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Platform and Industry updates

  • 12/10/2025

    Will the Private Equity Fund of Funds Rebound Persist?

    Based on Form D filings, private markets issuance has been reasonably flat in the past three years. In 2023, 15,157 funds were filed with the SEC; in 2024, 15,313; and 14,865 this year (so far).


    There has been some variation at the category level, such as venture capital filings falling from approximately 6,500 in 2023 to 6,000 this year, and slow but steady growth in hedge funds (1,078 in 2023 to 1,294 so far this year) but all in all, despite the geopolitical and macroeconomic tumult of the past few years, issuance and capital raising at the aggregate private market level bas been fairly flat.


    Switching gears to the Form ADV filings, however, and something quite noticeable sticks out: despite the relatively flat trajectory of private equity issuance over the last four years, as per Form Ds, there’s been a significant increase in the number of new private equity fund of funds reported on Form ADVs filed in 2025 (1,192) compared with 693 in 2024 and an aggregate gross asset value more than double that of last year (see Figure 1).

     

    Figure 1: New Fund of Funds Reported, 2024-2025

    Category2024 Count2025 Count% Change2024 GAV ($bn)2025 GAV (bn)% Change
    Hedge Funds2152307%49.660.021%
    Private Equity6931,19272%71.4161.7126%
    Real Estate1251250%4.03.7-8%
    Venture Capital14718123%3.87.6100%

    Source: 9AT, IAPD

    Arguably, it should not come as a surprise that the PE category rebounded in a more pronounced manner than the hedge fund and venture capital spaces. Reduced LP distributions from private equity strategies in recent years – thanks to the difficult exit environment reducing liquidity in the market – has meant that the PE category has borne the brunt of the pull back. Add to that the ‘higher for longer’ interest rate environment continuing to provide investors with attractive opportunities in liquid fixed income when compared with their private markets peers and it becomes clear why there was such a notable drop from 2023-2024 (Figure 2).


    Figure 2: New Fund of Funds Reported, 2023-2024

    Category2023 Count2024 Count% Change2023 GAV ($bn)2024 GAV ($bn)% Change
    Hedge Funds238215-10%70.649.6-30%
    Private Equity937693-26%233.871.4-69%
    Real Estate1251250%7.54.0-47%
    Venture Capital8814767%6.43.8-38%

    Source: 9AT, IAPD

    But, even removing 2024 from the analysis shows that the rebound in fundraising should perhaps be unsurprising purely from the perspective of delayed demand; now that liquidity is returning, LPs can redeploy faster (not to mention the desire to minimize holes across vintage years). And private debt is no longer the only game in town as yields are falling, and the asset class faces significant regulatory pressure on both sides of the Atlantic.

     

    Figure 3: Average Size of Fund of Funds Reported, 2023, 2025

    Category2023 Average GAV (mn)2025 Average GAV (mn)% Change
    Hedge Funds296.6260.9-12%
    Private Equity249.5135.7-46%
    Real Estate69.320.4-71%
    Venture Capital60.060.81%

    Source: 9AT, IAPD

    Other interesting themes can be seen in private markets fund of fund land, particularly in venture capital circles. The number of new VC FoFs reported on Form ADVs filed in 2025 is more than double that of two years ago, but the aggregate GAV raised by these funds has fallen by almost 40%.


    Subsequently, the average GAV has also fallen from $69.3m in 2023 to just $20.4m for new VC fund of funds reported on Form ADVs filed this year, in part due to first timers struggling to raise institutional capital as LPs continue to favor established, larger managers. But also, there are significant declines in the aggregate and average GAV of new private equity FoFs and new hedge fund of funds as well, despite the greater numbers.


    The fund of fund cohort in the alternative investment market has been under pressure generally in the past decade or so, as investors have looked to more customized private markets portfolios. But, while the hedge fund, PE and venture categories grew both in terms of the number of funds managed and the aggregate assets from last year to this, a good chunk of that can likely be attributed to a lag.


    Will the average fund size continue to shrink in the coming years? Time will tell. The recent past has certainly provided interesting times for the alternative investment market, and we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how the fund of fund space grows – or shrinks – in the coming months.

     

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  • 11/12/2025

    New York Elections

    November in the USA means Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Veterans Day, baseball (yes, really – ten World Series since 2000 have ended in November, including the most recent edition, when the LA Dodgers triumphed over the Toronto Blue Jays in game 7 on November 1st) – and elections.


    Last year was the big one, of course – the Presidential election. But this year, while certainly nowhere near as high profile, the New York mayoral election and the Virgina and New Jersey gubernatorial elections each commanded significant column inches in the news media – and plenty on social media platforms as well.


    It’s the New York election that has most in the US private funds space talking. Democratic candidate and NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has said that he would increase taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers to fund some of his policies, which in turn have led many commentators to predict an exodus of talent from the Big Apple to more ‘tax-friendly’ states.


    If said migration were to happen, it wouldn’t be a new trend. Back in 2023, a Bloomberg article suggested that approximately $1trn worth of assets had left New York and California for pastures new, which means, other things being equal, less tax receipts for those states as a result.


    That’s corporations, of course, not people (at least, not directly). But there is evidence to suggest that the finance industry in New York is shrinking in terms of the percentage of inhabitants that work in it: Just 7.7% this past August, according to The Economist. Part of the reason will be slower growth in the number of jobs in New York’s finance industry, and part will be higher growth in other cities, relocating some existing workers. 


    The extent to which New Yorkers do or don’t leave the city during Mamdani’s term is difficult to predict. Firstly, certain tax rises in the Empire state require state senate and/or governor approval – which does not appear to be guaranteed as incumbent NY governor Kathy Hochul told the Raging Moderates podcast recently that she was “concerned about outmigration of people who are the ones who are supporting our budget.”


    Second is the fact that just because a private fund adviser leaves a state doesn’t mean that the workers will. The emergence and stickiness of remote work in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic means that a company can relocate to a state where corporation tax is lower, but its employees can still work from where they currently live.


    Which leads into something we can measure – whether private fund advisers do indeed jump ship in the near future. The vast majority of private fund advisers in the US file their annual Form ADV in the first quarter of the calendar year because the deadline for doing so is 90 days after the end of their financial year – which, for most, is December 31st.


    Which means that in early April, we will be able to see which advisers do move between now and the end of the year.


    That’s a short window, however. And plenty might want to play a game of wait-and-see, given the aforementioned apparent hesitance of the governor to support tax increases.


    And even with political will, New York’s legislative machinery isn’t built for sudden tax shifts. Any new city income tax on high earners would almost certainly need to be negotiated as part of the 2026 state budget cycle, meaning that the soonest New Yorkers would see such a change would likely be mid- to late-2026.


    That means the true extent to which private fund advisers and their employees leave New York – or not – won’t be known until April 2027.  While anecdotal evidence will emerge before then, those bigwigs in the New York alternative investment space who want to remain there will no doubt be hoping that Governor Hochul’s apparent hesitancy to agree to tax hikes turns out to be a very real roadblock.

     

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  • 10/14/2025

    There are Still Plenty of Self-Administering Private Funds – and It’s Not Just the Start-Ups

    Institutional investors tend to prefer allocating to private funds that hire external fund administrators. A third-party provider adds independence, reduces conflicts of interest, and provides an extra layer of oversight and assurance. Yet despite the fact that it would seem obvious to fund managers to tick this particular client preference box, some funds still choose to self-administer. 

    It’s not as crazy as it sounds. For smaller or more specialized managers, outsourcing may feel disproportionate to their size and cost base. Others may value the control, flexibility, and confidentiality of in-house administration, especially when they think that they have the right expertise in-house.
    So, this month, we took a look at the 9AT database to see just how prevalent self-administered funds are. To be clear, we looked only at advisers that listed no fund admins at all on any of their funds – some advisers had funds where they did list the admin, and some where they didn’t – because we were more curious about the corner of the market that seems to eschew the independent fund administrator entirely.


    The extent of the prevalence depends largely on your point of view.


    There were, at the end of September, 3,229 private fund advisers that listed no fund administrator on any of their collective 20,020 funds. That compares to 14,498 private fund advisers and an aggregate 125,911 funds in the total private funds’ universe. Again, to emphasize, we are looking only at advisers which have no externally administered funds – there are some advisers that have both internally and externally administered vehicles. But using our methodology, we can say that 22.3% of all advisers do not have an external administrator, and at least 15.9% of all funds are internally administered (and plenty more when including funds from managers that have admins listed on some funds).


    That’s higher than we thought it might be. But what is less surprising, perhaps, is how this all shakes out at the category level. There are 10 times more private equity funds than hedge funds that self-administer, and approximately 8.5 times more self-administered venture capital funds than hedge funds (Table 1 below). 


    Table 1: Funds of Firms With no Listed Administrator, by Type

    Fund Category Quantity
    Private Equity8,434
    Venture Capital6,832
    Real Estate Fund2,272
    Other1,615
    Hedge Fund810
    Securitized Asset Fund51

     

    That data doesn’t tell the whole story, of course, because there are approximately twice as many private equity funds as hedge funds and 1.5 times as many venture capital funds as hedge funds, so the raw numbers for those categories. But the general trend of greater use of hedge funds being more common users of external fund administrators is likely a surprise to no-one  due to higher trading volumes, more complex investment strategies, the need for more frequent valuations due to daily or monthly price changes, and the more frequent investor subscriptions and redemptions. Accurate and independent NAV calculations are clearly more critical here.


    By contrast, private equity and venture capital funds are generally closed-end vehicles with long investment horizons. Capital is usually committed up front and called down over time, valuations are performed quarterly, semi-annually or even annually, and they rely more heavily on manager judgment since portfolio companies are illiquid and not publicly traded. In this environment, investors are more accepting of internal administration, provided the manager has robust processes in place.


    What is also interesting is what the self-admin market looks like. Approximately one third are under $10mn in Total Private Fund GAV and more than two-thirds - 70% manage less than 5 funds.


    But there are some big guns that have shown – are showing? – that becoming an alternative investment behemoth is entirely possible without the support that an external administrator provides. 
    The top three self- administering firms by Total Private Fund gross asset value are shown in Table 2 below and they are all ‘household’ names in the private markets industry.
     

    Table 2: Top Three Self-Administering Private Fund Advisors

    Fund Category CategoryQuantity
    Hines Capital AdvisorsReal Estate$465B
    Warburg PincusPrivate Equity$148B
    Andreesen HorowitzPrivate Equity and Venture Capital$83B

     

    What will be interesting is to see if any of the firms that currently self-administer end up changing their mind by this time next year (and which administrators they hire if they do). And it will also be interesting to see whether or not these numbers will be higher or lower in aggregate; if you read the news media, you’ll be told that the general trend would seem to be towards outsourcing to an external fund administrator but we’re wondering if the ever-increasing costs of launching a private fund sponsor might mitigate or even negate that trend.

     

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  • 09/19/2025

    Private Fund Service Provider League Tables Shows Further Hints of Change

    Do you want to know which service providers have been hired to support the new private funds launched in the past year or so? After all, some of them may turn into the next billion-dollar hedge, private equity or real estate fund.

    So do we. We took a look at the 9AT database to produce something of an update to last year’s version of this endeavor.  

    At the same time, we dug into at the overall picture, to try and understand which firms dominated their category – or not. Form ADV asks private fund sponsors to list the auditors, custodians, fund administrators and prime brokers.  

    Here is what we found...

    Auditors

    Last year, EY, Deloitte, PwC, KPMG and BDO were the five most common auditors hired by new funds (based on the aggregate gross asset value (GAV) of the funds). It’s the same story this year, albeit in a different order, and the five firms also provide the top five auditors for all funds (new and existing) at both year-end last year, and on September 1st this year (table 2).

    Looking slightly beyond the top five is where it starts to get a little more interesting, however. On the surface, it appears that both RSM and Grant Thornton came very close to dislodging BDO from fifth spot overall – see Table 2b below. The interesting observation is, however, that in the past eight months, BDO has increased its GAV under audit.

    Table 1: Top Five Fund Auditors of New Funds Identified from 2025 Form ADV Filings, Jan-Aug, sorted by GAV

    RankingAuditorGAV ($bn)AdvisersFunds
    1PwC$603.63241,181
    2EY$559.63871,611
    3KPMG$312.5346974
    4Deloitte$214.4274947
    5BDO$39.2105282

    Table 2: Top Five Auditors of All Funds Identified from latest Form ADV Filings, as of Aug 31, 2025

    RankingAuditorFunds GAV- Current ($bn)Funds GAV- YE2024 ($bn)% Market Share- Current% Market Share- YE2024
    1EY$ 9,902$ 9,33932%31%
    2PWC$ 8,115$ 7,67826%26%
    3KPMG$ 5,115$ 5,18616%17%
    4Deloitte$ 4,873$ 4,56416%15%
    5BDO$ 581$ 5082%2%

    Table 2b: Auditors of All Funds Identified from latest Form ADV Filings, as of Aug 31, 2025, Positions Five-Seven

    RankingAuditorFunds GAV- CurrentFunds GAV- YE2024
    5BDO$ 581,311,904,525$ 508,075,734,589
    6RSM$ 568,147,874,719$ 537,680,072,634
    7Grant Thornton$ 566,585,408,966$ 571,847,495,076

    Custodians

    There is an interesting observation in the new funds’ cohort of the custodian category, regardless of whether you sort the league table by aggregate GAV or the total number of funds services.

    In the former method, Credit Agricole is not only a new entry but indeed it leads the way. Its $388.9bn of funds comes from just 24 advisers and 69 funds, however, as can be seen in Table 4a. If you dig deeper into those funds, the outlier is a $372bn Luxembourg-domiciled hedge fund managed by PGIM, which essentially put Credit Agricole in first position.

    Sorting on the number of funds, however, shows Credit Agricole exit the top five altogether, and a new name, First Citizens Bancshares, coming in at number 2 (table 4b).

    Overall, Morgan Stanley enters the top five at number five but keep an eye out – every firm in the top five has gained assets since the end of 2024 (table 5). No-one ever got fired for buying IBM, after all.

    Table 4a: Top Five Fund Custodians of New Funds Identified from 2025 Form ADV Filings, Jan-Aug, sorted by GAV

    RankingCustodianGAV ($bn)AdvisersFunds
    1Credit Agricole$388.92469
    2J.P. Morgan$345.15591,923
    3Bank of New York Mellon$251.0196811
    4Bank of America$226.1208723
    5Citigroup$147.4135376

    Table 4b: Top Five Fund Custodians of New Funds Identified from 2025 Form ADV Filings, Jan-Aug, sorted by Fund Count

    RankingCustodianGAV ($bn)AdvisersFunds
    1J.P. Morgan$345.15591,923
    2First Citizens Bancshares$96.73131,023
    3Bank of New York Mellon$251.0196811
    4Bank of America$226.1208723
    5US Bancorp$127.9152408

    Table 5: Top Five Custodians of All Funds Identified from latest Form ADV Filings, as of Aug 31, 2025

    RankingCustodianFunds GAV- Current ($bn)Funds GAV- YE2024 ($bn)% Market Share- Current% Market Share- YE2024
    1J.P. Morgan$ 13,078$ 11,88111%11%
    2Bank of America$ 10,257$ 9,2058%8%
    3Bank of New York Mellon$ 9,681$ 8,9518%8%
    4Citigroup$ 7,030$ 6,5076%6%
    5Morgan Stanley$ 6,740$ 5,5896%5%

    Prime Brokers

    Same old, same old for the prime broker set. Last year, JP Morgan, Barclays, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs took the top five slots for new funds, and the quintet do so again this year – albeit in a different order (table 6a).

    Sorting by fund count tells a different story, however. Interactive Brokers comes in at number two (table 6b). Its 175 funds account for only $15bn in GAV, indicating a strong presence in the small and emerging manager category.

    Citigroup featured in the top five new funds league table both last year and this year, but does not in the overall list – yet. It sits sixth, around $1.2 trillion short of Bank of America.

    Table 6a: Top Five Fund Prime Brokers of New Hedge Funds Identified from 2025 Form ADV Filings, Jan-Aug, sorted by GAV

    RankingPrime BrokerGAV ($bn)AdvisersFunds
    1Morgan Stanley$127.6123198
    2J.P. Morgan$119.586124
    3Goldman Sachs$94.4101154
    4Barclays$76.42233
    5Citigroup$75.22232

    Table 6b: Top Five Fund Prime Brokers of New Hedge Funds Identified from 2025 Form ADV Filings, Jan-Aug, sorted by Fund Count

    RankingPrime BrokerGAV ($bn)AdvisersFunds
    1Morgan Stanley$127.6123198
    2Interactive Brokers$15.0156175
    3Goldman Sachs$94.4101154
    4J.P. Morgan$119.586124
    5Bank of America$72.14884

    Table 7: Top Five Prime Brokers of All Hedge Funds Identified from latest Form ADV Filings, as of Aug 31, 2025

    RankingPrime BrokerFunds GAV- Current ($bn)Funds GAV- YE2024 ($bn)% Market Share- Current% Market Share- YE2024
    1J.P. Morgan$ 7,589$ 6,62611%11%
    2Morgan Stanley$ 7,427$ 6,22711%11%
    3Goldman Sachs$ 7,162$ 6,45310%11%
    4Barclays$ 6,506$ 5,3599%9%
    5Bank of America$ 6,418$ 5,3689%9%

    Administrators

    Are we saving the most interesting category for last? After all, last year, data from the 9AT database showed that the admin category is the one where the firms atop the leaderboard have the smallest market share when compared to their audit, custody and prime broker peers, indicating a much more fractured and competitive market.

    We are. In the new funds category, change is afoot. While CITCO and SS&C Technologies top the leaderboard (after coming in fourth and fifth in last year’s new funds table), when sorting by GAV, three new names appear this time: SEI Investments, Apex Group and Hedgeserv.

    When sorting by fund count, however, Carta, which began life helping startups manage their cap tables, and has since built a fund administration service, takes the top spot. One to keep an eye on in future updates to this article, apparently.

    Still, they have a way to go to break into the top five overall – which Apex has done this year, dislodging Bank of New York Mellon. The top four from last year – SS&C Technologies, Citco, State Street and Northern Trust – remain this year, in that very same order.

    Table 8a: Top Five Fund Administrators of New Funds Identified from 2025 Form ADV Filings, Jan-Aug, sorted by GAV

    RankingAdministratorGAV ($bn)AdvisersFunds
    1CITCO$503.1108307
    2SS&C Technologies$109.5204490
    3SEI Investments$93.159390
    4Apex Group$73.5175412
    5HedgeServ$59.03491

    Table 8b: Top Five Fund Administrators of New Funds Identified from 2025 Form ADV Filings, Jan-Aug, sorted by Fund Count

    RankingAdministratorGAV ($bn)AdvisersFunds
    1Carta$8.0208541
    2SS&C Technologies$109.5204490
    3NAV Consulting$24.1257424
    4Apex Group$73.5175412
    5SEI Investments$93.159390

    Table 9: Top Five Fund Administrators of All Funds Identified from latest Form ADV Filings, as of Aug 31, 2025

    RankingAdministratorFunds GAV- Current ($bn)Funds GAV- YE2024 ($bn)% Market Share- Current% Market Share- YE2024
    1SS&C Technologies$ 4,110$ 3,89515%15%
    2CITCO$ 3,960$ 3,07515%12%
    3State Street$ 1,987$ 2,2097%9%
    4Northern Trust$ 1,788$ 1,6437%6%
    5Apex Group$ 1,429$ 1,3495%5%

     

    It is well worth noting that these league tables look across all fund categories, lumping together hedge, PE, and VC into one broad brushstroke. Breaking up the data by different parameters- such as fund type, size, domicile, etc.- yields even more interesting findings. Users of our database can use our League Table page to dig even deeper to see rankings within various combinations of parameters. 

    We’ll likely revisit these league tables again at some point – while most of the names on these lists will be unsurprising to many, some most certainly will be, and it will be interesting to see how some of the challenger firms fare over the next 12 months and beyond.

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  • 08/13/2025

    Hedge Funds Are Back as Category Leads Private Fund Sales in H1

    It’s August already. How did that happen?! 

    But before the schools go back, and we enter the home stretch of the year, we wanted to do a half-year check-in to see what the state of the market is in terms of capital raising in the US private funds industry so far in 2025.

    That means Form D filings. And the headline is that the numbers are up.

    The first half of last year saw 6,886 Form D filings submitted to the SEC between January 1st and June 30th, good for a total dollar value of $166.7bn.* Of those, 661 were hedge funds ($65bn), 1,926 were private equity funds ($40.1bn), 2,981 were venture capital funds ($12.9bn), and 1,318 were ‘other’ investment funds ($48.7bn).

    But this year, 7,571 filings were submitted in H1, an increase of 10%; but the increase in the aggregate total amount sold - $222.5bn in the first half this year - represents a huge 33.5% uplift from last year’s $166.7bn.

    It is a similar story at the category level. Table 1 below shows that, for the main pooled investment fund categories available to filers on the Form D, both the number of filings and the total sales were up year on year.

    Table 1: Form D Filings, January – June, 2024, 2025

    Category 2024 Count 2025 Count 2024 $ Amount 2025 $ Amount 
    Hedge Fund 661 811 $ 64,958,087,260 $ 80,736,000,465 
    Other 1318 1366 $ 48,675,672,598 $ 58,976,698,187 
    Private Equity  1926 2220 $ 40,140,727,490 $ 64,305,778,248 
    Venture Capital  2981 3174 $ 12,910,465,197 $ 18,580,490,340 

    *We use the Total Amount Sold on Form D to estimate the amount raised in dollars.

    Many have been commenting about the challenges that new hedge funds face to raise assets for years, but now, it appears that they are back, with the category delivering not only the highest total sales value in the first half of this year, but given the category also has the lowest number of filings on aggregate, the highest average size as well.

    The numbers don’t paint the whole picture, either, because not every filer discloses their sales on the initial Form D.

    Some funds file it proactively — for example, if the first subscription hasn't settled yet, or if they're setting everything up in anticipation of imminent fundraising. In these cases, they may list $0 sold or leave the sales data blank because they haven't received any subscriptions yet, so there's genuinely nothing to report.

    But the cynic would say that optics play a significant role. If a fund launches, makes a few early sales, files a Form D showing a tiny amount raised — and then fails to raise more over the next year — that filing becomes a kind of public scarlet letter. It says, “We tried… and got nowhere.” And that's not a good look for a fund trying to build momentum or impress prospective investors.

    So instead of putting “$1m raised,” they might just file early, leave the sales amount blank or at zero, and quietly update it later (or not at all) with an amended Form D once there’s a respectable number to show — or avoid updating it if the raise goes nowhere.

    Anyway, despite the hedge fund category roaring back in the first half of 2025, it is the private markets folks which dominate the ‘league table’ of the largest filers. That should come as no surprise, as it usually takes a lot more money to buy a company than take a position in the stock market.  

    So, which firms or funds have been gobbling up the money so far this year? Table 2 below shows the dominance of the private equity and ‘other’ categories in the multi-billion-dollar market.

    Table 2: Largest Form D Filings, Jan-June 2025, by Category and Total Amount Sold

    Fund Name Category Total Amount Sold 
    Graham Global Investment Fund II SPC LTD Hedge Fund $15.0bn 
    Graham Global Investment Fund I SPC LTD Hedge Fund $10.8bn 
    Atlas Capital Resources V LP Private Equity $6.3bn 
    Founders Fund Growth III, LP Venture Capital $4.6bn 
    Millennium Global Estate Series Interest of the SALI Multi-Series Fund, L.P. Hedge Fund $3.9bn 
    Verde Alpha Fund, LTD. Hedge Fund $3.4bn 
    Blackstone Capital Opportunities Feeder Fund V-R (CYM) LP Private Equity $3.3bn 
    Golub Capital Insurance Fund Series Interests of the SALI Multi-Series Fund, L.P. Hedge Fund $2.4bn 
    Graham Absolute Return Trading Ltd. Hedge Fund $2.4bn 
    3G Fund VI, L.P. Private Equity $2.3bn 

     

    Reasons for the growth in the private fund market in the US can’t be derived from the data, but the three interest rate cuts by the US Fed between September and December last year likely have had a positive impact on new fund launches in the first half of this year, as investors rotate away from the ‘flavor-of-the-month of recent times’ liquid fixed income investments into alternatives.  

    But for those in the private funds market, a 10% increase in the total number of filings, and an increase in dollars allocated of one-third – remember, that’s a minimum one-third due to the zero sales reported in some instances – the numbers from the first six months of 2025 will be most encouraging. 

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  • 07/09/2025

    Does the Alternative Investment Market Actually Need an Interest Rate Cut?

    Here at 9AT we, obviously, would like to see the alternative investment industry thrive and grow.


    So, the additional interest rate cuts that we, and many others that we talk to - whether we’re out and about at industry conferences, or just during the course of our working week – were hoping for at the beginning of the year, which should, other things being equal, support fundraising and deal activity, are yet to materialize.


    Ignore the politics for a minute and let’s look at some of the data. The most recent jobs data published at the beginning of the month showed nonfarm payroll up by 147,000 in June, which is in line with the average monthly gain of 146,000 over the prior 12 months. And job data for April and May have been revised upwards since the original data was released for those months.


    So, more Americans now have more money. That is not a recipe for lower rate expectations.


    Next, inflation. While inflation rates have plateaued to around 3% - regularly less – since the middle of 2023, the rate has ticked up in the past couple of months which could give hawks more reason to resist President Trump’s calls for a 300 basis point cut.


    Again, that is hardly a leading indicator for a rate cut.


    But does the alternative investment industry need one? Hedge funds could well point to the first half of 2025 being good – the HFRI is up 3.77% year to date and 8.54% in the last 12 months. Part of the reason for the good performance so far could be market volatility, which is generally a tailwind for hedge funds (or is supposed to be). And the returns in the ZIRP environment of the post-GFC decade certainly weren’t amazing (on average).
    And higher rates are a tailwind to certain private credit strategies as well. Many loans by private debt funds are floating rate, so the higher the interest rate, the higher the IRR (let’s ignore the higher risk of loans becoming non-performing for now).


    And demand for private credit is set to continue, according to HSBC, to the tune of $3trn in the next three years. And McKinsey says that private markets generally are set to see greater allocations from limited partners in the coming year.


    There is no doubt that lower rates support fundraising in alternatives as investors look for investments that can generate an acceptable yield. And lower rates support increased activity in private equity as the cost of financing deals falls.


    But lower rates support zombie companies, whereas higher rates do not. And higher rates help to separate the great from the good in the sense that a higher-cost regime makes a private markets fund or a hedge fund really earn their fees by delivering good performance in a more challenging environment.


    What happens with interest rates remains to be seen, of course. But from the conversations we have been having, we don’t think that the lack of a rate reduction so far this year has been a significant drag on the alternative investment industry.
     

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