This episode is sponsored by Scientific Infra and Private Assets

Abhishek Gupta and Tim Whittaker from Scientific Infra and Private Assets discuss the growing demand within private markets for accurate and robust data. They explore solutions that can address these needs, ultimately providing the private markets with comprehensive, high-quality valuations and reliable benchmarks.

Female founders continue to be underrepresented and underfunded. Women only accounted for 13.2 percent of all startups in 2023, according to data from software company Carta. This was down from 15.1 percent in 2022. So, it is safe to say progress has been slow.

However, in private markets, there are positive signs that the number of women founding firms and raising capital is increasing, albeit it from a low base. According to Venture Capital Journal, funds in which at least half of the founding partners are women accounted for just over 3 percent of global venture fundraising in 2023, up from 1.9 percent the previous year.

We decided to delve into this further, looking at what can be done to ensure the number of female founders continues to increase.

Earlier this month, PEI Group revealed its annual Women of Influence in Private Markets list 2024, which this year celebrates 42 inspiring women working in alternatives. For the second episode in this two-part miniseries, we spoke to some of the women featured in the list – each of whom have built businesses from the ground up – to discuss the keys to their success.

This episode includes Courtney Russell McCrea, co-founder and managing partner at Recast Capital; Eva Shang, CEO and co-founder at Legalist; and Rayenne Chen, partner at EQT and a founding member of the EQT Exeter team. They offer advice to women looking to start their own business.

Catch the first episode of our Women of Influence podcast miniseries, which is all about mentoring, here.

This episode is sponsored by AlixPartners

The Disruption Matters special podcast miniseries is back for a third season, and this year, leading industry experts discuss how private markets can best use today’s technologies to create value.

In this fifth episode, we discuss tech's role in recruiting, onboarding and developing talent. Along the way, we address how best to recruit Gen Z, the limits of AI in this particular arena and how tech is changing the nature of talent management as a discipline. With tech tackling so many of the rudimentary tasks around talent management, human capital professionals will be freed up to focus on the more complicated tasks around motivation, evaluation and leadership. In short, tech may make some duties simpler, but the key challenges of managing people will still need to be addressed by humans.

Guests include Christopher P Trendler, managing director and head of portfolio talent at Madison Dearborn Partners; Nicole Jones, talent director, portfolio support group at Advent International; John Sander, principal, portfolio solutions at Lightyear Capital; and Ted Bililies, the global leader of transformative leadership at AlixPartners.

Clips
- Her. Spike Jonze, Annapurna Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
- M3GAN. Akela Cooper, Universal Pictures

Women are still underrepresented across private markets, while reaching senior positions remains particularly challenging. In light of this, we decided to take a deep dive into how mentoring can serve as a tool for success and empower women working in the industry.

Last week, PEI Group revealed its annual Women of Influence in Private Markets list 2024, which this year celebrates 42 inspiring women working in alternatives. For the first episode in this two-part miniseries, we spoke to some of the women featured in the list to discuss the keys to mentoring success.

In this episode, Patricia Miller Zollar, a managing director at Neuberger Berman; Rosalind Smith-Maxwell, a director at Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners; and Jackie Rantanen, head of investor solutions at Hamilton Lane, discuss their personal mentoring experiences and explore how well the industry is doing in supporting up and coming talent.

Read more about this year’s Women of Influence in Private Markets list here.

This episode is sponsored by AlixPartners

The Disruption Matters special podcast series is back for a third season, and this year, leading industry experts discuss how private markets can best use today’s technologies to create value.

In this fourth episode, we discuss tech's role in improving the speed, rigour and ease of roll-up strategies, where a private equity firm acquires a platform company in a fragmented industry and uses M&A to consolidate targets to create a market leader. It's a popular strategy for the simple reason: it's worked so well in recent years. We'll look at what today's cutting-edge tools, including AI, can do for roll-up strategies, and where human expertise and experience still can't be replaced.

Guests include David Poole, partner, executive chair of digital at Stanley Capital; Max Julian Kaye, principal at Battery Ventures; Saurabh Singh, partner at AlixPartners; Jason McDannold, partner and managing director at AlixPartners; and Hoyoung Pak, partner and managing director at AlixPartners.

Clips
-"People," Barbara Streisand. Funny Girl. Capitol
-"Human Touch," Bruce Springsteen. Human Touch. Columbia

Despite being plagued by headwinds including high interest rates, shrinking demand and declining property values since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, the office sector is starting to see some green shoots as usage and leasing rise. 

In this episode, Jim Costello, executive director and co-head of the real-assets team at MSCI, and Ran Eliasaf, founder and managing partner of New York-based real estate private equity firm Northwind, see growing signs of stabilization – and believe this trend is starting to extend outside of class A assets in gateway markets.  

Additionally, there is a rise in creative thinking about how to use older properties, including converting vintage office stock to other uses, and even acquiring office properties on a low basis and doing a complete renovation. 

For more insights on this, please see PERE Credit's October/November cover story here. 

This episode is sponsored by Arrow Global

Private debt has enjoyed sustained success in recent years, with private credit firms stepping in to fill the void left by the retreat of banks from their traditional lending role. The outlook for the asset class in Europe remains strong, as firms continue to find compelling opportunities, even in sectors that face market headwinds.

A persistent supply-demand imbalance in the housing market across most European countries means that residential real estate is a particularly attractive sector for lenders. Changing work patterns are also giving a long-term boost to parts of the hospitality real estate sector, with southern European markets able to take advantage of a boom in demand.

In this episode, Zach Lewy, founder and CEO of Arrow Global, discusses how asset-backed lending enables private credit firms to minimise risk while capitalising on emerging opportunities. Success, he notes, hinges on maintaining strategic discipline in a landscape ripe with potential.

This episode is sponsored by Kirkland & Ellis, LGT Capital Partners and TPG NewQuest

The Asia-Pacific secondaries market is one of the most fascinating corners of the global secondaries landscape. This region typically never accounts for more than single-digit figures in terms of global deal volume share – yet some of the most innovative transactions have come out of the APAC market over the years.

In this episode of our Decade of Secondaries Investing miniseries, we sit down with Brooke Zhou, partner at LGT Capital Partners; Michelle Cheh, partner at Kirkland & Ellis; and Darren Massara, managing partner at TPG NewQuest, to discuss what types of deals have happened over the last 10 years in the Asia-Pacific region.

We explore Renminbi-to-US dollar restructurings and why these have taken a back seat in 2024; why valuations are a more complex issue when it comes to Asia-Pacific GPs than their global counterparts; the different drivers of dealflow in the various markets in APAC and what types of opportunities these are bringing about; and why the regulations affecting GP-led secondaries deals in the US and western Europe have had little impact on APAC secondaries transactions.

For full coverage of our Decade of Secondaries Investing series, including all podcast episodes and an interactive timeline, click here.

This episode is sponsored by AlixPartners

The Disruption Matters special podcast miniseries is back for a third season, and this year, leading industry experts discuss how private markets can best use today’s technologies to create value.

In this third episode, we will discuss life after the 100-day plan and that tricky middle period where effective portfolio management is paramount, especially if the company isn’t growing in line with expectations. Here we’ll investigate how tech and AI can be used to diagnose problems, even propose solutions, and how much the human element still matters in managing a crisis. For example, no workforce wants management relying on AI bots to sell them on a new strategic direction.

Guests include Arvindh Kumar, partner and co-head of technology, private equity at EQT; Antony Edwards, managing director at PSG Equity; Neil Kalvelage, co-lead of portfolio operations team efforts at Centerbridge; and Dan Boland, partner and managing director at AlixPartners.

Clips:
- Magnum Force. John Milius, Robert Daily, Warner Bros, The Malpaso Company.
- RoboCop. Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner, Arne Schmidt, Orion Pictures.

This episode is sponsored by Arrow Global

Commercial real estate was heavily affected by rising interest rates throughout 2023. Many sectors of the asset class struggled against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, with transaction activity dropping significantly and debt providers becoming more conservative in their lending. But over the course of 2024, base rates have begun to stabilize. So, how are investors adapting?

In this episode of Spotlight, Zachary Vaughan, chief investment officer and global head of real estate at Arrow Global, speaks to Jonathan Brasse, editor-in-chief, real estate at PEI Group, about the impact of stabilizing interest rates and the best strategies for investors navigating the current market landscape. He discusses the significance of localized expertise in Europe, the emergence of situational distress in smaller transactions, and the shift towards operational real estate investments. He also discusses evolving portfolios and the increasing appeal of sectors like hospitality and retail.

The top 50 secondaries investors globally raised $473.8 billion in the five years to the end of 2023, according to this year’s SI 50. That’s a 9 percent increase on last year’s ranking, when $434.5 billion was recorded across a longer counting period of five-and-a-half years.

Ardian took the top spot, raising $49.6 billion across the period, followed closely by Blackstone Strategic Partners, which raked in $49.5 billion. Lexington Partners, which holds the record for the largest secondaries fund ever raised, accumulated $36.7 billion in commitments, coming in at number three.

Specialisation is driving much of this underlying growth – whether that be through asset class expansion, strategies focused down on LP-leds or GP-led deals, or picking a focus on a market segment with less secondary competition. Evergreen vehicles are also spurring on new avenues for secondaries capital raising.

In this episode of Second Thoughts, senior reporter Madeleine Farman and Americas correspondent Hannah Zhang discuss how far these factors have driven growth in the SI 50 and how much room there is to grow further.

See the full SI 50 ranking here