BlackRock and Partners Group Holding are teaming up to offer retail investors access to a variety of private markets through a single portfolio, tapping into rising demand for alternative investments.
The firms plan to set up a "one-stop portfolio" to provide access to private equity, private credit and real assets, they said in a statement on Thursday, enabling advisors to offer clients numerous assets through a single subscription document. Partners shares rose as much as 5.6%, the most in over a year, by 12:50 p.m. in Zurich.
"In a world where private markets are growing by $1 trillion or more every year, many financial advisors still find it too difficult to help their clients participate," said Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock's global client business.
The private credit universe so far has largely been reserved for institutional investors such as insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds. But the biggest firms in the industry have been looking to open it up to a wider range of investors, in part to offset the slowdown in funding.
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Quarterly inflows from the biggest investors are near multi-year lows, according to the data provider Preqin, making small investors an increasingly important feeding ground for private credit firms.
And so those firms are looking for new sources of money. Apollo Global Management is working on its first exchange-traded fund, teaming up with State Street on an offering that will include private credit investments, according to a filing this week. Others are seeking to tap the estimated $178 trillion personal wealth market by offering individual investors what looks almost like a mutual fund.
Ares Management and Blackstone are among the firms that have built retail-oriented private credit vehicles in Europe. Both of their platforms have now raised more than $1.1 billion, according to publicly available filings.
BlackRock, with $10.6 trillion in assets at the end of June, is seeking to become a one-stop shop offering stock, bond and private investments to retail and institutional clients. It has been expanding in alternative assets this year, announcing the acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners and the data provider Preqin. BlackRock's U.S. Wealth Advisory business generated a quarter of the firm's revenues in 2023.
— With assistance from Silas Brown.
