Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
We were live from Berlin, which becomes the “capital of private capital” in June as private equity industry leaders make the annual pilgrimage to the city for one of the marquee private equity conferences, SuperReturn Berlin.
With
Prosek Partners and former Bloomberg TV journalist
Deirdre Bolton as my producer, along with her team, we took over a Tiny Space cabin to hold big conversations with some of the industry’s leading alternative asset managers.
A little over two years ago, I
wrote on AGM about how, at $456B in AUM in alternatives, Goldman Sachs was a “sleeping giant” in private markets. In reality, Goldman is anything but a sleeping giant in private markets, having started its private equity business in 1984 and earning the distinction of being a top-5 alternatives manager by AUM across both traditional and alternative asset managers.
Today, Goldman has grown its alternatives business to over $625B in AUM.
The evolution of Goldman’s Alternatives business reflects a thoughtful, measured approach to understanding the needs of wealth channel investors and finding the utility and purpose of strategy, product, and product structure.
That was much of the focus of the conversation Kyle and I had in Berlin. We discussed the objective and utility of private markets in a portfolio. We covered:
- The growth of evergreen funds.
- Why evergreens are the product structure of choice.
- Why are evergreens also appealing to institutional allocators, insurance companies, and UHNW investors?
- How GPs and LPs are approaching LP composition to evergreen vehicles.
- The next wave of product innovation.
- The build, buy, partner framework
- Why Goldman is so excited about the GeoWealth partnership and what the future of model portfolios look like.
- What is not known but should be known about the Goldman Alternatives franchise.
Bio
Kyle Kniffen is a managing director in the Client Solutions Group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He serves as global head of Alternatives for Third Party Wealth (TPW), overseeing client strategy for the firm’s TPW clients globally, delivering the power of the Alternatives investing platform to a broad set of individual investors through our partnerships with financial intermediary clients and their advisors, including Private Banks, Broker-Dealers, RIAs and other distribution platforms. Kyle partners closely with leadership across our Alternatives franchise to develop products that meet our clients’ evolving needs. He is also co-chair of the AWM Global Distribution Working Group.
Prior to this role, Kyle was in Alternative Capital Markets (ACM), serving as head of ACM for Goldman Sachs Ayco and leading coverage for One Goldman Sachs financial sponsors globally. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2018 as a vice president in ACM and was named managing director in 2021.
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Kyle led a variety of distribution and product management teams for Bank of America’s Alternative Investment Group within their Global Wealth and Investment Management division.
Kyle is a board member for the Institute of Portfolio Alternatives (IPA), and a member of The Economic Club of New York. Kyle earned a BA from Gettysburg College.
Thanks, Kyle, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about private markets and serving the wealth channel.
Show Notes00:00 AGM Live from SuperReturn Berlin
01:10 Wealth Meets Private Markets
01:37 Big Pools Little Allocation
02:24 Alt Strategies Explosion
03:04 Lessons from Hedge Funds
03:34 Start with Client Goals
03:53 Risk Liquidity Tradeoffs
04:10 Portfolio Utility First
04:25 Holistic Private Markets
04:44 Fit and Terms Matter
05:07 Setting Expectations
05:32 Product Innovation Shift
05:52 Evergreens and Flexibility
06:10 Monthly Access and Tactics
06:39 Evergreen Growth Rates
06:45 Education and Dispersion
07:15 Why Evergreens Exist
07:41 Diversification Lower Minimums
08:04 Operational Simplicity
08:21 Evergreen Nuance Phase One
08:47 Goldman in Third Party Wealth
09:26 Institutions Buying Evergreens
10:31 LP Mix and Liquidity Caps
11:36 Institutionalizing Wealth Platforms
13:29 Goldman Platform Advantage
14:46 Feeding the Evergreen Engine
15:13 GeoWealth and Model Portfolios
15:45 T Rowe Price Collaboration
16:12 Build vs Buy Partner Balance
16:42 Industry Ventures Acquisition
17:33 Goldman Alts Heritage
18:35 Pioneering GP Stakes
19:45 Secondaries Since 1998
20:12 Apex of Private Markets
21:08 Will Secondaries Be Core
21:48 Max Flexibility for Wealth
22:42 Customization vs Scale
23:16 Flagships Then Bespoke
23:49 Lessons from Private Wealth
25:10 Broader Menu of Privates
What is Alt Goes Mainstream: The Latest on Alternative Investments, WealthTech, & Private Markets?
Alt Goes Mainstream podcast is the place to turn to for interviews with some of the brightest and most experienced minds in the world at the intersection private markets and wealth management. AGM dives into investment strategies like private equity (PE), private credit, venture capital (VC), secondaries, GP stakes, infrastructure, real estate, wealth management, and comprehensively covers tools and frameworks for approaching private markets, such as asset allocation, evergreen funds, model portfolios, and more. For anyone looking to invest into private markets (from experienced wealth managers to family offices to the individual investor looking for a more diversified investment portfolio), you’ll hear inside stories from executives and founders at some of the world’s largest financial institutions, alternative asset managers firms, and wealth management firms. More than a personal finance podcast, Alt Goes Mainstream dives deep into trends, investment strategies, firm building lessons, and innovative technologies that are enabling investors to access private markets.