AGM Alts Weekly | 8.17.25: Own the narrative

AGM Alts Weekly #116: Making private markets more public, every week.

👋 Hi, I’m Michael.

Welcome to AGM, the meeting place for private markets.

I’m excited to share 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.

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Join us to understand what’s going on in private markets so you and your firm can stay up to date on the latest trends at the intersection of private markets and wealth management and navigate this rapidly changing landscape.

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Good morning from Washington, DC.

Today, Charles Schwab is known as one of the world’s largest brokerage firms, standing tall in a world of financial services giants with over $10.96T in total client assets as it has over 37.7M active brokerage accounts.

But 62 years earlier, eight years before Charles Schwab started First Commander Corporation, which would later become the eponymous Charles Schwab, he and two other partners launched Investment Indicator, an investment advisory newsletter.

Schwab started his journey in the investment industry by launching a subscription newsletter business. As Schwab’s website details, the newsletter reached 3,000 paying subscribers, each forking over $84 a year for their subscription. Revenue reached heights of $252,000.

Certainly a far cry from the $10.96T in assets that Schwab manages today.

But, as Schwab would later write in his memoir, “If I’d learned anything from all those years of publishing newsletters, it was how to do direct marketing.”

Schwab was fortunate to uncover a crucial insight early on in his career: the importance of owning a direct relationship with the customer.

Speaking of going direct (it’s not lost on me that I’m writing on Substack, a platform that goes directly into the digital inbox of consumers … and it also could have been written on beehiiv), this week’s news was one of significance for private markets.

There were major moves that signal an important evolution in how investment firms and companies are looking to own the direct relationship with their community and customers.

Be your own media

Companies recognize that in today’s world they need to go direct.

They need to be their own media.

Be their own media is what iCapital did this week. They brought on one of financial media’s brightest stars, the former Wall Street lead correspondent from Bloomberg Television, Sonali Basak, as Chief Investment Strategist.

In a press release, iCapital noted that Basak will “shape the narrative around public and private investing with a fresh perspective and an editorial lens.”

Shaping the narrative

Shaping the narrative is quite an interesting choice of words.

At the end of last year, another one of independent financial media’s brightest stars, Kyla Scanlon, wrote a Substack post titled: “The Year Narrative Ate Reality.”

In her post, Kyla wrote:

2024 was the year narrative ate reality. The meme of any plan matters more than the plan itself. Everything is ambiguous, emotional, easily viral, iterative, and has endurance baked by an Internet reality. It’s all fascinating!

Kyla shares insightful commentary about what makes today’s markets different from the past:

The markets have fundamentally changed. What's different now really isn't the stories - it's the speed at which they spread and the algorithms that amplify them. The meme-ness shows up in traditional markets too. When markets move or dive on anticipated rate cuts or on Fed results, they aren’t purely reacting to Fed policy - they’re trying to manifest what they want into existence.

She then delivers the punchline:

The relationship between narrative and reality truly inverted in 2024. Events used to create narratives. Now, narratives create events. This inversion isn’t just a cultural shift—it’s also deeply tied to the tools we’ve built, the machines we’ve let shape our world. AI and automation aren’t just technological marvels; they are the engines of this narrative-driven reality.

To create the narrative means to capture the attention

To create the narrative means to capture the attention.

And what better (perhaps, at times, unfortunately so) way to capture attention than through memes?

Kyla noted the importance of memes in shaping narratives.

Memes serve to shape narratives, as I wrote in the AGM Alts Weekly 6.1.25: Brand Equity, where I discussed the meme-ification of marketing.

As I wrote in the piece:

Private markets is a serious endeavor. And, working with the wealth channel is a serious endeavor.

But sometimes serious endeavors require meme-ified marketing to make it memorable.

Making marketing memorable is a critical component to winning the messaging in today’s world, which is shaped by narratives.

EQT’s Global Head of Content, Henry Jones, understands this innately, as I wrote in the 6.1.25 AGM Alts Weekly.

In a recent interview with Job Sanderman of The Private Equity Marketeer, Henry shared a number of insightful perspectives on how EQT is approaching its community-building efforts.

Today we are trying to build a brand with a much broader appeal. We may never be like the consumer brands I’ve worked with in the past, but the days of B2B content strategies that solely focus on the sales marketing audience are dying or dead. Today even B2B firms need resonant “pull” brands and content. So for firms like us, social media isn’t a nice to have, it’s essential.

Henry also discussed the importance of why current marketing in financial services sometimes falls short:

It tells; it doesn’t talk. And when it does talk it speaks in a relatively uninclusive language – lots of jargon and industry speak. That might work for a narrow audience, but there’s a ceiling on how far it goes. It rarely sparks conversation and almost never earns attention outside of your base.

“Writing is power transfer technology”

In the narrative economy, storytelling wins.

Another big move this week in private markets affirms this point.

a16z, the $46B AUM venture capital firm, hired Alex Danco, a prolific blogger and former Shopify Product Director, to be the firm’s Editor at Large where he will be responsible for the firm’s written content.

An investment firm hiring an “Editor at Large?”

Why would an investment firm do this?

Marc Andreessen, the Co-Founder of a16z, when announcing the recent hire of Erik Torenberg as its newest General Partner and spearheading the firm’s media network, wrote “we sometimes call ourselves ‘a media company that monetizes via investing.’”

So, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a16z would hire a talented writer and communicator to shape the narrative of what the firm is investing in and why it should matter to you.

But why care so much about content?

Danco answers this exact question in the piece he penned this past week:

What hasn’t changed is how valuable great writing can be. Something special happens when you give someone words to express an idea they always knew, but couldn’t articulate: you give them power. And it didn’t cost you anything.

“Power transfer technology” is what the business of VC is. Why does a VC firm care about content? It can’t just be to advertise the firm; or promote their partners and their theses. Those are both consequences of success, but they can’t be the actual goal.

The primary objective of a VC firm’s content, particularly their written output, should be to give founders power. The goal is to give them writing that transforms them into someone with more legitimacy, which is what power really is about.

Traditional media sometimes helps you accomplish this. A well-written op ed, thoughtfully crafted, can serve this purpose. But I think bloggers are naturally better at this craft, because bloggers have to grow their franchises under the constraint of not having built-in distribution. If you’ve mastered the craft of writing online, you know something important about how to reach and influence people, and what exactly it is you offer to an audience that gives them power.

Danco’s piece articulates concepts about the importance of writing — and why and how it can be so powerful.

What’s the point of writing and blogging? And why does it matter?

It is to “equip the reader with a kind of legitimacy to speak on the topic,” as Danco writes. He later notes that the “relationship between VC and founder scales all the way up to real power-politics: the job of the VC firm is to be the “legitimacy bank” where founders (and other high-agency people) can go to take out legitimacy on credit, or make a legitimacy deposit.”

The same can be said for asset management more broadly. Companies gain legitimacy at times when they are associated with a certain firm — or brand — that invests in them.

Danco goes on to write about the magic of the benefits for those who do the writing and for those who do the work to read and retell the piece. They both earn legitimacy for the work they do.

One lesson hiding in plain sight here is that most of the audience of any successful post does not actually read it. They are told it by someone who did read it. There’s a primary audience who carefully reads the piece and does the cognitive work of “restructuring their consciousness” (see Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy) around good writing. And then there’s a secondary audience, who are re-told the content, either verbally (including group chats, podcasts, Youtube) or in other oral formats like Twitter.

The primary audience gets something out of this sequence of events: they get power. This is the great secret of writing in public: the writer and primary audience both put in effort (to pack and unpack the idea); and they jointly reap the rewards, which is the legitimacy earned when the idea gets subsequently retold verbally to the wider secondary audience.

This is why, paradoxically, to reach the widest audience, you write to the narrow audience. Your objective as a writer is to give your primary audience material they’ll want to re-tell. They do the work of translating it to wider audiences in specific contexts; you do the general articulation in rich detail.

Capturing culture through soft power

Owning the narrative means extending soft power.

Famed political scientist Joseph Nye coined the term "soft power" in the late 1980s. Nye noted in a 2005 publication that “soft power lies in the ability to attract and persuade. Whereas hard power—the ability to coerce—grows out of a country's military or economic might, soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies.”

Cultivating culture is an interesting concept for asset managers and wealth managers to think about.

In today’s world of the narrative economy, asset managers might need to think like consumer brands.

As I wrote in the AGM Alts Weekly 6.1.25: Brand Equity:

If an alternative asset manager was a consumer brand, who would they be?

Consumer brands can capture culture.

Capturing culture results in brand equity that can be hard to replicate.

To own the narrative, firms must capture culture. They need to be tastemakers. Being a tastemaker will lead to exerting soft power because, as Nye said, “soft power arises from the attractiveness of a [country’s - but here insert asset manager’s] culture, … ideals, and policies.”

The collision of culture x finance

Asset managers need to build their brand ... and change their brand to match the way that investors consume content and identify with brands today.

Asset managers need to become more like consumer brands — and build their brand in ways that are more consumer-oriented.

Asset managers must think about building their brand for the investor of tomorrow — who wants a brand that operates at the “collision of culture x finance.”

It might not seem obvious at the time, but doing things to create the brand and shape the narrative might pay off in the long run.

Being at the forefront with media and content might have a J-curve, but it can pay dividends over time.

As iCapital Chairman and CEO Lawrence Calcano said this week in a Barron’s exclusive about Basak joining iCapital:

“I remember having this conversation quite a few years ago with our CFO, and I said, ‘We’re going to spend a lot of money building a studio.’ And he’s like, ‘Why are we doing this?’” Calcano said, laughing. “I’m like, ‘Just trust me, this is something we’re going to do, and it’s worthwhile.”

There have been many examples of successful content strategies in asset management that have owned the narrative.

BlackRock’s educational campaign about ETFs in the early days of the ETF industry was an exercise in soft power.

They educated the market about ETFs, and then they owned the narrative. This helped their ETF business, iShares, gain market share, in large part because they educated the industry about ETFs.

By shaping the narrative, they owned the market.

Who will own the narrative in private markets — and how will they own the narrative?

It remains to be seen, but no matter what, narratives can only go so far. It’s still finance and it’s still people’s investments and retirement savings.

Fundraising is, in some respects, about storytelling.

But investment performance will always matter more than memes.

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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.

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Chart of the Week

Brought to you by

Net cash flows in venture capital head south

Cash flows in venture capital have been under pressure, and looking through the lens of fund vintages highlights just how the cash-flow paths have weakened relative to long-term averages.

While 2015-2017 fund vintages appear to be coming back down to earth after a period of unusually strong liquidity, the drop for 2018-2020 vintages seems more acute, suggesting not just a return to historical norms but a deeper pullback.

Disclaimer

(c) 2025 MSCI Inc. All rights reserved. Any use of this chart, data or any information contained in this section are also subject to the disclaimer located at: https://www.msci.com/legal/notice-and-disclaimer, which may be updated by MSCI Inc. from time to time.

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AGM News of the Week

Articles we are reading

📝 Private Equity’s Latest Financial Alchemy Worries Investors | Preeti Singh and Allison McNeely | Bloomberg

💡Bloomberg’s Preeti Singh and Allison McNeely dive into a burgeoning trend in private markets: continuation vehicles. They start with a story about Revelstoke Capital Partners, a healthcare focused private equity firm with $5.3B in AUM, which decided to structure a continuation vehicle into one of its portfolio companies, Fast Pace Health, in 2020. Revelstoke recently asked LPs to put Fast Pace Health into another continuation vehicle, but plans were ultimately scuppered. Revelstoke is far from the only private equity — or private credit — firm that is creating continuation vehicles (“CVs”). Data from Jefferies highlights the rise in continuation vehicle activity. According to the chart below, nearly 20% of all exits now take the form of CVs.

Global Head of Private Market Secondaries at Goldman Sachs Harold Hope noted that some companies benefit from remaining private and being held for longer. Hope also observed that multiple continuation vehicles on the same asset is not “the norm … I can’t think of us having gone into a CV deal where we thought the exit was going to be another CV deal.”

Another secondaries investor, Adam Johnston, Partner and member of StepStone Group’s Private Equity team, said that the number of repeat CVs is still relatively small. CVs are generally done when buyout firms believe “there’s still meat on the bone and they want to continue holding the companies … In other cases, returning or lead investors want cash and push the firm to raise money for a continuation vehicle.”

At times, continuation vehicles can make sense. Data from Evercore illustrates that single-asset CVs have outperformed buyouts in recent years. They’ve also tended to have lower management fees than traditional private equity vehicles.

Accel-KKR’s investment in isolved is one such example. The firm recently closed on a second continuation vehicle of $1.9B, in which Goldman’s secondaries fund is a lead investor. isolved, which A-KKR acquired in 2011, has generated a 19.2x gross MOIC. A-KKR pitched an additional continuation fund because they believe that the company has more room for growth.

Still, some LPs would prefer more traditional paths to liquidity for assets — and ones that have lower fees. “My preferred exit path in every case is a sale to a strategic buyer who can overpay because they’re going to get the benefit of various synergies,” said Amyn Hassanally, Global Head of Private Equity Secondaries at Pantheon. “We could get comfortable if the original CV beat the underwriting thesis.” One issue with CV-squared deals? The inherent conflict of interest between investors and private equity firms, Hassanally said. The process allows private equity firms to renegotiate their fees and interest in the assets as they move them from one continuation fund to another. The other question? How much room for additional growth in a second CV?

💸 AGM’s 2/20: The growing trend of CVs in private equity looks like it is here to stay. With companies staying private longer and more assets flowing into private markets, CVs appear to be yet another avenue for both private equity firms and companies to remain in private markets. CVs also provide an avenue for liquidity for LPs, as existing investors in either a fund or a CV can either choose to sell to new investors that come into a CV or roll their interests into the CV. Bain & Company’s 2025 Global Private Equity Report noted that CVs raised $102B in 2024, with the number of CVs growing 4x and total value increasing 3x over the last 5 years. Firms including KSL Capital Partners and Astorg were amongst the firms that raised multibillion-dollar CVs in 2024.

CVs are a part of the story of the growing secondary market in private equity. A chart from Bain illustrates that secondary AUM has become an increasingly larger portion of PE AUM.

A report from NEPC in 2024 also highlighted the trend of growing deal activity by CVs. A record high of $97.5B was committed to secondary funds during the one-year period ending September 30, 2024, an increase of over 30% year over year, according to PitchBook.

CVs are certainly a part of the reason for the growth of the secondaries market. A report from Evercore, which was covered in an article by Secondaries Investor, finds that single-asset CVs can outperform traditional buyout funds, particularly in the top quartile. Evercore’s report finds that performing single-asset CVs tend to have lower return dispersion compared to buyout funds, with median TVPI (total value to paid-in capital) for CVs coming in at 1.46x, with top quartile funds reaching 1.8x.

CVs can have benefits for both LPs and GPs, but, as NEPC’s Sarah Samuels notes in her report, it’s critical to ask the right questions. Samuels lists a number of key questions for LPs to consider when evaluating a CV:

What is the rationale for the CV and the credibility of the new valuation plan? Does the deal need more time to grow or more capital? How will the GP continue to add value?

How is the transfer price set? Is it through an independent valuation provider, auction or internal pricing mechanism?

GP commitment/ alignment: Is the GP committing to the CV? Who is the lead investor?

Return expectations: What is the GP’s expected multiple on invested capital (MOIC)—a key performance metric—and IRR for the CV?

Fee / carry arrangements: Are fees and carry reset or do they remain unchanged?

Valuation: Is there a discount to NAV?

CVs are likely here to stay, particularly as private equity continues to work through an environment with more muted exit activity. And it’s not just activity that’s occurring in private equity. The private credit secondaries industry just saw its largest deal ever completed, with TPG Twin Brook Capital Partners creating a $3B CV with Coller Capital. TPG Twin Brook’s CV consists of a portfolio of floating rate, senior secured loans from 2016 and 2018 funds with exposure to North American middle-market private equity-backed borrowers, according to the Bloomberg article. Earlier this year, Ares closed on a $1.2B CV with private credit firm Antares Capital.

CVs don’t necessarily carry a negative signal for LPs, provided they understand the specific deal dynamics, but it’s critical to uncover the motivations behind a GP’s decision to construct a CV for a specific asset or assets.

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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 - Content Marketing, Vice President - Tokyo. Click here to learn more.

🔍 KKR (Alternative asset manager) - Vice President, Structured & Asset Backed Credit. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Apollo Global Management (Alternative asset manager) - Managing Director, Head of Investment Grade Research. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Ares (Alternative asset manager) - Vice President, Product Management & Client Services, Wealth Management Solutions, APAC. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Blue Owl (Alternative asset manager) - Private Wealth, Tax Advantaged Strategy - Principal. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Franklin Templeton (Asset manager) - Head of Marketing - France, Benelux, and the Nordics. Click here to learn more.

🔍 iCapital (Private markets infrastructure investment platform) - RIA, Family Office Business Development - Vice President. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Goldman Sachs Alternatives (Alternative asset manager) - Asset & Wealth Management, Sustainability & Impact, Value Creation, Associate - New York. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Partners Group (Alternative asset manager) - Digital Channel Marketing Specialist - Private Wealth EMEA. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Ultimus Fund Solutions (Fund administrator) - SVP, Business Development. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Hightower Advisors (Wealth management platform) - Manager, Wealth Solutions Programs. Click here to learn more.

🔍 JPMorgan Chase (Asset manager) - Asset Management - Private Equity Associate - Program Associate. Click here to learn more.

🔍 SageSpring Wealth Partners (Wealth manager) - Team Financial Advisor. Click here to learn more.

🔍 Juniper Square (Fund software and services) - Director, Private Equity Sales. Click here to learn more.

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🤝 Interested in partnering with Alt Goes Mainstream? 🤝

Alt Goes Mainstream is a community of engaged experts and executives in private markets.

Fill out this form using the link below to explore partnership opportunities.

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The latest on Alt Goes Mainstream

Recent podcast or video episodes and blog posts on Alt Goes Mainstream:

📝 Read the latest AGM Op-Ed — “Retail and the City #2” with former Pantheon Partner Susan Long McAndrews on five takeaways from the Executive Order that could see private assets in 401(k) plans. Read here.

🎥 Watch Hg Senior Partner and Executive Chairman Nic Humphries discuss how Hg has grown into a $100B scaled specialist and how one of the industry’s leading private equity technology and services investors is “navigating investing at an inflection point in history.” Watch here.

🎥 Watch EQT Partner, Head of Private Wealth Americas Peter Aliprantis live from Miami on how EQT is bringing global local. Watch here.

📝 Read The AGM Op-Ed with Arcesium SVP, Business Development - Private Markets Jean Robert on why asset managers need to rethink reporting as a strategic advantage. Read here.

🎥 Watch SageSpring Private Wealth CEO Winston Justice share how he went from protecting star quarterbacks as an NFL tackle to protecting families’ wealth. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Blue Owl Co-President and Global Head of Real Assets Marc Zahr share the story of how he built Oak Street from $17M in AUM in 2009 to what is now Blue Owl’s $67.1B AUM Real Assets business in a live Alt Goes Mainstream podcast at Future Proof Citywide. Watch here.

📝 Read The AGM Op-Ed with former Pantheon Partner Susan Long McAndrews on why everything we need to know might be in Sacramento (where CalPERS is located). Read here.

🎥 Watch Hg’s Partner and Head of Hg Wealth Martina Sanow discuss how Hg has unlocked opportunities for the wealth channel to invest in Europe’s largest portfolio of software and services businesses. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Goldman Sachs’ Partner and Global Co-Head of the Petershill Group at Goldman Sachs Robert Hamilton Kelly discuss the evolution of the GP stakes industry and how Goldman has become a market leading GP stakes investor. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Blue Owl’s MD, Head of Alternative Credit Ivan Zinn unpack private credit and why ABF has become a prominent part of the private credit ecosystem. Watch here.

📝 Read The AGM Op-Ed with Blue Owl Head of Alternative Credit Ivan Zinn on why “asset-based finance today mirrors the evolution of corporate direct lending from over a decade ago.” Read here.

🎥 Watch Lincoln Financial’s EVP and CIO Jayson Bronchetti discuss the role of insurance companies in private markets as he discusses how he manages a portfolio of $300B in assets. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Krilogy’s Partner and CIO John McArthur discuss how an RIA can chart a growth path by building out its private markets capabilities. Watch here.

🎥 Watch New Mountain Capital’s Founder & Chief Executive Officer Steve Klinsky discuss how $55B AUM New Mountain has built a business that builds businesses. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Arcesium’s Private Markets Head Cesar Estrada discuss data silos and technology integrations in private markets. Watch here.

🎥 Watch GeoWealth President & COO Jack Hannah and iCapital SVP, Partnerships Michael Doniger discuss the ground-breaking BlackRock, iCapital, and GeoWealth unified managed account partnership live from iCapital Connect. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Goldman Sachs’ Managing Director, Global Head of Alternatives, Third Party Wealth Kyle Kniffen discuss how they are “standing on the shoulders of Goldman Sachs to be a complete partner” for the wealth channel. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Fortress Investment Group Managing Director & Co-Head of Private Wealth Solutions Adam Bobker discuss how Fortress has built a wealth solutions business from a whiteboard, leaning on the firm’s pioneering history of innovation. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Constellation Wealth Capital President & Managing Partner Karl Heckenberg on why there will be a $1T independent wealth management firm. Watch here.

🎙 Listen to Ted Seides, Founder of Capital Allocators, and I discuss the convergence of the institutional world and the wealth world as we dive into the intersection of private markets and private wealth to kick off a Capital Allocators mini-series on Private Wealth. Listen here.

🎥 Watch BlackRock Managing Director, Co-Head of US Wealth Business, Senior Sponsor for Retirement Business Jaime Magyera and iCapital Chairman & CEO Lawrence Calcano discuss the ground-breaking BlackRock, iCapital, and GeoWealth unified managed account partnership live from iCapital Connect. Watch here.

🎥 Watch EQT Partner & Head of Private Wealth Americas Peter Aliprantis discuss how the firm is bringing EQT’s success to the US wealth market. Watch here.

🎥 Watch KKR Partner & Co-CEO of KKR Private Equity Conglomerate LLC (K-PEC) Alisa Wood discuss how the firm has innovated in private markets, why KKR came up with the Conglomerate structure, and how evergreens can play a role in investors’ portfolios. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Cantilever Group’s Co-Founder and Managing Partner Todd Owens in a live podcast from BTG Pactual’s NYC office share why GP stakes can be the best of all worlds. Watch here.

📝 Read The AGM Op-Ed with Arcesium Private Markets Head Cesar Estrada on the rise of asset-based finance and why it’s the next growth engine for private credit. Read here.

🎥 Watch BlackRock’s Head of the Americas Client Business Joe DeVico, Head of Product for US Wealth & Head of Alts to Wealth Jon Diorio, and Partners Group's Co-Head of Private Wealth Rob Collins discuss their landmark private markets model portfolio partnership that could be the industry’s “iPhone Moment.” Watch here.

🎥 Watch the third episode of Going Public on Alt Goes Mainstream with Evercore ISI Senior MD and Senior Research Analyst Glenn Schorr as we discuss separating the forest from the trees and Glenn’s “Final Four” firms he would pick in honor of March Madness. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Brookfield Oaktree Wealth Solutions CEO John Sweeney discuss how to build a high-performing wealth solutions team and why the word “solutions” matters when working with the wealth channel. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Cerity Partners’ Partner & Chief Client Officer Tom Cohn and Partner Amita Schultes talk about how and why they have combined a leading OCIO with a $100B AUM wealth management practice. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Marc Lipschultz, Co-CEO of Blue Owl, talk about how they have aimed to skate where the puck is going as Blue Owl has grown its AUM to $265B in nine years. Watch here.

📝 Read The AGM Q&A with Blue Owl Co-CEO Marc Lipschultz, where he highlights some of the trends that have propelled alternative asset management into the mainstream: scale, a focus on private credit, and a focus on private wealth. Read here.

🎙 Listen to Stephanie Drescher, Partner & Chief Client & Product Development Officer of Apollo, discuss what is safe and what is risky as she dives into both the convergence between public and private and the nuances of asset allocation. Listen here.

🎥 Watch Eric Satz, Founder & CEO of Alto share thoughts on why retirement assets could be the next frontier for private markets. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Mike Tiedemann, CEO of $72B AUM AlTi Global share why being a global wealth manager can be a differentiator. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Joan Solotar, Global Head of Private Wealth Solutions at Blackstone share why it’s not even early innings, but that it’s “spring training” for private markets adoption by the wealth channel. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Jeff Carlin, Senior Managing Director, Head of Global Wealth Advisory Services at Nuveen live from Nuveen’s nPowered conference on why “it’s all about the end client.” Watch here.

🎥 Watch Venkat Subramaniam, Co-Founder of DealsPlus on building a single source of truth for private markets. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Yann Magnan, Co-Founder & CEO of 73 Strings discuss the opportunity for AI to automate private markets. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Lawrence Calcano, Chairman & CEO of iCapital on episode 14 of the latest Monthly Alts Pulse as we discuss whether or not private markets has moved from access as table stakes to customization and differentiation. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Hamilton Lane Managing Director, Co-Head US Private Wealth Solutions Stephanie Davis and iCapital Co-Founder & Managing Partner Nick Veronis discuss the evolution of evergreen funds on the third episode of the Investing with an Evergreen Lens Series. Watch here.

🎥 Watch KKR Managing Director, Head of Americas, Global Wealth Solutions (GWS) Doug Krupa and iCapital Co-Founder & Managing Partner Nick Veronis discuss the evolution of evergreen funds on the second episode of the Investing with an Evergreen Lens Series. Watch here.

🎥 Watch Vista Equity Partners Managing Director, Global Head of Private Wealth Solutions Dan Parant and iCapital Co-Founder & Managing Partner Nick Veronis discuss the evolution of evergreen funds on the first episode of the Investing with an Evergreen Lens Series. Watch here.

📝 Read about a year in the book of alts — a compilation of the 1,000+ pages written in weekly newsletters on Alt Goes Mainstream in 2024. Read here.

📝 Read about the launch of the AGM Studio, a collaboration between Alt Goes Mainstream and Broadhaven Ventures to incubate, invest in, and help scale companies and funds in private markets. Read here.

🎙 Hear Balderton Capital General Partner and former Goldman Sachs Partner Rana Yared discuss why Europe can build global companies out of the region. Listen here.

🎙 Hear Churchill Asset Management by Nuveen’s MD, Senior Investment Strategist & Co-Head of the Chicago Office Alona Gornick discuss the evolution of private credit, the power of permanent capital, and the importance of the product specialist. Listen here.

🎥 Watch Stepstone Private Wealth CEO Bob Long discuss StepStone Private Wealth’s edge and nuances with their evergreen structures in the first episode of “What’s Your Edge.” Watch here.

🎙 Hear $5B AUM Ritholtz Wealth Management’s Director of Institutional Asset Management Ben Carlson bring a wealth of common sense to asset allocation and private markets. Listen here.

🎙 Hear Blue Owl, Inc. Board Member and Blue Owl GP Strategic Capital Senior Managing Director Sean Ward on how $57.8B AUM Blue Owl GP Strategic Capital has pioneered GP staking and transformed GP stakes into an industry. Listen here.

🎥 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 Intapp’s President, Industries, and Co-Founder of DealCloud by Intapp Ben Harrison discuss how data and automation are transforming private markets. Listen here.

🎙 Hear Bernstein Private Wealth Management’s CIO Alex Chaloff discuss how a $125B wealth manager navigates private markets. Listen 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.

🎙 Hear Ritholtz Wealth Management’s Managing Partner Michael Batnick share views on how wealth managers are navigating private markets. 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.

📝 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.

🎙 Hear CAIA CEO Bill Kelly discuss the importance of education in private markets and being a fiduciary. Listen here.

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My dog Nugget probably thinking about the AUM of alternative asset managers

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Special thanks to Ryan McCormack, Nick Owens, and Michael Rutter for their contributions to the AGM Index section of the newsletter.

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