AGM Alts & Wealth Weekly News Roundup | 8.21.26

👋 Hi, I’m Michael.

Welcome to AGM, the meeting place for private markets.

Every Friday, I share headlines and news on the continuing evolution and innovation in private markets.

If you also want deep and nuanced industry analysis, subscribe below so you don’t miss the long read and newsletter — the AGM Alts Weekly — delivered to your inbox every Sunday.

If you have relevant news, an article, or a research report to share, please email me at michael@theagmcollective.com.

$8bn RIA gatekeeper outlines alts expansion, hiring push | Caroline McCarthy | Citywire | New CIO of $8B AUM RIA Savvy Wealth, Anshul Sharma, discusses the firm’s plans in private markets. Savvy will aim to launch a proprietary “Savvy access fund” by the end of Q3. Sharma, who joined Savvy after 9 years as a MD and Senior Portfolio Manager at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, shared why he joined Savvy: “One of the reasons I came here is because we can move really, really quickly, and because we’re building a platform from the ground up that is AI-native. Instead of retrofitting newer technologies onto existing platforms, everything that Savvy is doing was really building all of these capabilities from the ground up.”

Dynasty ​Building Strong Momentum in its Private Markets Investments Group | Business Wire | Dynasty Financial Partners announced it closed on over $200M in private markets funds over the last 9 months, including the successful close of Dynasty Growth Equity & Coinvest I, a growth private equity fund. The fund closed at $110M, surpassing its original $100M target. Dynasty also recently closed a co-investment round in NOBULL, the footwear and training brand majority owned by billionaire Mike Repole and Tom Brady, at a $1B valuation. Dynasty did the co-investment via an SPV alongside of Driven Capital, Mike Repole's family office, acquiring roughly 3% of the company.

Family Offices are moving closer to the deal | David Gutierrez | Citywire | Family offices appear to be doing more direct deals. Data from private wealth intelligence platform FINTRX finds that family offices are displaying a strong preference for direct investments and private equity. This trend appears to align with private banks and wealth platforms creating specific initiatives focused on direct deals and co-investments.

How some of the biggest RIAs are positioning their private market portfolios | Tania Mitra | Citywire | RIAs are increasingly launching their own funds to provide clients with access to private markets. There are now 16 RIA-sponsored interval and tender offer funds, with another four awaiting approval from the SEC. 14 of the 16 are fund-of-funds. The three largest funds listed in Citywire’s article are BBR’s ALO Fund, with $1.888B AUM, Beacon Pointe’s Multi-Alternative Fund, with $1.084B AUM, and Corient’s Registered Alternatives Fund, with $665M AUM.

Pimco’s Stracke Says Wealth Firms Running Shy of Private Credit | Sharon Klyne | Bloomberg | Wealth managers are looking for alternatives to private credit, according to PIMCO’s President Christian Stracke. “The demand for alternatives to direct lending private credit is getting much greater and that is particularly because the wealth distributors do not want to and cannot sell the direct lending private credit retail vehicles any longer,” he said.

MAI's Post-Carlyle Deal Spree Continues, Adding Two Firms with Combined $1B+ AUM | Alex Ortolani | Wealth Management | MAI Capital grows its footprint in Atlanta and California after acquiring two firms that oversee more than $1B in AUM. MAI bought OG Private Wealth, a fee-only RIA in Chico and Hermosa Beach, CA, that manages $551M AUM and Waypoint Wealth Counsel, a fee-only RIA in Atlanta, GA, that manages $490M AUM.

Ares to roll out second Eltif as wealth product race heats up | Selin Bucak | Citywire | Ares is preparing to launch its second ELTIF focused on infrastructure investments. Its first ELTIF, the Ares European Strategic Income Fund, had €168M AUM by the end of 2025. Ares manages around $30B across its infrastructure platform.

JPMAM moves to capture Australia’s private markets shift | Olivia Grace Curran | InvestorDaily J.P. Morgan Asset Management has launched an evergreen private equity strategy in Australia to target the Australian wealth market. J.P. Morgan launched its JPMorgan Private Markets Fund (JPMF), which is structured as a retail registered Australian unit trust.

Specialty Structure Funds Gain Momentum Amid Evergreen Adoption | Elaine Misonzhnik | Wealth Management | Another corner of the evergreen fund market appears to be growing. The number of specialty structure vehicles, including 3(c)(7) funds and operating companies, grew 13% quarter-over-quarter. XA Investments found that there were 26 funds in the specialty structure category. These evergreen funds are focused on qualified purchaser and institutional investors.

Alts Custodian Launches Private Markets Portfolio Construction and Modeling Platform | Business Wire | Alts Custodian announced the launch of its new Private Markets Portfolio Construction and Modeling Platform.

Apex Group and OpenVC Partner to Advance Private Markets Transparency Through New Real-World Asset Indices | Business Wire | Apex Group and OpenVC, a pioneer in private market indexing and asset management, announced a strategic partnership to develop new real world asset (RWA) indices.

CAIS adds nearly 40 managers to platform amid surging demand for alts | Caroline McCarthy | Citywire | CAIS has onboarded nearly 40 managers over the past six months. The expansion brings additions from Apollo, Blackstone, AQR, Coatue, KKR, Carlyle, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Lord Abbett, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, AllianceBernstein, New Mountain Capital, and Vista Equity Partners.

Sweden’s EQT buys Australian rugby league club in first sports foray | Nic Fildes | Financial Times | EQT has taken a majority stake in one of Australia’s top rugby league teams with its purchase of a stake in Melbourne Storm that values the club at A$150M ($106M). The deal is unusual for Australia’s rugby league because most teams in the National Rugby League are controlled by their members or NRL administration. It’s EQT’s first direct investment in a sports team (though the firm does own IMG Academy and led a $25M investment in Baller League, a six-a-side football competition).

Ascensus Announces Next Chapter of Growth in a New Partnership between Stone Point Capital and Genstar Capital | Business Wire | Ascensus, a leading independent provider of savings solutions and technology, announced a new ownership structure co-led by Stone Point Capital and Genstar. Ascensus is a provider of tax-advantaged savings solutions and technology, supporting over 16M savers and overseeing $1.3T in assets under administration.

Charlesbank nears law firm deal as private equity pushes deeper into US legal sector | Stephen Foley | Financial Times | Charlesbank is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire a stake in the law firm WSHB in a $700M transaction that would mark one of private equity’s largest forays into the US legal sector. The planned deal uses a novel financing approach that allows non-lawyers to acquire a US firm despite professional ethics rules that have historically barred private equity ownership in the sector. Charlesbank used a similar approach two years ago to buy the accounting firm Aprio.

Private Equity Buyers Seen as Joining $3.5 Trillion M&A Surge | Michael Hytha and Dani Burger | Bloomberg | Goldman Sachs Global Co-Head of Investment Banking Matt McClure said that “We’re seeing signs of life but it’s gradual. With one and a half trillion dollars of capital to deploy, that’s going to be put to work at some point and obviously M&A is going to be a component of that.” Only 680 of the 30,384 M&A and related deals globally this year — accounting for only $286B, or 8.2% of the total — were private equity buyouts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

‘Not worth the squeeze’: global private equity makes zero deals in China | Arjun Neil Alim | Financial Times | The world’s biggest buyout firms have avoided new investments in mainland China this year. Ten of the largest global private markets firms have made no new publicly disclosed equity investments in China in the first seven months of 2026.

European direct lending volume rebounds, amid support for software names | Taron Wade | PitchBook | The most recent direct lending data shows a boost in the deal count and estimated volume in the European market. The deal count rose to 35 in the last three months, and estimated volume increased to €9.8B. This past quarter also saw the first direct lending takeout of a broadly syndicated loan since Q3 2025 and renewed support for the software sector.

PGIM to Buy $3 Billion of GreenSky Home Improvement Loans | Scott Carpenter | Bloomberg | Prudential’s asset management arm will purchase up to $3B of home improvement loans from lender GreenSky under a three-year forward flow agreement on future loans originated by GreenSky to consumers with prime credit scores.

Canadian Firms Have $360 Billion of Private Credit Exposure, Mostly in US | Paula Sambo | Bloomberg | Canadian financial institutions and funds have around C$500B of exposure to private credit, according to new research from the Bank of Canada. Canadian pension funds and life insurers are meaningful players in lending directly to companies abroad, with the bulk of the activity in the US. The Bank of Canada sees the direct risks to Canada as manageable.

Franklin Templeton Announces Closing of Inaugural US$1.5 Billion Collateralized Fund Obligation | Business Wire | Franklin Templeton announced the closing of its first Collateralized Fund Obligation (CFO), raising $1.5B from global investors. The CFO is designed to provide investors with diversified and efficient exposure to Franklin Templeton’s flagship private markets strategies across Lexington Partners and Benefit Street Partners. “We are seeing growing demand from clients for access to differentiated private markets strategies in structures that are efficient and scalable,” said George Stephan, Global Chief Operating Officer, Wealth Management Private Markets at Franklin Templeton. “This inaugural CFO is a direct response to that demand - combining the specialized expertise of our private markets managers into an offering that reflects the full breadth of what Franklin Templeton can deliver.”

Blackstone, Blue Owl Private Credit Funds Boost Bond Sales | Brian W Smith, Rene Ismail, and Caleb Mutua | Bloomberg | Two private credit funds sold more investment-grade bonds Monday than they initially targeted. Blackstone’s private credit fund raised $750M from its sale of five-year notes, which was greater than the $500M of bonds that the BDC was looking to issue. Blue Owl Technology Finance Corp. priced $400M of notes that increases the size of a June sale.

BlackRock and Oaktree take keys of top supplier to Hollywood studios | Eric Platt and James Fontanella-Khan | Financial Times | A supplier of production equipment to film studios has been seized by creditors after defaulting on its debt. BlackRock’s private credit arm HPS Investment Partners and Oaktree Capital are among a group of creditors that took control of MBS Group, which provides lighting rigs and other film equipment to sound stages across the globe.

CVC, Prudential to Back Standard Life Pension Risk Transfers | Leonard Kehnscherper | Bloomberg | Standard Life Plc agreed to set up a partnership with a consortium led by CVC and Prudential to enter the country’s pension risk-transfer market. The group will fund the partnership with an initial commitment up to £2B, expected to be drawn over five years.

Blurred lines: How fund finance is reinventing the sub-line | Carmela Mendoza | PEI | Lenders and lawyers are turning to hybrid structures that blend sub-line mechanics with parallel vehicles and squeezing more leverage out of uncalled commitments.

Goldman to buy sale-leaseback specialist LCN Capital for up to $410m | Theresa Agovino | PERE | Goldman’s Real Estate chief James Garman said they predict strong demand for inflation-protected assets from institutions, insurance, and private wealth clients.

SparrowHawk buys EQT Midwest logistics portfolio for $400m, backed by Almanac | Seb Shehadi | PERE | SparrowHawk acquired a 20-property, 4.4 million-square-foot logistics portfolio across the Midwest market from EQT Real Estate for $400M in their largest transaction to date, and EQT sold the assets on behalf of EQT Real Estate Industrial Value Fund V.

Brookfield enters Japan residential market with $627m portfolio deal | Seb Shehadi | PERE | Brookfield acquired a portfolio of 50 multifamily residential assets across four of Japan's largest urban centers for ¥100B ($627M), marking its first move into the country's residential market through its opportunistic real estate strategy, after growing its Japanese real estate assets under management from virtually nothing to more than $1.5B in 12 months, with plans to expand to $10B over the next five years.

Canada’s CPP pledges €600m to two European opportunity funds | Greg Dool | PERE | Canada's CPP Investments committed €600M combined to two European opportunistic real estate funds from Aermont and Azora, representing a significant share of each fund's capital raise to date and providing CPP with access to specialist GP capabilities in operationally intensive real estate sectors.

Mega-funds go from fastest to slowest on the fundraising trail | Christie Ou | PERE | Private real estate mega-funds have flipped from the market's fastest fundraisers to its slowest, with funds above $5B now averaging 32 months on the road throughout the first half of 2026, a number that more than triples the fundraising time needed in 2021, while smaller and mid-sized funds are on their fastest pace since 2021.

University of California Offloads $1 Billion of Private Equity Stakes | Preeti Singh | Bloomberg | The University of California endowment system, UC Investments, sold $1B of private equity stakes to HarbourVest Partners. The portfolio sold at a discount of more than 10% and includes funds from software and other tech-focused buyouts.

Jefferies Targets €1 Billion for Private Credit Secondaries Fund | Kat Hidalgo | Bloomberg | Jefferies Credit Partners is seeking to raise around €1B from investors who trade private credit in the secondary market.

Revolut Backer LTC’s $250 Million Secondaries Bet Gathers Pace | Benjamin Stupples | Bloomberg | A backer of European tech giants including Bolt and Revolut, LTC Invest, is ramping up efforts to raise a $250M fund targeting secondary stakes in private markets. General Partner Konstantin Sidorov and Revolut Chairman and former Aberdeen Asset Management CEO Martin Gilbert are among the fund's anchor investors.

ICG backs Onex’s Ryan again in CV-on-CV process | Hannah Zhang | Secondaries Investor | ICG has continued its backing of Onex Partners’ portfolio company Ryan as the investment firm raises its second single-asset CV to hold onto the asset longer. Onex completed a $1.3B CV-on-CV (“CV-squared”) for Ryan, a global tax service and software provider.

Growing zombification presents secondary market opportunity | Jessica Hamlin | PitchBook | As distributions stall, LPs are weighing steep discounts in the secondary market or staying in funds that are not yet producing meaningful DPI. Four years into their fund lives, DPI stands at 0.14x for the 2021 vintage, approximately 30% below the distribution rate that prior vintages generated by the same point in their lives.

Canadian pension giant turns to Blackstone and KKR to seal infrastructure megadeals | Alexandra Heal and Alan Livsey | Financial Times | Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has built almost $80B in exposure to energy and infrastructure by investing directly in companies. But in the past year, it has started backing some of the biggest managers’ funds. “Infrastructure deals are becoming increasingly large,” said James Bryce, Head of Infrastructure at CPPIB. The pension plan has invested in funds managed by Blackstone, KKR, and EQT.

CIP hits $3bn final close for second growth markets renewables strategy | Siqualane Taho | Infrastructure Investor | Despite fundraising headwinds partly driven by reduced post-election U.S. investor interest in middle-income renewables strategies, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners closed its second Growth Markets Fund at $3B, tripling its predecessor's size and investing in large-scale renewable energy projects across Asia, EMEA, India and Latin America.

Partners Group-backed distributed generation developer secures $857m financing with Nuveen backing | Catarina Moura | Infrastructure Investor | Partners Group-backed Dimension Energy raised $857M in financing, including a $200M upsize of its corporate credit facility from private lenders Nuveen and HPS, to fund a portfolio of 29 distributed solar projects across Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Vitol Makes Push Into Data-Center Infrastructure With US Deal | Archie Hunter | Bloomberg | Vitol said its renewables arm has acquired a data center campus in South Carolina from Meridan Gridworks. This marks one of the first times that a major commodity trader has invested in AI infrastructure.

EQT: ‘We're happy to go fully behind the meter. The solutions work' | Bruno Alves | Infrastructure Investor | EQT explains why it doubled down on EdgeConneX, its global data center platform, and its long-term willingness to go fully behind the meter as part of a dedicated, open-ended AI infrastructure strategy that has raised over $9B in capital in just three months.

Real Estate’s Underserved Middle | Ira Shaw and Gina Spiegel | KKR | In The Arctos Perspective, Ira Shaw and Gina Spiegel from Arctos Keystone discuss how middle-market real estate investors can address complex liquidity and growth needs. Shaw and Spiegel note that GP financings span funding sponsor commitments, preferred equity that bridges capital needs without forcing ownership dilution, or portfolio recapitalizations that can consolidate fragmented ownership.

BNPP AM Prime’s Pascal Christory: ‘There won’t be enough capital for everybody’ | Craig McGlashan | PE Hub | After his firm closed the largest GP stakes fund for a European manager at €540M, Pascal Christory, CEO of BNPP AM Prime, says fundraising concentration at the top of the market is driving GP stakes interest, targeting 500+ mid-market European GPs he believes remain underserved.

Behind the $400m CFO formed by Churchill and Temasek's Seviora | Tom Auchterlonie | Secondaries Investor | Churchill Asset Management and Seviora Group's new joint CFO, which blends U.S. private credit and secondaries with Asian private credit and funds-of-funds, models how other GPs can partner on fund-finance deals while investor demand remains strong.

2026 GP/LP Technology Survey: The Cost of Looking Ordinary Just Got Higher | Gen II Fund Services | A new Gen II Fund Services survey of 205 GP and LP professionals finds a widening perception gap between the technology GPs are investing in and what LPs actually prioritize when evaluating a manager's operational infrastructure.

AGM’s first RIA Field Trip is in the books!

Not just another conference: the intersection of Content x Community x Capital at work.

To join the waitlist for the October 6-7 Field Trip, click here (RIAs).

Some testimonials about AGM 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.