AGM Alts Weekly | 9.14.25: "Memes, media, momentum" - conversations from Future Proof
AGM Alts Weekly #120: Making private markets more public, every week.
👋 Hi, I’m Michael.
Welcome to AGM, the meeting place for private markets, where I’ve been writing and podcasting about the convergence of private markets and private wealth since December 2020.
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.
Some testimonials about the AGM Sunday Alts Weekly newsletter include:
"Alt Goes Mainstream is category of one." Global Head of Marketing & Communications, $X00B AUM alternative asset manager.
“When it comes to the intersection of alternative investments and wealth management, Michael just gets it.” CIO, $18B AUM RIA.
“This is our primary resource for learning and reading about alts.” Head of Marketing, $250B AUM alternative asset manager.
“If you want timely and informative insights on everything private markets, Michael Sidgmore and Alt Goes Mainstream weekly update and podcast are fantastic resources.” CIO, $47B AUM RIA.
“The only email I never delete when clearing my inbox.” Senior distribution professional, $330B+ AUM asset manager.
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.
Presented by
As wealth investors increasingly seek portfolio diversification and access to private markets, Permira offers a global investment platform focused on delivering transformational growth at scale and consistent investment returns, with strong investor alignment.
Permira’s 40 years of private equity experience and deep expertise across four core sectors (technology, healthcare, consumer and services) helps management teams drive long-term value creation. Permira’s specialist Credit business offers solutions across the risk return spectrum, from direct lending through to opportunistic credit and CLOs.
Find your investment partner at Permira Wealth.
Good morning from Washington, DC.
I’ve just returned from Future Proof, which has once again unequivocally delivered on yet another year of organizing one of the wealth management industry’s top conferences. They’ve captured the magic of balancing serious and casual, combining institutional and interesting, by building an event that is at the intersection of finance x fun, as I wrote in September 2024 (and here for a recap of Future Proof’s 2024 conference).
They did it again in 2025. And it keeps getting bigger and bigger — and better and better.
The conference is focused on the financial advisor and wealth management executive who are looking to understand how they can continue to grow their businesses in a growth industry.
A February 2025 article by McKinsey estimates that revenues generated from fee-based advisory relationships have grown from $150B in 2015 to $260B in 2024 (6.4% CAGR). McKinsey expects the number of advised relationships to continue to grow, estimating they could reach 67-71M by 2034, a 28-34% increase from the 53M advised relationships in 2024.
As the wealth management industry experiences continued growth, so too do the pressures on financial advisors to serve a growing and evolving set of clients.
It’s a topic that was unpacked on the panel that I moderated at Future Proof on Tuesday with StepStone Private Wealth’s Bob Long, iCapital’s Sonali Basak, and State Street Global Advisors’ Mark Alberici.
You can listen to the entire panel discussion live from Future Proof below (audio courtesy of Future Proof).
Product innovation in private markets
While it’s still early in its overall adoption by the wealth channel, private markets offerings are becoming more commonplace in the asset allocation toolkit for RIAs working with HNW and UHNW clients.
As I wrote in the 8.31.25 AGM Alts Weekly, just 1.3% of the industry’s advisors manage 66.1% of the industry’s assets. It should come as no surprise that the wealth management firms that manage the lion’s share of the industry’s assets are the most active users of private markets.
That could change as product innovation takes shape in private markets.
A major topic discussed on our panel? How product structure is driving accessibility and allocation to private markets by advisors and their wealth clients.
StepStone Private Wealth CEO Bob Long unpacked how the modern evergreen fund is “essentially a mutual fund for private assets.”
iCapital Chief Investment Strategist Sonali Basak highlighted the importance of taking a discerning eye to liquidity when it comes to evaluating evergreen structures, noting that she “heard a CEO in the industry joke that sometimes semi-liquid means not always liquid.”
State Street Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Product Innovation & Strategic Partnerships Mark Alberici noted the importance of partnerships in a space that is increasingly being defined by the convergence of public and private. Turning his gaze towards the ocean as he talked, Mark shared a story about surfing: “One of the things I was taught when I was learning to surf is if you want the right outcome, you have to pick the right wave.” He then noted that when “we think about partnering with privates, since we don't do it ourselves, it's about picking the right manager” with whom to partner.
“Memes, media, momentum”
Another topic that was discussed? Why advisors should consider private markets.
All the panelists addressed the why and the how of private markets.
A number of secular trends were discussed. Chief amongst them were the declining number of public companies and the concentration of companies staying private and creating equity value in private markets.
As data from iCapital illustrates below, there has been a secular decline in the number of listed public companies in the US over the past 30 years. The chart highlights just how steep this tapering has been: the number of public company listings today is roughly half of what it was in 1996.
As a result, outside of the Mag 7, value creation is increasingly happening in private markets rather than public markets.
As EQT’s Peter Aliprantis wrote in a recent Op-Ed on Alt Goes Mainstream, there are structural reasons why investors are choosing private markets.
On our panel at Future Proof, Bob artfully tied together pieces of the puzzle from what was said both at Future Proof and in a number of recent conversations.
I asked Bob why investors might consider private markets. He said:
Bob: So I think there are two main reasons that advisors have to consider the private markets today. The first is growth. Where are you going to find growth in the public markets? Half the Russell 2000, not even profitable. They're basically the companies that private equity doesn't want. So it's very hard to find growth. The vast majority of growth in the American economy and the global economy is going on in the private markets. Private equity is famous for making money by cutting costs. In fact, private companies are growing revenue 5% to 7% faster than public companies. That trend is accelerating and compounding. If you want growth, you need to be considering the private markets. Diversification. So again, I'll stick with my theme: memes, media, momentum. Mag 7. We all know the statistics. Public markets are driven by a handful of companies not necessarily connected to fundamental value. Meanwhile, private companies are valued on fundamental values and much broader from an industry perspective. Today, the private markets are the markets that are actually funding the bread and butter regular way companies across America. Fewer and fewer public companies, many more private companies, companies staying private longer. To just achieve diversification, to get the industry and size exposures that you want, you need to be considering the private markets. That's my view.
Bob wasn’t the only executive to share this sentiment at Future Proof.
Mark highlighted additional critical points as asset managers and wealth managers alike are striving to solve for client needs. “Why are we doing this? Ultimately, we've seen private markets work really well for institutional clients for tens of years. And we're [State Street] in the business to ultimately democratize investing. Because if I think about my mother-in-law who doesn't have access to privates because she's an independent nurse contractor, we want to give her that opportunity. So I think everything we're trying to do here is we're trying to build a better portfolio, build resiliency, provide diversification, which ultimately can only be a better outcome for the end client.”
Sonali shared an important question: “Why shouldn’t more investors have access to the same institutional opportunities that have existed for decades?” She also discussed the advent of model portfolios bringing innovation to the space, particularly as “the 401(k) model for private assets do start to open up new questions about long-term retirement needs and … what types of structures are appropriate for the 401(k).”
In an interview with Citywire on Tuesday, Manulife John Hancock Investments President and CEO Kristie Feinberg discussed how heightened longevity risk is necessitating “a huge conversation” at her firm and industrywide around the suitability of alternative assets in 401(k)s and other defined contribution retirement accounts.
Feinberg noted that there’s a need to “really rethink the portfolio. The modern portfolio is going to require some portion into private markets just to be able to meet those longer-term goals.”
Feinberg’s comments echo a sentiment that has been shared by BlackRock a number of times in recent months.
BlackRock’s Read on Retirement survey highlighted the possible need for adding private markets to an investors’ retirement portfolio. A June 2025 whitepaper by BlackRock noted that, based on their publicly available Capital Markets Assumptions (CMAs), adding private equity and private credit to a participant’s 401(k) account could deliver an estimated incremental 50 bps in average annual returns over an employee’s working lifetime. Compounded over 40 years, this could generate about 15% more money in a participant’s 401(k) account.
BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink discussed this topic at length in his 2025 Annual Chairman’s Letter:
Pension funds have invested in these assets for decades, but 401(k)s haven't. It’s one reason why pensions typically outperform 401(k)s by about 0.5% each year.40
Half a percent doesn't sound huge, but it adds up over time. BlackRock estimates that over 40 years, an extra 0.5% in annual returns results in 14.5% more money in your 401(k). It’s enough to fund nine more years of retirement, helping you stop working on your own terms. Or, put another way, private assets just bought you nine extra years hanging out with your grandkids.41
Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson also said that private markets will likely feature in the next wave of wealth management. On a live episode of The Compound and Friends at Future Proof, she noted “no advisor needs to be convinced their clients should have alternatives. The question is: how?”
The “how” matters
Johnson makes a critically important point: the how is as important as the why.
How private markets are delivered to the wealth channel will matter.
As I noted on a Capital Allocators podcast with Ted Seides, a key question for both asset managers and wealth managers that are looking to partner with the wealth channel revolves around suitability: “What is the right product, at the right time, packaged up in the right way for the wealth channel?”
“Time is on my side”
On a live Alt Goes Mainstream podcast at Morningstar’s Investment Conference earlier this year, Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor shared quite an interesting perspective.
Kunal said that if investors think about investing in terms of time horizon, public markets and private markets might be more similar than they appear at first blush:
But if I might oversimplify, I think [private markets are] a lot like public markets. It's, oftentimes, time horizon. I just came out of a session where Ron Baron was talking and Ron has invested in public and private companies. And I think one of the things that has differentiated Ron is his ability to own investments like Tesla for a very extended period of time. And you see this tussle in the private markets, too, because sometimes you have these funds that have these great ideas, but they seem like they're time-bound. And they trade them away before the full investment potential has been realized. And so you're seeing new structures pop up and whatnot. But I think time horizon is such an important thing in any kind of market. And maybe not focused on enough.
News this week out of the UK highlights the theme of applying time horizon to investment structure.
The Financial Times’ Emma Dunkley and Alexandra Heal reported that the UK’s largest “DIY” investment platform, Hargreaves Lansdown, partnered with Schroders Capital to offer two Long Term Asset Funds (LTAFs), marking the first time that HL’s 2M customers will have access to private investments through self-invested personal pension plans.
With almost 1.3M ISAs (individual savings accounts) and over 572,000 SIPPs (self-invested pension plans) that account for a large portion of HL’s £155B in assets under administration, HL could be opening up a large channel of investors to private markets.
While there are still questions about how private markets investments will end up in retirement accounts, particularly in the US (read Susan Long McAndrews’ Op-Ed on Alt Goes Mainstream here for more), matching the time horizon of retirement accounts with the longer duration and more muted liquidity of private markets investments could very well make sense.
It certainly could make sense in the context of other investment options available to many individual investors.
As Bob said, markets appear to be driven by “memes, media, momentum” more than ever. In public markets, meme stocks and crypto appear to be on the minds of many investors, particularly those that are younger. Memes can serve to create — and shape — narratives, as I wrote in the 8.17.25 AGM Alts Weekly.
Bob astutely pointed out on the panel at Future Proof that “public markets are driven by a handful of companies not necessarily connected to fundamental value. Meanwhile, private companies are valued on fundamental values and much broader from an industry perspective.”
So, while private markets are far from perfect (and, as we know, manager selection is critical in private markets), as I asked on The Compound and Friends with Josh Brown and Michael Batnick a few weeks ago, if investors are choosing to invest in crypto and meme stocks, shouldn’t they also be considering private markets?
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.
Chart of the Week
Brought to you by:
Is return-to-office the new WFH?
Call it a comeback? Downtown office space is showing signs of a rebound.
Prices in U.S. central business districts climbed 1.9% in July from a year earlier, a sharp reversal from the 24% drop in July 2024. It was the second consecutive month that city offices outpaced the suburbs, where prices inched up just 0.2%.
Will the momentum continue as companies press for workers to return to the office?
Stay ahead of the latest in private markets with our Charting Private Assets series.
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.
AGM News of the Week
Articles we are reading
Private credit in three articles
📝 US public pension funds pare allocations to private credit | Sun Yu | Financial Times
💡Financial Times’ Sun Yu reports that US public pension funds are allocating less capital to private credit. A Financial Times analysis of public records finds that 70 major US public pension funds reported an 18% decline in allocation to private credit in the first six months of 2025, compared to a year earlier. This more muted allocation activity comes at a time when private credit fundraising in North America has seen a 40% drop in activity for the first half of the year, according to data from Preqin. “The more money coming in, the lower the percentage that can be allocated to attractive deals,” said Jay Love, US Chief Investment Strategist at investment consultancy Mercer. Total AUM in US private credit funds has more than doubled to $1.4T in 2024 from five years ago, according to Federal Reserve estimates. To date, public pension funds have played a large part in growing the private credit space. A survey of 438 public pension plans by the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems in November 2024 found their average allocation to private credit grew from 0.7% three years ago to over 4.1%.
Some pension plans are beginning to taper off allocations to private credit. The $44B Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System paused its $550M annual private credit allocation after committing $100M in the first five months of 2025. At a June board meeting, CIO Sriram Lakshminarayanan said the fund would resume with new private credit commitments in 2025, but also noted that there would be a “pretty high” bar for future investments.
CIO Jon Salstrom of $2.4B Cincinnati Retirement System said “I’d rather wait and see what happens over the next six months” before allocating to a new private credit manager.
Some managers cited policy uncertainty as a factor, as many plans were trying to figure out the impact of both tariffs and the new tax bill on investment outcomes.
Some pension fund CIOs are concerned about the risk of the wealth channel coming into the market. $46B Texas Municipal Retirement System CIO Yup Kim said that risk and return expectations for individual investors and institutional investors may be different. “Whenever you have an influx of retail capital coming in, their expectations of return or risk-reward might not be commensurate with those 100-plus-year-long institutions.”
Other pension fund CIOs, such as Steven Meier, CIO of the $295B New York City Retirement Systems, said the plan is looking to increase its private credit allocation by “a couple of percentage points” by adding investment-grade and asset-backed private credit, noting that they are “willing to trade illiquidity and complexity for a higher return.”
📝 Private credit portfolio growth flags as Wall Street banks poach, repay big direct lending deals | Zack Miller | PitchBook
💡PitchBook’s Zack Miller dives into data on private credit loan repayments. He finds that loan portfolio growth among BDCs slowed in the first half of 2025 as repayments and exits outpaced new investments, according to LCD analysis.
Among the 12 largest public BDCs, new investment fundings in the first half of 2025 fell by 11.6% from the comparable 2024 period, while repayments and exits rose by 13.7%.
Deal flow for private credit firms was subdued in 1H 2025, in large part due to a slowdown in M&A and buyout activity.
LCD analysis found that much of the repayment volume on loans came from a handful of credits from broadly syndicated lenders since the start of 2025. Just one repayment, a $3.3B loan to Kaseya taken out by the BSL market, eliminated $1.9B from BDC portfolios (based on Q4 2024 filings). Funds managed by Blackstone, including non-traded BDCs, had held an $806.2M slice of the Kaseya debt prior to repayment; Blue Owl funds had held $350.2M, and Ares funds held $231.4M.
“I think the vast majority of that [repayment activity] has worked its way through,” Blue Owl Capital CEO Craig Packer told investors on a Q2 earnings call. “There’s probably a few names, but most of them, I think, are pretty stable at this point.”
📝 Kroll and StepStone Group Create Private-Credit Benchmarks Service | Isaac Taylor and Luis Garcia | Wall Street Journal
💡Wall Street Journal’s Isaac Taylor and Luis Garcia report on the partnership between financial and risk advisory firm Kroll and alternative asset manager StepStone Group that has resulted in the creation of a set of private credit benchmarks. The Kroll StepStone Private Credit Benchmarks analyze anonymized data from over 15,000 direct lending deals across the US and Europe dating back to 2012. The benchmarking tool enables clients the ability to build customized indexes that categorize data across region, value, and collateral type. Kroll CEO Jacob Silverman said that the benchmarks offer an asset-valuation and risk-management tool to investors, helping them “to make good decisions and to realize opportunities.” StepStone Partner and Head of Private Credit Marcel Schindler said that Kroll and StepStone saw an opportunity to develop a set of benchmarks similar to those used by equities and bond investors, noting that most existing benchmarks in the market cover broadly syndicated leveraged loans rather than “private corporate lending transactions.” Silverman said that the focus on private direct lending transactions is a “really important distinction” from other benchmarking tools. “Products focused on direct lending, private credit, ultimately will have the same level of utility for a market that has not yet been served by this type of benchmark.”
💸 AGM’s 2/20: As private credit continues to become more mainstream, investors are looking for ways to both better understand the market and evaluate the risks, and figure out where to allocate to a growing market in a thoughtful, measured way. The FT article about pension funds pulling back on private credit highlights two notable trends: one, that a number of pension funds believe they have reached their allocation limit in private credit and, two, many CIOs are still evaluating private credit, but they have both a “high bar” for new investments and have a wait and see approach as tariffs and rate cuts make their way through the current market. As is the case with any rapidly growing market, it’s worth taking a discerning view on the space when a flood of new capital enters a category. But it doesn’t mean that investors won’t continue to allocate to the asset class, provided that they find pockets of the private credit market that are less well-trafficked by investors and find funds that remain disciplined with their underwriting and terms.
For allocators, identifying managers that remain disciplined underwriters as both the market and fund sizes grow will be critical. According to Bloomberg Intelligence data, private direct lending, which has become a nearly $2T market, is projected to double over the next 4-5 years.
There are certainly some structural reasons for the industry’s growth. A recent report by Hamilton Lane on the private credit ecosystem illustrates the growth in private credit, in part due to bank retrenchment as a result of regulation.
As the below chart from Hamilton Lane’s report shows, LBOs have been increasingly financed by private credit funds rather than the broadly syndicated loan (BSL) market.
A chart from an interview between Blue Owl’s Head of Alternative Credit Ivan Zinn and President & CEO of Global Private Wealth Sean Connor on Blue Owl’s Nest highlights the secular trend of bank retrenchment in credit markets. Private asset-based finance has filled the gap left by banks.
Hamilton Lane also looks at performance of private credit relative to the PME (public market equivalent), the Credit Suisse Leveraged Loan Index in every vintage year dating back to 2000. Over a time period where the asset class has experienced three recessions, private credit has outperformed the PME every year.
As with every strategy in private markets, manager selection matters. Another chart by Hamilton Lane illustrates that dispersion of returns vary in all asset classes, including private credit. But private credit also experienced the smallest dispersion of returns in both up and down markets relative to other private markets strategies like buyout, venture capital, and real estate.
If private credit is indeed the $40T addressable market that Apollo CEO Marc Rowan has discussed, then private credit could still have plenty of room to run.
But, as with any investment, the devil is in the details. As the market grows in size and scale — and as funds grow their AUM — returns may be harder to come by as deals could get more competitive. Though Rowan and his peers might argue, as he did in an interview with Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor at the Morningstar Investment Conference, that scale actually creates less competition because very few firms can do deals at a size that a firm like Apollo or its peers are doing.
In fact, a chart from Blue Owl’s 2025 Investor Day Presentation highlights this very point — that scale can really matter in private credit.
So, private credit could very well continue to perform for investors — provided that investors allocate to the right funds. And bringing more transparency to the space, as Kroll and StepStone are doing with their benchmarking tool, will only equip investors with more transparency that is required to help them make better allocation decisions. However, given that some pension funds are scaling back their allocations to private credit, this market certainly bears watching.
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 and Wealth Management, Client Solutions Group, Retail Alternatives Specialist, New York - Vice President. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Partners Group (Alternative asset manager) - Managing Director, Private Equity Business Development. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Ultimus Fund Solutions (Fund administrator) - SVP, Business Development. Click here to learn more.
🔍 Cerity Partners (Wealth management platform) - Head of Talent, Principal. 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.
🔍 MSCI (Data services) - Vice President, Program Management - Private Assets. Click here to learn more.
🤝 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.
The latest on Alt Goes Mainstream
Recent podcast or video episodes and blog posts on Alt Goes Mainstream:
🎥 Watch Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor cover the most pressing topics in private markets today, including the convergence of public and private, liquidity vs illiquidity, investor education, the importance of transparency, and the why, what, and how behind evergreen funds. Watch here.
🎥 Watch The Compound and Friends (TCAF) Co-Hosts and Ritholtz Wealth Management Partners Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick and I go back and forth about private markets on TCAF Episode 207. Watch here.
🎥 Watch Stonepeak Co-President Luke Taylor discuss what it takes to be a great infrastructure investor. Watch here.
🎥 Watch Arcesium MD and Head of Client and Partner Development David Nable discuss how to architect private markets technology infrastructure for the future. Watch here.
🎥 Watch Juniper Square CEO and Co-Founder Alex Robinson on balancing AI with the human element in fund administration. Watch here.
📝 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 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 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.
🎥 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.
Thank you for reading. If you like the Alts Weekly, please share it with your friends, colleagues, and anyone interested in private markets.
Subscribe below and follow me and Alt Goes Mainstream on LinkedIn (and AGM’s LinkedIn page), Twitter (@michaelsidgmore), and YouTube to stay up to date on all things private markets.
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 Ryan McCormack, Nick Owens, and Michael Rutter for their contributions to the AGM Index section of the newsletter.
I enjoy your podcast and substack.
One thing on Larry Finks's comments; they are kind of sketchy. The 50bp expected outperformance, using BR's own numbers is (somehow, inexplicably) before fees.
After fees, its 21bps, and still relies on some REALLY good relative performance from Alts. I wrote about it here:
https://thealtview.substack.com/p/finks-folly-part-1