AGM Alts Weekly | 7.14.24: A deep dive into tactics and strategies for distribution
AGM Alts Weekly #60: Making private markets more public, every week.
👋 Hi, I’m Michael.
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Good morning from Washington, DC.
A few weeks ago, Apollo published its Mid-Year Outlook for Private Equity, which highlighted just how difficult fundraising has been for many private equity fund managers.
The conclusion? The fundraising game on the field has changed markedly, particularly since 2021.
In the 6.30.24 AGM Weekly, I shared some thoughts on a playbook that alternative asset managers could use to win the new game on the field.
Last week, I was planning to follow up the 6.30.24 post with views from experts who are playing the game on the field, but BlackRock announced their acquisition of Preqin for $3B so I had to put my original plans on hold to share views on the impacts of that landmark acquisition on private markets.
This week, I am following up on my 6.30.24 fundraising playbook post with a deeper dive into tactics and strategies that can lead to success in the current fundraising environment. There are experts who do this day in and day out, constantly evaluating the fundraising landscape, analyzing different LP channels, and drawing on their years of experience working with numerous LP personas.
I asked them for their advice for alternative asset managers who are trying to navigate these much choppier fundraising waters.
Here’s what they said.
Susan Long McAndrews, Partner, Pantheon
Susan is a Partner at Pantheon, which has $99.9B in combined AUM / AUA, including $65.3B discretionary AUM and $34.6B in assets not subject to discretionary management or advice.
Susan leads Pantheon’s global business development team and overall capital formation and investor relations strategy. She is a member of Pantheon’s Executive Committee, International Investment Committee, and is the CEO of Pantheon Securities, LLC, a FINRA-registered broker-dealer. She is also the co-portfolio manager of the AMG Pantheon Fund, which is a $3B 40 Act-registered private equity fund designed for accredited investors. She has been at Pantheon for almost 23 years and also worked in the US Department of Defense in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Asian & Pacific Security Affairs.
Susan shared her thoughts below on the importance of having a clear and defined strategy of who you are and what you want to be as an alternative asset manager before embarking on the mission of working with different LP channels.
Launch the planes before you deploy the troops
Private markets fundraising was traditionally a ground war of hiring more and more talent searching for capital, somewhat indiscriminately in terms of investor type or their requirements. The industry’s initial source of capital was the US pension market which didn’t require a lot of strategy — it was a bottom-up game — won with a simple playbook of strong performance and a reasonably effective sales person or placement agent. That highly tactical mindset has largely fueled private markets distribution ever since — re-build the ground war across new geographies and retain your talent.
However, today the air war in terms of surveillance and intelligence is paramount. The concept of investor channel didn’t exist in private markets for several decades — investors wanted the same thing (alpha) and were willing and able to commit to the exact same limited partnership with a $10mn minimum. Today, more and different investors are looking for more and different options. Insurance companies may prefer rated or unrated feeders or evergreen SMAs. RIAs may prefer registered funds offering liquidity and a $50,000 minimum. Wirehouses no longer want feeders and want direct access. If you don’t have a distribution strategy from the air, you will spend a lot of money in a lot of places or, worse, just the wrong places.
How to build successful distribution starts with strategy. Step back and be honest about where you have a competitive advantage across geography and channel due to brand, investment performance or relationship hustle. Where are you fighting an uphill battle because of a bad fund, a late entry or the wrong hire — it happens! Spend your distribution resources in the right places for your firm — not what the herd is doing. Pick your bets and then hire the best troops you can find.
Ashton Rosin, Operating Partner, Head of Capital Formation, Lowercarbon Capital
Ashton is the Head of Capital Formation at Lowercarbon Capital, a $2B+ AUM venture capital firm focused on climate solutions.
At Lowercarbon, Ashton leads the firm’s partnerships with existing and future investors. She develops strategy to envision and build new products, as well as cultivating a strategic ecosystem of partners to amplify the impact of the portfolio.
She was previously Head of Investor Relations for Obvious Ventures, a $1B+ AUM early-stage VC firm, and Head of Investor Relations for Clocktower Group, an alternative asset management and advisory firm that has both hedge fund and venture capital fund products.
Ashton discussed the importance of funds creating and communicating an edge to LPs and how smaller funds can tactically navigate a tougher fundraising environment. One tactic? Not trying to “be everything to everyone,” as she wrote.
“You don’t need to be everything to everyone”
The golden age of fundraising is clearly in the rear view mirrors for most venture capital GPs. Though it's challenging and likely to continue to be an arduous fundraising environment, the managers that set themselves up for success today are more likely to prevail. Those managers deeply understand that scarcity sells, can clearly communicate their edge in driving alpha (and liquidity) to LP portfolios, are actively diversifying their LP base, and have invested in investor relations resources that translate company success and milestones beyond performance metrics in the absence of DPI. The venture GP universe will continue to consolidate as LPs build portfolios that further look like a barbell, core positions with blue chip and name brand VCs balanced against sector specialists and emerging managers. To win that satellite position, especially in new sectors where track records and returns are still forming, you have to present an experienced team who are relentless in generating repeatable and best in class returns. In parallel, we see LPs utilizing more pragmatic visions of what returns expectations should be for early stage venture, a sobering reality that was blurred over the past decade.
In addition, smaller firms aren’t built for the hand to hand interactions that are required in the wealth channel, which is why you see the largest firms winning this battle right now. However, you don’t need to be everything to everyone. You have to find your differentiating factor and continuously message that narrative. This way when the large firms come out with a competing product, your prospects and LPs will already know that you’re a specialist in that space and ideally stay invested with you. Moreover, to engage a platform in the wealth channel, you often have to be willing to share in the economics and that’s harder for smaller managers though the prospect of a growing long term partnership is attractive.
We see the adoption of evergreen vehicles that were originally built for the high net worth channel increasingly being used by institutions so they can rebalance or redeem instead of being locked up in a closed end fund, while becoming 100% invested the day of subscription. But DPI is paramount in the wealth channel. High net worth and retail investors want their money back in what they consider to be a reasonable period of time, which may or may not match institutional investor expectations and what is fundamental to the VC asset class.
Simon Kinzett, Managing Director, WestCap
Simon is a Managing Director and member of the Investor Relations team at WestCap, an $8B growth equity firm that WestCap Founder and Managing Partner and former CFO of Blackstone and Airbnb Laurence Tosi characterizes as an “operating equity firm.”
Simon has deep experience in private markets fundraising. He previously ran Investor Relations for the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand as a Senior Director at Permira, a €77B AUM alternative asset manager. He was also an SVP at Campbell Lutyens as an LP relationship manager focused on Australasia and the Middle East.
Simon highlighted the importance of building relationships with new LPs given the more difficult fundraising environment, citing the importance of both finding a way to fill the fundraising gap between re-ups from existing investors and adding additional capital from new LPs. He also mentioned the importance of taking a partnership approach to fundraising by using tools like co-investment and sectorial insights to deepen relationships with LPs.
Taking a partnership approach
The more challenging fundraising environment is here to stay and this is requiring GP’s to build relationships with a broader set of LP’s stretching across geography and type with the pre-marketing phase all the more important. This also requires establishing deeper relationships within organisations and finding other ways to expand the engagement with investors especially outside of the fundraising cycle. This can be achieved through more of a partnership approach using things like co-investment, research / sectorial insights or training / secondments.
In terms of the fundraising itself, setting a realistic fundraising target and ensuring strong support from your existing investor base to drive early momentum and create a sense of scarcity. Understanding the new money requirement as historic re-up assumptions are typically not holding true in the current environment to ensure you have sufficient pipeline of target investors to fill the fundraising gap.
Business Development, $XXB alternative asset manager
This experienced business development professional at a multi-billion dollar alternative asset manager surfaced the importance of building a relationship, knowing full well that this type of sale is a consultative sale where it’s imperative to understand what the investor is looking to achieve with their allocation decisions.
Building a long-term relationship
In order to engage with the wealth channel, you have to understand how an investor thinks. You have to be patient and understand, that for each investor, it’s a big decision to invest in a manager. It’s a partnership that spans decades, so investing the time and effort in building a relationship can lay the groundwork for a fruitful long-term relationship, which can become even more important if you want to expand your firm into different investment strategies.
Key themes
Some key themes emerge from the thoughts and comments above. Everyone touched on the importance of taking a strategic and patient approach that puts building and deepening a long-term partnership at the center of the relationship with the LP.
“You don’t need to be everything to everyone”
Ashton’s comment about not trying to “be everything to everyone” is critical in many respects. It highlights the importance of understanding, internalizing, and marketing a distinct edge and competitive advantage are essential to building a brand and reputation amongst LPs.
Edge is the most important question an LP can ask, yet, at times, the hardest for an LP to discern the difference, as I wrote on 6.30.24. Fund managers must figure out their unique edge is and double down on building that brand both through demonstrable success and brand-building exercises in marketing and investor relations.
It’s worth noting that some firms have determined that “scale is their niche.” Former Blackstone CFO and WestCap Founder and Managing Partner Laurence Tosi highlighted this point in his recent AGM podcast. Blackstone would be one such example of this point. Scale itself has helped create a brand, which is particularly important in the wealth channel. I do believe that one-stop-shop alts managers will become a defining feature of private markets and will have a major advantage in fundraising from the wealth channel. But only a select few firms will be able to execute on this strategy — because of both bandwidth and size of distribution teams and the scale of the investment platform itself.
The importance of productizing by channel
Susan’s observation that “more and different investors are looking for more and different options” highlights the increasing channelization of alternatives distribution. As more investors enter private markets, it’s imperative for alternative asset managers to understand their customers and their unique needs.
Different investors will require specific structures and features based on their individual goals for allocating to private markets. That puts the onus on alternative asset managers to understand the customer they are trying to serve and how to best deliver products to different types of investors. As Susan said, “Insurance companies may prefer rated or unrated feeders or evergreen SMAs. RIAs may prefer registered funds offering liquidity and a $50,000 minimum. Wirehouses no longer want feeders and want direct access.”
It also means that managers must appropriately resource their distribution teams to serve different investor channels. To resource appropriately means first determining what LP types are a fit for the investment product. Only then can a manager determine how to best structure its go-to-market and product-market-fit with LPs, which is a departure from the past.
A focus on channel strategy is critical as new LPs become essential to AUM growth for both funds and the industry at large. The wealth channel — and insurers — are the new institutional LPs. They are the new institutional LPs in the sense that the untapped AUM that can flow into alts rivals that of traditional institutional allocators. But they are far from traditional institutional LPs in terms of how products need to be structured to serve them well and how the sales cycle works with them. Understanding these nuances and differences is key to success in the new game on the field.
Take a partnership approach
Simon’s point about taking a partnership approach to building long-term relationships with LPs echoes the sentiment of the Business Development professional, who commented that GPs should play the long game.
Simon shares helpful tactical ideas for how GPs can add value to the LP relationship. He cites co-investment opportunities and research or sectorial insights as possible value-adds to LPs. These features could be particularly valuable to LPs that are in the earlier stages of their journey in private markets. Co-investments can also serve as a way to blend down fees for the LP and gain more exposure to certain investments, making it an attractive way to deepen a partnership with a manager.
The partnership mindset expands to a broader point: that new LPs, particularly the wealth channel, should be treated no differently than traditional LPs. Yes, different LPs may require different structures from an operational or compliance perspective, as Susan notes, but as iCapital Chairman & CEO Lawrence Calcano said in a recent AGM podcast, GPs that have had success in the wealth channel have made “all of their best products … available to all of their LPs.”
Michael Sidgmore: You can obviously help across the value chain with that. What have you seen the GPs who've had success selling into the wealth channel - What have they done to effectively educate the wealth channel on this is where it fits into a portfolio, how it fits in and why it should be there.
Lawrence Calcano: Initially, it was about manpower because these tools did not exist. And absent maybe a couple of tools, they still don't really exist en masse. The early GPs who were successful were in the channel consistently with all their best products. They made a commitment to educating advisors, sort of hand-to-hand, and they didn't cherry-pick their products. One of the key things I remember over this journey: early on people were unwilling to commit all their products. They were afraid of what the implications would be to their institutional investors, etc. But the best managers who achieved success in the space aren't making the distinction between which products go to institutional LPs and which products go into this high net worth channel. All of their best products are available to all of their LPs. And that's really important. And the next sort of leg of that is now we're going to build products for the unique needs of this channel, again, based on the best products we have as an asset manager.
Simon points out another crucial strategy: finding ways to engage LPs outside of the fundraising cycle. My view on the best way to keep top of mind with LPs? Content and education, but that takes time, effort, and resources.
So, what are some of the big questions?
Is the distribution talent there for alternative asset managers to build out full-scale distribution teams?
The largest and best-resourced alternative asset managers will have the scale and ability to pay top dollar to hire elite distribution professionals and staff up their distribution teams for a ground game. But this strategy will only be possible for a select number of alternative asset managers.
What about the mid-sized ($10-50B AUM) firms that have growth ambitions? Will they be able to compete on price for top talent? Will they be able to build out large enough teams to effectively cover the breadth and depth of both institutional and wealth channels? Is there enough distribution talent in the industry right now to satisfy the requirements of firms looking to grow their teams? Perhaps these firms will have to make strategic decisions, as Susan says, about where and how to spend their time, effort, and resources on distribution.
Where do funds that can’t get a spot on the wirehouse menu go?
The first obvious strategic move for a manager who has either been too late to the party or not staffed up enough to get on a wirehouse menu is to go to the emerging wealth platforms, the RIA platforms, or large, private equity-backed wealth managers. The biggest GPs have historically focused their efforts on working with the wirehouses. The wires are (literally) plugged in, which makes wirehouses the most seamless channel within wealth to distribute private markets products. Wirehouse advisors are still largely underpenetrated, so there’s still plenty of TAM expansion within the bank channel alone. But only a select set of managers are well-equipped to handle the staffing, education, and operational requirements of working with wirehouses.
Naturally, newer GP entrants to the wealth channel are turning a focus to independent or hybrid broker-dealer platforms. Competition is intensifying within this area of the wealth channel. But even though it might be a more greenfield opportunity, it’s no less challenging and operationally burdensome to navigate than the wirehouse channel. Distribution teams must be properly staffed up to handle the disaggregated and fragmented ecosystem within the independent and hybrid wealth platforms. Even if there’s a central diligence function, advisors will often make their own determinations about allocation decisions, rendering it even more difficult for GPs to receive allocations. Therefore, the largest alternative asset managers will be best equipped to cover these platforms because it might be even more of a ground game than the wirehouses.
One solution for managers who lack the ability to staff up distribution teams could be the marketplaces that investment platforms like iCapital and CAIS have built out. Private markets products are still often sold rather than bought, so the lighter touch of a marketplace listing may not open up the distribution flows in the same way that a ground game of boots-on-ground distribution professionals will, but it can be a tactic for creating leveraged and enhanced distribution for managers that lack the resources of the largest firms.
Will we see more alternative asset managers turn to strategic investors, GP stakes funds, large asset managers to help with their distribution (in exchange for ownership)?
One response to the distribution challenge is to turn to strategic investors in the form of either GP stakes funds and large asset managers to supercharge their distribution.
The industry saw one answer to this question recently, with €44B AUM Tikehau partnering with Nikko Asset Management a few weeks ago. This partnership provides both an example of how an alternative asset manager can enhance their distribution capabilities and a roadmap for other similarly-sized peers to Tikehau to expand distribution reach without staffing up internally.
Nikko, a $220B AUM Japanese asset manager, made a strategic investment into Tikehau in exchange for an equity stake in the growing alternative asset manager. In exchange for the equity stake, Tikehau will have access to Nikko’s distribution capabilities. Nikko will have exclusive distribution rights in Japan and non-exclusive distribution rights in other Asian markets where investors are looking to allocate to private markets.
I expect that we’ll see this trend continue, particularly in relatively untapped markets where allocations to private markets should increase, such as Japan and Asia.
Another way for GPs to gain access to leveraged distribution capabilities is to partner with GP stakes firms that can help unlock new relationships or different distribution channels. Blue Owl has a 50+ person platform team specifically designed to help GPs grow their business, with a number of those professionals focused on helping Blue Owl partner firms raise capital or strategic M&A of other alternative asset management firms that could expand the LP footprint. GP stakes firms are fully aligned in growing a GP’s AUM, so this could be a viable path for firms that have growth ambitions.
What happens to managers stuck in the middle in alternative asset management?
On a recent AGM podcast, Chairman of the HgTrust Board and former Chairman EMEA of Hamilton Lane Jim Strang posited that the largest multi-strategy platforms and smaller specialist firms are best positioned to succeed in the new normal of private markets. But whither the middle?
Jim said that managers in the middle will face real challenges fundraising. In the eyes of many LPs, both large platforms and specialist managers are differentiated firms. So, what should managers in the middle do?
Managers in the middle have a strategic decision to make: continue on the growth path to become a large multi-strategy platform. This strategy can be a viable path for certain firms, but it will take both work and ambition.
Firms that choose this path will need to have the right organizational structure and vision to go this route. This might include consolidating smaller, specialist managers to add additional strategies to the platform. That can be a viable path, so long as the acquiring firm is well-equipped to merge cultures. Easier said than done.
The other option is to focus and specialize. Former Managing General Partner and Chairman Emeritus at NEA, Peter Barris, said on a recent AGM podcast that specialization and domain expertise are prerequisites in today’s venture world. Peter’s point can probably be extended to other areas of private markets. If there’s a belief that the industry’s AUM will grow due to the possible inflows that could come into private markets over the coming years then perhaps focus could be a winning strategy. There could very well be enough LPs that want specialist managers — and enough ways to find those LPs — that could make this a fruitful strategy for certain managers.
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
📝 What's next for Envestnet after its $4.5bn sale to Bain and Reverence? | Ian Wenik, Citywire
💡Another week, another major deal for the future of private markets. On the heels of BlackRock’s $3B acquisition of private markets market data and intelligence provider Preqin, Envestnet was taken private for $4.5B by Bain Capital and Reverence. Envestnet, a leading provider of integrated technology, intelligent data, and wealth solutions, manages over $6 trillion in assets, oversees close to 20M accounts, and enables more than 109,000 financial advisors to meet client financial goals through a unified digital experience, according to a company press release about the transaction. Included in the Envestnet offering are a TAMP (turnkey asset management platform) and portfolio management solutions. What’s next for Envestnet now that the business is private? Some industry insiders believe that the company could sell off certain business units. F2 Strategy’s Doug Fritz said it would make sense to split the business up. “I personally view this as Bain’s going to do what Envestnet should have done on its own, which is sell off Yodlee and Tamarac and focus on the Tamp business and let those other businesses be profitable, standalone units,” Fritz said. ‘They never were materially integrated, anyway. A separation of parts is probably a lot easier to do than making the whole more valuable.”
💸 AGM’s 2/20: Envestnet’s take private might not entirely be about private markets today, but the continued convergence of public and private markets (as evidenced by last week’s BlackRock acquisition of Preqin) could make the Envestnet news more relevant to private markets than it might seem at first blush. It doesn’t take too much reading of the tea leaves to see the strategic investors in the take private — BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, State Street, and Franklin Templeton — and think that there will be increasing overlap between public and private markets. Each of these firms have been making major pushes into private markets from both asset management and technology perspectives, which was punctuated by BlackRock’s $3B acquisition of Preqin.
How and where is there an overlapping relationship between public and private markets? Private markets firms and infrastructure providers understand the importance of “meeting investors where they are.” iCapital Chairman & CEO Lawrence Calcano stressed this point in this week’s AGM podcast. Integrating private markets into wealth client portfolios will take education; it will take equal parts technology that embeds the ability for advisors to diligence, analyze, and invest into private markets funds.
iCapital’s Calcano said as much in his AGM podcast:
Michael Sidgmore: The other thing that you mentioned earlier, which I think is relevant to this conversation as well is: helping advisors understand where alts fits into a portfolio and how it generates excess return relative to the unit of risk that is balancing out that return relative to what else you could invest in. That then gets to things like providing model portfolios, providing solutions and technology to help them figure that out. You launched iMAP, you launched Architect. How does that all play into this? Because to your point, helping advisors understand this and how it fits in ends up being so important.
Lawrence Calcano: It's key. We're trying to meet advisors where they are and give them the tools to be able to serve their clients really effectively. Because at the end of the day, for everybody in the channel, success has to start with the underlying investor having a great outcome. That is critical. If the underlying investors have great outcomes everybody in the chain will find the way to benefit. But the model portfolios, to the point earlier of how do you give an advisor tools that they are used to working with that is consistent with how they run the rest of their business, is essential. People use models across their 60/40 portfolio. We wanted to provide them a model in alts. And we wanted to effectively get this conversation started by introducing a way in which people could provide sort of full access or, at least, start to fill the alternative part of a portfolio. But, as important as the model itself, is the technology that supports that model and the workflows that we've built to allow advisors to, basically in one workflow, build that model and subscribe to that model. We fully expect that our models will represent a small piece of the ultimate models that get consumed, but we wanted to give the industry common infrastructure that everybody could use. We wanted to give the industry an infrastructure that, if you're a GP, you could build your own model with maybe your own products, but you could also build your own model using sophisticated and straightforward workflows to deliver that to clients. Many wealth advisors will want to build their own models for their clients. Again, this technology gives them the ability to build their own models and express their own investment point of view.
Integrating pre-investment, execution, and post-investment data and portfolio management tools all in a single place is critical to increasing advisor adoption of private markets products. Solutions that provide the connective tissue that serves to bring together data and information will also be part of the equation here. All of this is coming in private markets. Perhaps then we’ll see private markets funds go from sold to bought — and the “buy button” will be part of the continued evolution in private markets distribution.
The other interesting aspect of the Envestnet news is that continued development of Envestnet and other private markets focused technology solutions and platforms (like BlackRock’s Aladdin, eFront, and Preqin) is the next wave of technology innovation for private markets. The wires have been plugged in for wirehouses to effectively and efficiently distribute private markets products to advisors and clients. The independent wealth space is behind the wirehouses in this regard, but perhaps the Envestnet and Preqin news is foreshadowing of the wires getting plugged in (in a different way) in the independent wealth channel.
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) - Private Wealth Solutions - Educational Content Strategist, Vice President. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Apollo (Alternative asset manager) - Distribution & Wealth Services Associate. Click here to learn more.
🔍 iCapital (Private markets infrastructure investment platform) - RIA Marketing Manager - VP / SVP. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Blue Owl (Alternative asset manager) - VP / Principal, Private Wealth Market Leader. Click here to learn more.
🔍 73 Strings (Private markets data and valuation software) - Customer Success Manager. Click hear to learn more.
🔍 Hightower Advisors (Wealth management) - Executive Director, Corporate Communications. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Goldman Sachs (Asset management) - Alternative Investing & Portfolio Management - Chief Financial Officer, Infrastructure. Click here to learn more.
The latest on Alt Goes Mainstream
Recent podcast or video episodes and blog posts on Alt Goes Mainstream:
🎥 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 New Edge’s CEO, Managing Partner, and Co-Founder Rob Sechan and CIO Cameron Dawson discuss growing a cutting edge $44B platform to serve the wealth channel and help them navigate private markets. Listen here.
🎥 Watch live interviews with European alts leaders on 2024 European private market trends with Spencer Lake, Partner, 13books Capital, Toby Bailey, VP of Sales EMEA, Canoe, Rezso Szabo, General Partner, Illuminate Financial, Dan Kramer, Strategic Advisor, ex-CEO, Jaid AI, Tom Davies, Managing Director and President, Forge Europe, Levent Altunel, Co-Founder, bunch, Jay Wilson, Partner, AlbionVC. Watch here.
🎙 Hear Ritholtz Wealth Management’s Managing Partner Michael Batnick share views on how wealth managers are navigating private markets. Listen here.
🎙 Hear HgT’s Chairman of the Board Jim Strang provide us with a masterclass in private markets. Listen here.
🎥 Watch Lawrence Calcano, Chairman & CEO at iCapital, and I welcome special guest Robert Picard, Managing Director, Head of Alternative Investments at Hightower Advisors, as we take the pulse of private markets on the 10th episode of our monthly show, the Monthly Alts Pulse. We discuss the operational challenges and solutions in private markets. Watch 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 3i Members Co-Founder Mark Gerson share how to build engaged investing communities. Listen here.
🎙 Hear Yieldstreet Founder & CEO Michael Weisz discuss how to deliver private markets investment opportunities directly to consumers. Listen here.
🎥 Watch internet pioneer Steve Case, Chairman & CEO of Revolution and Co-Founder of America Online, share lessons learned from building the first internet company to go public and an investment firm built for the Third Wave of the internet. Watch & listen here.
🎙 Hear Carlyle Operating Partner & Net Health CEO Ron Books discuss lessons learned from growing ECi Software Solutions to $500M revenue and $200M EBITDA and working with private equity. 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.
🎙 Hear Blackstone CTO John Stecher discuss how technology is transforming private markets. Listen 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.
🎥 Watch me talk with David Weisburd of 10X Capital Podcast about why the wealth channel is becoming a centerpiece of the LP universe, drawing on my experience helping to build the wealth channel at iCapital as an early, pre-product employee and our investments at Broadhaven Ventures in private markets technology. Watch here.
🎙 Hear Chris Ailman, the CIO of $307B CalSTRS, discuss how he manages a portfolio with ~40% exposure to private markets. 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.
📝 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 Robert Picard, Head of Alternatives at $117B AUM Hightower, discusses how they approach alternative investments. Listen here.
Thank you for reading. If you like the Alts Weekly, please share it with your friends, colleagues, and anyone interested in private markets.
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If you have any suggestions, would like me to feature an article, research, or would like to recommend a guest or topic for the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, reach out! I’d love to include it in my next post or on a future podcast.
Special thanks to Michael Rutter and Nick Owens for their contributions to the newsletter.
Michael — Susan makes an interesting observation around the growing theme of “channelization of alternatives distribution”.