BlackRock, Partners team up for retail private markets offering

BlackRock Inc. and Partners Group Holding AG are teaming up to offer retail investors access to a variety of private markets through a single portfolio, tapping into rising demand for alternative investments.

The firms plan to create a “one-stop portfolio” to provide access to private equity, private credit and real assets, they said in a statement on Thursday, enabling advisers to offer clients numerous assets through a single subscription document. Partners shares rose as much as 3.6%, the most in a month, as of 9:28 a.m. in Zurich. 

“In a world where private markets are growing by $1 trillion or more every year, many financial advisors still find it too difficult to help their clients participate,” Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock’s global client business said. 

While the private credit universe has largely been reserved for institutional investors such as insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds, the biggest firms in the industry have been looking to open it up to a wider range of investors, in part to offset the slowdown in funding. Quarterly inflows from the biggest investors near multi-year lows, according to data provider Preqin Ltd., making small investors an increasingly important feeding ground for private credit firms.

And so private credit firms are getting creative. Apollo Global Management Inc. is working on its first exchange-traded fund, teaming up with State Street Corp. on an offering that will include private credit investments, according to a filing this week. Others are seeking to tap the estimated $178 trillion personal wealth market by offering individual investors what looks almost like a mutual fund. 

BlackRock, with $10.6 trillion in assets at the end of June, is seeking to become a one-stop shop of stock, bond and private investments for retail and institutional clients. It has been expanding in alternative assets this year, announcing acquisitions of Global Infrastructure Partners and data provider Preqin. BlackRock’s U.S. Wealth Advisory business generated a quarter of the firm’s revenues in 2023.