There is no slowdown in capital deployed to alternative investments globally, according to Dasseti and Alternatives Watch Research in its 2023 Manager Compendium research report.
Following a review of six asset classes across private markets, including private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, private credit, real estate and infrastructure, about $746 billion was either deployed or committed during the 12 months ending March 31, 2023.
Findings include:
- Private equity led the way in fundraising, totaling 61 percent of the overall private market assets raised for the year ending March 31, 2023.
- Credit strategies, including direct lending, distressed and collateral loan obligation strategies, were also popular, with $159.8 billion raised during the year, around 21 percent of the overall activity.
- Firms that raised the largest funds in the survey of the alternative landscape were: Advent International, Blackstone, Thoma Bravo, KKR, I Squared Capital, Clearlake Capital Group, Francisco Partners, Blue Owl Capital and Churchill Asset Management.
- Largest funds raised for the year were: Advent International GPE X ($25 billion); Blackstone – Strategic Partners IX ($25 billion); Thoma Bravo XV ($24.3 billion); KKR North America XIII ($19 billion); and KKR Global Infrastructure Investors IV ($17 billion).
The numbers are positive news for alternative managers, after news reports that allocations were expected to plateau or decline in the volatile 2022 and early 2023 inflationary environment.
“Institutional investors spent the better part of the last year flocking to private equity as a cure for the traditional equity market blues,” says Susan Barreto, editor of AW Research. “The key thing readers will see in our latest findings is that the private asset bull market has expanded to include credit strategies. Infrastructure and real estate funds also remain popular as rising inflation and interest rates have only fueled mandates for illiquid alpha opportunities.”
Download the full Manager Compendium here.
Andrea Zander is editor of Institutional Real Estate Americas.