What's Happening Blackstone delivered its third quarter 2025 earnings amid its 40th anniversary celebration, with management declaring the long awaited "deal dam" is finally breaking as capital markets activity resurges and multiple secular growth engines accelerate simultaneously. The quarter demonstrated the firm's unique positioning at the intersection of cyclical recovery and structural transformation in alternatives, with private wealth, insurance, and institutional chan

Recent bankruptcies like First Brands and Tricolor Food Group are likely "canaries in the coal mine" signaling broader underwriting problems across private credit markets. According to Morningstar's The Long View podcast, private market analyst Leyla Kunimoto argues that a decade of cheap money chasing deals has produced loosened covenants and compromised oversight, with stress now emerging as borrowers struggle under higher rates.

BlackRock delivered record Q4 2025 results with EPS of $13.16 (beating estimates by 5.79%) and revenue of $7 billion (up 23% YoY), with private markets emerging as the central pillar of its forward strategy. The quarter marks the first full integration of GIP, HPS, and Preqin, positioning BlackRock as a top five alternatives platform with over $675 billion in client assets and a clear runway toward $400 billion in gross private markets fundraising by 2030.

What's New Blue Owl Capital has nearly doubled its assets under management from $160 billion to almost $300 billion since March 2024, with the wealth channel serving as a central driver of this expansion. In a recent Alt Goes Mainstream podcast interview , Sean Connor, President & CEO of Global Private Wealth at Blue Owl, revealed that the firm's evergreen fund flows have grown 2.5x over three years while simultaneously diversifying beyond direct lending into asset-based fina

In a recent interview on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, Oaktree co-CEO Armen Panossian outlined the firm's defensive positioning ahead of an expected uptick in private credit defaults, warning that the 2018-2021 vintage of leveraged buyouts represents the market's soft underbelly as weak credits face a "day of reckoning" in 2027—while simultaneously highlighting asset-backed finance as a multi-trillion dollar opportunity created by banking sector retreat.

Vista's $100B software factory bets AI is "food not threat"—building GenAI transformation capability to capture middle market opportunity.

The distinction between public and private markets—liquid vs. illiquid, transparent vs. opaque, accessible vs. exclusive—collapsed in 2025. Apollo's Scott Kleinman called it "irreversible." Goldman Sachs' Marc Nachmann described a "continuum" replacing the old binary. J.P. Morgan declared private markets "essential infrastructure." Infrastructure to trade private assets like public securities is now being built. Retail investors are gaining access to asset classes once reserv

ING built Europe's largest evergreen alternatives platform by treating private markets as "slow money" requiring human-centric design.

In a recent Alt Goes Mainstream The DNA podcast interview, Ken Wong—Partner and Head of Asia Pacific Infrastructure at EQT—makes the case that applying private equity operational playbooks to infrastructure assets in developed Asia generates equity-like returns in a market that remains dramatically underpenetrated relative to Western counterparts.

In a recent Alt Goes Mainstream's The DNA podcast series, Jean Salata—Chairperson of EQT Asia and founder of the former Baring Private Equity Asia—argues that Asian private markets offer superior risk-adjusted returns due to market inefficiency, underpenetration, and multi-decade growth tailwinds that developed markets can no longer match.

The Alternative Credit Council's "Private Credit in Asia 2.0" report forecasts Asia-Pacific private credit assets under management will grow from US$59 billion in 2024 to US$92 billion by 2027, representing a 16% compound annual growth rate that outpaces global averages.

As artificial intelligence reshapes the global economy, institutional investors face a critical question: how to capture the AI opportunity without betting on which software company will emerge victorious. Alexey Teplukhin, Managing Director at Blue Owl Capital, argues the answer lies in owning the physical infrastructure rather than picking winners—data centers representing the "airports of information" that every competitor must use.

Private credit is evolving far beyond direct lending into a $14 trillion opportunity as banks retreat from traditional lending activities, yet most wealth channel investors remain underexposed and undereducated about the asset class. Robert Stark, CEO of Nomura Capital Management and Head of Investment Management in the Americas for Nomura Group, recently discussed building a private credit business from scratch within the century-old Japanese financial institution.

PwC's Asset and Wealth Management Revolution 2025 report projects private markets will capture more than half of total industry revenues by 2030, cementing their position as the sector's most profitable engine. While alternative AUM is expected to reach $34 trillion with private markets specifically hitting $26.6 trillion, the report warns that rising competition will put growing pressure on the standout fees and margins that have defined the asset class.

What's New Carta's 2025 survey of 100 senior investment professionals reveals that 92% of funds of funds report GP data issues have negatively impacted their investment decisions or reporting obligations, with 41% saying it always affects their decision-making. The findings expose a systemic breakdown in private markets data infrastructure as AUM has grown 20-fold since 2000 to reach $22 trillion. Why It Matters These data failures aren't just operational headaches—they're th

Marc Nachmann, global head of asset and wealth management at Goldman Sachs, sat down with CNBC's Leslie Picker at the firm's alternatives conference in New York to discuss how Goldman quietly built a $542 billion alternatives powerhouse over three decades—and why the coming credit cycle will create clear winners and losers in an asset class that has grown explosively during a period of relative calm.

Dominick Carlino, PGIM's Global Head of Alternative Investments, articulates how the convergence of insurance, asset management, and wealth distribution creates competitive advantages in an increasingly crowded marketplace where over 300 evergreen funds compete for shelf space and firms race to build or acquire private markets capabilities.

The Institutional Limited Partners Association published a comprehensive analysis examining how retail investment vehicles are fundamentally reshaping private equity fund dynamics. According to ILPA's 2025 whitepaper, the retail private markets segment has grown at nearly 60% compound annual growth rate over four years to reach approximately $360 billion in assets, with private equity vehicles expanding 56% in 2024 alone.

Robert F. Smith, founder, chairman, and CEO of $100 billion Vista Equity Partners, argues that companies lacking "sovereignty and dominion" over their proprietary workflows and data sets face existential threats in this new era, while incumbents positioned correctly could see operating margins surge from 25% to 40% and beyond.

The life insurance industry's structural transformation since the GFC is being heavily influenced by the growing nexus between life insurers and Private Equity (PE) firms according to a recent paper by the Bank of International Settlements. This relationship has driven a significant shift in investment strategy toward riskier, less liquid private assets , such as structured credit and private credit/direct lending. PE-linked insurers are significantly more likely to hold thes