti didn’t put a ceiling on the firm’s ability to take a big swing with a private equity acquisition.
While he didn’t comment on specific PE firm targets, he did signal that a firm managing $100B or more in private equity assets could be within reach: “Even the largest global private equity managers would not be significant from a market cap standpoint relative to where we are.”
If Ares wanted to make a big splash, even a $100B scaled specialist private equity investor could be in the crosshairs, based on Arougheti’s comments.
Perhaps BlackRock’s landmark acquisitions of $100B Global Infrastructure Partners or $150B HPS could serve as comparisons, to some extent. Those firms were acquired for over $12B each, and it’s very likely that their management fee take and performance fees would be lower than those of a private equity firm of similar size. So, could Ares send shockwaves through the industry with a $15B acquisition? Not the most likely of outcomes, but, as EQT’s Conni Jonsson said in a nod to ABBA in his Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, “The winner takes it all,” so perhaps the industry’s largest firms will put a lot of chips on the table in a bid to win with scale.
“Scale is our greatest advantage”
Scale matters in private markets, particularly in certain segments. Ares — and its peers — could be a case study on this topic, particularly as it relates to credit.
Some firms, such as Blackstone, would say that scale is a feature that equips them with a major edge.
In a 2023 LinkedIn post, Blackstone Chairman, CEO & Co-Founder Steve Schwarzman noted the importance of scale to Blackstone’s business:
There are many advantages that come from our unique scale. With our portfolio of over 230 companies, 12,000 real estate assets and one of the largest lending businesses in the world, we believe we have more information than anyone competing with us.
Private equity fund sizes probably do have a ceiling, in part because they are “rate of return businesses,” as Apollo CEO Marc Rowan noted in a conversation (around the 4:50 mark) with Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor.
But, even in private equity, scale can lead to outperformance.
As I wrote in the 8.4.24 AGM Alts Weekly: Masters of Scale, bigger can, in fact, be better.
iCapital’s Nick Veronis and Kunal Shah published a whitepaper in July 2022 examining where and how scale matters for buyout funds. Post-GFC, it was actually large buyout funds that outperformed all other fund size cohorts across both pooled and median returns.
From 2010 to 2019, large funds ($7.5B+) generated the highest pooled IRR of any fund size.
Not only did larger funds generate better returns, but iCapital’s whitepaper found that larger fund cohort also had a higher floor of returns (i.e. even the bottom quartile funds generated better returns than bottom quartile funds of smaller size) and a thinner dispersion of returns, meaning that manager selection, while important, had less of an impact on returns than it did for investors who chose funds of smaller size.
Scale also puts certain firms in rarefied air when competing for deals. Only a small set of funds can access deals of a certain size, which should persist as private companies stay private longer. Veronis and Shah found that LPs seemed to agree with this hypothesis. Funds raising over $7.5B accounted for 41% of capital committed to buyouts in the 2021 vintage. The number of funds that accounted for that 41%? Just eight funds out of a total of 553 funds raised that year. Veronis and Shah astutely point out that not only does scale provide an access advantage to dealflow, but it also helps negotiate better terms for credit lines, including longer repayment durations, at both fund and company level.
So, could Ares opt to go for scale if they acquire a private equity firm?
Going for scale
There are a number of reasons why Ares might choose a scaled private equity business for its platform:
Cross-selling in a world where capital is consolidating
Ares already does a stellar job of deepening relationships with its LPs.
Ares has found a way to expand its relationships with LPs in recent years. As of Q3 2025, 71% of institutional LPs in Ares have invested in at least two of Ares’ investment strategies, and 31% have invested in three or more. That’s an increase of 11% in LPs that invest in three or more Ares’ strategies and an 11% increase in those that invest in two strategies.
A strong brand and a top-performing private equity firm, particularly one that is big enough to possess the ability to raise large funds and manage evergreen strategies, would enable Ares to offer yet another compelling investment product to LPs in a world where capital is in a flight to scale.
Scaled platforms are benefiting from both industry and capital consolidation. LPs are concentrating their capital with less firms, not more. And scaled managers are taking the lion’s share of the capital raised in the wealth channel, as the below chart illustrates.
Speaking of the wealth channel, what does the wealth channel want?
Evergreens appear to be the vehicle of choice for much of the wealth channel.
KKR’s recent RIA Survey finds that many advisors are choosing evergreens over traditional drawdown funds. Interval funds also rank high on the list of vehicle types that RIAs are using to implement private markets investments.
The above chart from Ares also highlights the increase in evergreen fund flows in recent years. The takeaway? Scaled managers need to have evergreen offerings to succeed in the wealth channel, and private equity is no exception given the interest in PE from the wealth channel, as the below chart from KKR illustrates.
Large, diversified private equity strategies are likely a fit for DC plans
Arougheti noted that diversified private equity strategies will be increasingly important as private equity’s inclusion in defined contribution plans move from a possibility to a likelihood.
What product structure will most likely be included in 401(k)s? Evergreens.
Thus, a firm that possesses evergreen private equity capabilities will be the more likely choice for inclusion in a 401(k) product or a multi-manager product or model portfolio that slots into a 401(k).
Private equity could very well be the strategy to go big into defined contribution plans over private credit.
Private markets veteran and former Pantheon Partner Susan Long McAndrews said as much in her Op-Ed on Alt Goes Mainstream, noting:
Private equity is the Comstock Lode of private markets. I just don’t buy the recent narrative that private credit will open DC. We have 50 years of data about equity in private companies and its unique model of corporate governance and alignment of interest. The shrinking public equity markets is a cornerstone of the public policy rationale, and a potentially diluted “private markets” program may not suffice.
It’s also worth noting that a diversified private equity strategy would very likely need to include some US private equity exposure if it is to be added to 401(k) plans. While European buyout performance has been strong, and in some cases, stronger than US buyout or middle-market performance, it’s likely that a firm that has US exposure would be included in a DC plan or model portfolio over a firm that only has European or Asian geographic exposure. This feature doesn’t mean that a European buyout firm would be excluded from the list of possible acquisition targets for Ares, but it does make it less likely for Ares to acquire a pure-play European firm like Astorg than it does a US-focused private equity firm or a European firm that has meaningful US exposure.
Small enough for Ares to buy, but big enough to have evergreen capabilities
A PE firm target will need to be of size and scale for Ares to digest as a $57B company.
That doesn’t rule out a $100B AUM firm, as Arougheti noted. But, a $10-15B acquisition would be a landmark deal in the industry, particularly for a $57B company in Ares.
To put an acquisition of this size and scale in perspective, the FT noted this past week that US asset managers spent $38B on transactions in 2025, a record high in asset manager consolidation (note: this figure represents both traditional and alternative asset manager acquisitions).
If Ares were to spend $10-15B to acquire a scaled private equity firm, 2026 could see another record year in asset management consolidation deal volume.
A bigger rather than smaller acquisition on the horizon?
There’s a real case to be made for Ares to buy a bigger firm rather than a smaller firm in private equity:
➡️ A larger PE platform is more likely to have the ability to successfully run evergreen strategies: Evergreen funds require enough dealflow from the drawdown funds to be able to reach scale. A number of industry leaders have noted that evergreen strategies benefit when a firm also has a large drawdown fund business.
There are only a handful of firms that have enough dealflow across their drawdown strategies in PE that enable them to credibly run an evergreen PE fund strategy at scale. This feature would tilt the odds in favor of Ares acquiring a larger PE firm rather than a smaller PE firm and one that has already built out an evergreen PE product.
➡️ Evergreen fund product would fit right into Ares’ platform: An evergreen fund product would fit well into Ares’ wealth distribution platform while also enabling Ares to cross-sell the drawdown funds to institutional LPs, deepening relationships with existing institutional LPs while simultaneously continuing to expand and scale its private wealth solutions business.
An evergreen fund product also often requires large balance sheet commitments from the GP to both launch or anchor the strategy and be able to invest in the deals at the size and scale required to run the strategy effectively. Ares possesses the balance sheet to do so.
➡️ Quicker time to market: A firm that already has evergreen PE products in the market would make it much easier for Ares to plug the firm’s evergreen funds into its wealth distribution platform and provide a quicker time to market for Ares’ private equity strategies to be under consideration for DC plans.
➡️ Readying for 401(k)s: As the aforementioned point above highlights, Ares will need to have an evergreen PE product to be under consideration for DC plans. An evergreen PE fund that has been in market and has a track record would make this more plausible — and put Ares in the conversation sooner rather than later.
➡️ Accretive to stock price: A PE firm that has a scaled platform with both drawdown fund and evergreen fund products would very likely be accretive to Ares’ stock price for a few reasons. One, the management fees and performance fees in private equity are generally higher than in credit, infrastructure, and secondaries strategies. This means that the FRE (fee-related earnings) and FRE margin would likely be higher if Ares acquires the right PE firm. This feature would likely be looked at positively by public markets investors. Two, a larger PE franchise would make Ares look more like its public markets peers, Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, and Brookfield, all of whom possess large private equity franchises in addition to scaled credit, real estate, and infrastructure platforms.
➡️ Ares’ newly launched GP Stakes strategy could be foreshadowing of PE acquisitions to come: Ares recently launched a dedicated GP Stakes strategy by teaming up with Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Investment Council to take minority equity stakes in mid-market private equity firms that have as much as $30B in AUM. Perhaps this strategy will ultimately result in Ares building relationships with mid-market private equity GPs in ways that lead to an acquisition by Ares.
Blue Owl’s GP Stakes business and Goldman’s Petershill GP Stakes business have both acquired firms where they initially owned minority equity stakes. Blue Owl’s acquisitions of alternative credit firm Atalaya and digital infrastructure manager IPI followed minority equity stakes via its GP Strategic Capital group. Goldman’s recent acquisition of secondaries firm Industry Ventures followed its minority equity stake via Petershill.
Acquiring an alternative asset manager is not easy. Aligning on culture and shared values are critical. Aligning on ambition is something that the top minds in the industry have dissected, including HgTrust’s Chairman of the Board and Bain & Company Senior Advisor Jim Strang. Jim noted on his Alt Goes Mainstream podcast from 2024 the importance of aligning on ambition.
Jim Strang: Well, everyone’s got it. The question is, is it clearly articulated and is it shared? Your ambition could be anything from I’d love to shoot 34 in golf to I want to be the next Blackstone. There’s a real sort of art and there is a sort of a proper calibration of what it really means. And how it is that integrated into the strategy of the firm? And that’s not trivial. And then the other one, which you see quite a lot when you work with these firms, is alignment, And this is where things start to get interesting because most private equity firms are set up as partnerships. Okay. Thank you. And partnerships are not the governance model of choice for alignment because it’s a bit like the Knights of the Round Table. If you have to get everybody agreeing to want to go on a path, you first got to have the path clear. Then you’re going to have to get everybody agreeing. And if you’re thinking, what’s the worst way I could set myself up to stop that happening, it would be a partnership. So solve that one. Certainly with some of the things I do with Bain, that’s one of the things we always do first is say, okay, have we got a clear sense of ambition and can we write it down in words?. And then are we agreed? And that’s often very insightful, right? And it stops things happening. That’s one of the challenges.
As funds become firms, the ways in which they evolve as businesses become critical to their future success — and shape how they fit in with a future acquirer.
Perhaps a GP stake investment enables Ares to have an inside view into the culture, values, and inner workings of a $20-30B private equity firm today that they might want to own tomorrow.
It will be interesting to see what moves Ares — and other asset managers — make on a chess board that is in a continued period of consolidation as firms look to lean into ways where scale provides them with an advantage to their business and to their LPs.
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.
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.
🔍 Blackstone (Alternative asset manager) - Blackstone Private Wealth - Product Specialist, Vice President (Real Assets). Click here to learn more.
🔍 KKR (Alternative asset manager) - Head of AI Product Management. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Apollo Global Management (Alternative asset manager) - Market Intelligence Director. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Ares (Alternative asset manager) - Vice President, Product Management & Client Services, Wealth Management Solutions, APAC. Click here to learn more.
🔍 EQT Group (Alternative asset manager) - Head of Social Media. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Blue Owl (Alternative asset manager) - Marketing Content Strategist, Principal. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Franklin Templeton (Asset manager) - Portfolio Manager, Private Markets. Click here to learn more.
🔍 iCapital (Private markets infrastructure investment platform) - Private Markets, Due Diligence Manager - Senior Vice President. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Goldman Sachs Alternatives (Alternative asset manager) - Asset & Wealth Management, Wealth Product Design, Designer, Vice President - New York. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Partners Group (Alternative asset manager) - Investment Leader, Private Equity, Services vertical. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Ultimus Fund Solutions (Fund administrator) - SVP, Business Development. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Krilogy (Wealth manager) - Senior Wealth Advisor. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Dynasty Financial Partners (Wealth management platform) - Senior Product Manager - Wealth Technology. Click here to learn more.
🔍 MSCI (Data services) - Product Marketing Specialist - Private Asset GPs. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Upper 90 (Alternative asset manager) - Investor Relations Analyst. Click here to learn more.
🤝 Interested in partnering with Alt Goes Mainstream? 🤝
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Fill out this form using the link below to explore partnership opportunities.
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🎥 Watch Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Cantilever Group and former Goldman Sachs and Broadhaven Capital Partners Partner Todd Owens discuss the middle market opportunity in GP stakes investing. Watch here.
🎙 Hear me discuss why and how alts are going mainstream on The Compound’s Animal Spirits podcast with Ritholtz Wealth’s Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Manulife’s Global Head of Private Markets Anne Valentine Andrews share how to approach building a private markets investment platform at an industry behemoth and the merits of infrastructure investing. Listen here.
🎥 Watch Lawrence Calcano, Chairman & CEO at iCapital, on the AGM podcast discuss driving efficiency across the entire value chain to transform private markets. Watch here.
🎙 Hear VC legend New Enterprise Associates’ Chairman Emeritus and Former Managing General Partner Peter Barris discuss how he transitioned from operator to VC and transformed NEA into a venture juggernaut in the process. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Blue Owl’s Global Private Wealth President & CEO Sean Connor share insights and lessons learned from working with the wealth channel. Listen here.
📝 Read about the evolution of GP stakes, why alternative asset management business models are better than SaaS, and our partnership with Todd Owens and David Ballard at Cantilever, a mid-market GP stakes firm anchored by BTG Pactual. Read here.
🎙 Hear how Chris Long, Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of Palmer Square Capital Management has built a $29B credit investment firm and a winning NWSL soccer franchise, the KC Current. Listen here.
🎙 Hear stories from building market-defining companies Blackstone, Airbnb, and private markets from Laurence Tosi, former CFO of Blackstone and Airbnb and Managing Partner & Founder of $7.6B investment firm WestCap. 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 Blackstone CTO John Stecher discuss how technology is transforming private markets. Listen here.
🎙 Hear investing legends John Burbank and Ken Wallace of Nimble Partners provide a masterclass on investing with both a macro and VC lens. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Robert Picard, Head of Alternatives at $117B AUM Hightower, discusses how they approach alternative investments. Listen here.
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Special thanks to Izzy Morin, Ryan McCormack, Nick Owens, Michael Rutter for their contributions to the AGM Index section of the newsletter.
Fantastic breakdown of the scale dynamics in PE. The point about larger funds post-GFC actually generating better pooled returns challenges the conventional 'bigger equals worse' narrative pretty hard. What really stood out was the connection between evergreen capabilities and DC plan readiness, that's a strategic angle most firms havent fully grasped yet. Watching how Ares uses GP stakes as relationship building before acquisition is clever and could reshape how these deals get sourced going foward.