The private credit market looks stable at index level, but underneath, dispersion between higher and lower quality borrowers is widening to levels that signal real stress ahead. Danielle Poli, Managing Director and Co-Portfolio Manager of Oaktree's Global Credit strategy, makes this case in a conversation on Alt Goes Mainstream.

The firms best positioned for private equity's next decade are those that chose returns over AUM growth and built the operational infrastructure to deliver on that choice. Andrew Sillitoe and Mitch Truwit, Co-CEOs of Apax, make this case in a conversation on Alt Goes Mainstream.

The next generation of trillion dollar wealth managers will reach scale through a multi-brand architecture that institutionalizes operations while preserving the advisor independence that makes the RIA model work.

The principles that turned Blackstone into Europe's largest commercial real estate owner over 15 years are now driving its private wealth business past $300 billion in AUM. Farhad Karim, Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone Private Wealth, argues this in a conversation on Alt Goes Mainstream. Karim, who previously served as Chairman and COO of Blackstone Europe, frames the wealth buildout as a repeat of the European real estate playbook: show up locally, deliver performance

The long-term value creation in AI will concentrate in the application layer, specifically in enterprise software companies that own workflow context, not in the semiconductor or cloud infrastructure layers that have absorbed most of the capital so far. Monti Saroya, Co-Head of Vista Equity Partners' flagship fund, argues this in a conversation on Alt Goes Mainstream. Saroya draws a direct parallel to the internet era: chips and cloud providers captured early returns, but the

BlackRock's integrated GIP-HPS platform is producing private markets deal flow that standalone firms cannot match, with $15B in Q2 inflows and $10B in insurance debt mandates.

Blackstone reported Q2 2026 results that on the surface read as another blowout quarter for the world's largest alternative asset manager: distributable earnings up 26% year over year to $2 billion, fee related earnings up 22%, and record assets under management of $1.35 trillion on nearly $70 billion of quarterly inflows. But the headline growth rates obscure the deeper transformation underway. Blackstone is rapidly evolving from a diversified alternatives platform into the

Private credit's real advantage over liquid markets is not yield, it's alignment, argues Oak Hill Advisors BDC chief Eric Muller in a new Alt Goes Mainstream interview recorded live from iCapital Connect in Phoenix. Because every lender enters a private deal at the same time on the same basis, restructurings move faster and recoveries run higher, free of the intercreditor fights and crossholder disputes that bleed value in public markets.

Retail investors have never had more access to private markets, and they have never understood them less. Only 24 percent of US investors say they understand how private markets work, even as the asset class pushes deeper into retail portfolios.

What's New: Private markets no longer sit alongside the real economy, they are financing it. The asset class now exceeds $20 trillion in AUM, and the traditional 60/40 portfolio is evolving toward a 50/30/20 model with private assets comprising the 20 percent. Why It Matters: Four structural forces are reshaping the industry at once: AI capex funding needs, a persistent distribution drought, private credit's first genuine stress test, and a retail channel expanding faster th

The AI buildout has a financing problem only private markets can solve. At the Milken Institute's Global Conference, Larry Fink and Bruce Flatt described the buildout as a structural $10 trillion rewiring of the global economy, arguing private capital is the only force capable of funding it.

Private equity has a cash problem, not a returns problem. Goldman Sachs argues annual distributions have been stuck at 8 to 10 percent of NAV over the past three years, versus a 20 percent historical norm, since the Fed's 500 basis point hike froze the exit pipeline.

Private credit's best managers are proving discipline by saying no. Decline rates at top direct lenders have climbed as high as 98 percent this year, up from a normal 94 percent, as underwriting standards diverge sharply across the market.

A new PitchBook analyst note tracks the resurgence of SPACs as a venture liquidity mechanism, with 123 vehicles raised in 2025 and more than 50 closings already in Q1 2026. The headline number obscures a messier picture. The prior cohort of VC backed SPACs performed disastrously, with the tracking index down 75 percent since 2022 and several marquee names going bankrupt outright. What has changed is regulatory. A 2024 SEC overhaul stripped forward looking revenue projections

BlackRock Investment Institute's 2026 Midyear Global Outlook, argues that private credit and private infrastructure have moved from portfolio complements to core vehicles for funding the AI buildout, and the headline credit spread data investors watch may be masking that shift entirely. Global private infrastructure data center deals have surged since ChatGPT launched in 2022, based on BlackRock's own transaction chart, yet broad credit indexes still look placid on the surfac

The line between public and private ownership, long treated as the starting gate for equity investors, has quietly become a checkpoint instead of a starting line. Morningstar's analysis of SpaceX's IPO shows why.

Access Is Now Table Stakes. The Manager's Edge in Private Wealth Runs Through Servicing and Firm DNA

What's New Michael Comparato, Senior Managing Director and Head of Real Estate at Benefit Street Partners, argues commercial real estate credit is structurally separable from direct lending because the asset class already absorbed its correction in a conversation with Michael Sidgmore on Alt Goes Mainstream. Multifamily values have fallen roughly 25 to 30 percent and office valuations 50 to 80 percent, leaving today's 65 to 70 LTV loans with a roughly 55 to 60 percent peak-to

Kunal Shah, Managing Director, Head of Private Asset Research and Model Portfolios at iCapital, argues that evergreen fund structures are a game changer for the wealth channel and the foundational piece enabling model portfolios

What's New PitchBook's latest analyst note forecasts that European private capital is heading for a sharp divergence over the next five years, with PE AUM projected to grow from $1.5 trillion in 2025 to $1.7 trillion by 2030 while VC AUM is expected to fall from $431.4 billion to $311.4 billion over the same period. The headline VC decline reverses a decade of expansion and is driven almost entirely by collapsing fundraising activity since 2023 rather than by deal flow alone.