The top executives of the private wealth division of the US asset management giant with a focus on alternative investments speak to BeBeez International
StepStone Group, an U.S. asset management giant with a focus on alternative investments, is open to partnership proposals from Italian private bankers and wealth managers to enable high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and mass affluent investors to access private markets through the semi-liquid products of its subsidiary StepStone Private Wealth.
Bob Long, the ceo of Stepstone Private Wealth, said in an exclusive interview to BeBeez: “Stepstone Group, a global Nasdaq-listed private markets investment firm, and its subsidiary StepStone Private Wealth handle resources in the region of $640 billion of total capital ($326 billion in Private Equity, $45 billion in Private Debt, $84 billion in Infrastructure and $187 billion in Real Estate as of June 30, 2023, see here 1QFY24 earnings presentation, editor’s note). We are open to hearing proposals from networks of private bankers and wealth managers to increase our foothold in the region and enable non-institutional investors to gain more exposure to unlisted markets. The latter have historically generated better returns than their public peers. Furthermore, StepStone’s private wealth solutions build portfolios with quality assets. General Partners from all over the world help us to carry out co-investments, secondary markets transactions and marginally primary market deals. This strategy allows investors to access markets at different entry points and distinct stages of economic and financial cycles consistently with the principles of convenience, efficiency and transparency that inspire us. Our private wealth solutions also benefit from a broad diversification of actively managed portfolios that more than 340 global investment professionals run with the support of StepStone’s data intelligence, network and deep experience in private markets. We offer private wealth investors a way to access non-public markets. It is a simple and substantial innovation.”
Celine El Debs, StepStone Private Wealth’s Head of EMEA Distribution, emphasized that ‘StepStone Private Wealth “has not yet signed distribution agreements in Italy for its private wealth solutions and is considering working with networks of private bankers and wealth managers to make its products available to eligible investors.”
StepStone Group’s interest in non-institutional Italian investors is further boosting the momentum of the private markets democratization trend that is taking place in Europe. The Italian market is of growing interest to financial firms in the frame of such an international trend (see also BeBeez Magazine No. 9 of June 24). The alternative asset managers are seeking to attract the resources of family offices, high net worth individuals and clients of wealthy private banking services. Furthermore, many open-end fund managers with a focus on listed instruments are implementing a private capital approach for structuring new illiquid and semi-liquid products. Such items are for clients interested in higher returns that are less related to business cycles.
Earlier in July, Banca Generali‘s Luxembourg-based Sicav-SIF BG Private Markets (a vehicle that BG Fund Management Luxembourg sa manages) launched three new sub-funds in partnership with Carlyle, Lion River and Generali Real Estate. The vehicles aim to attract the money of HNWIs, Ultra-HNWIs (UHNWIs) and non-institutional clients that want to focus their investments on private credit, private equity and real estate. BG Fund Management Luxembourg sa is the manager of Sicav-SIF BG Private Markets (see here a previous article by BeBeez). In June 2023, Mediobanca Private Banking and Apollo Global Management signed an agreement for granting their UHNW professional clients the access to private markets products with a diversified investment strategy and to a more than $10 billion worth diversified private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure portfolio with a 10-years track record (see here a previous article by BeBeez). Blackstone also announced in June 2023 the launch in the Italian market of the fundraising for its European credit fund with the support of Unicredit that will sell to private investors tickets of at least 100,000 euros. Blackstone already carried on similar partnerships in Asia, the United Kingdom and Switzerland (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
