Leading Fund of Funds

In alternatives, the firm focuses on private markets (PE, private debt, infrastructure) and across hedge fund strategies globally. Aberdeen also has a partnership with Hedge Fund Research (HFR) to offer a series of passive products which track the HFR indices. Private Markets: ~$22 billion invested across strategies (excluding real estate), with 400 dedicated professionals. Private Market Highlights: US Private Equity: ~$2 billion committed across 100 funds and 50 co-investments. Focus on the buy-out in the US lower middle market. They are a 12 person team based out of Boston. Global Infrastructure: ~$4 billion committed across 120 investments. They are a 34 person team based in London, Edinburgh, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Bahrain, Sydney, and Bogota. Private Credit: ~$7 billion in AUM, across CRE debt, infrastructure debt, corporate private debt, and direct lending. They are 5 senior directors organized by strategy and based out of New York, and the UK. Global Real Estate: ~$51 billion in real estate assets. They are 270 professionals at over 15 locations globally. They invest across all principal real estate sectors Alternative Investment Strategy (Hedge Fund). Highlights: invests across all strategies globally, investments can be delivered as customized portfolios, managed accounts, commingled funds and/or liquid fund structures, and can serve as an advisor and can perform outsourced due diligence. The team is based primarily out of New York and London. They are Increasing review strategies through an ESG framework. read less

GCM has ~$60 billion in assets across all alternative categories. The firm has 157 investment professionals and a 95% institutional client base. While the firm does have investible discretionary FOFs, 76% of its AUM is in customized client portfolios. The firm has allocated- Hedge Funds ($23B): Invested in funds pursuing strategies including credit, equities, relative value, macro, commodities, and multi-strategy. They create turn-key solutions for a customized portfolio experience for their clients, and provide advisory services that include full investment, operational, and infrastructure support. Private Equity ($21B): Focus on middle market buyout investing with an emphasis in investing with small, emerging, and diverse managers.They look at leveraged buyout, growth and venture capital, distressed debt, and mezzanine debt strategies. Primaries - $20B, Secondaries - $2B, Co-Investments - $4B. Infrastructure ($5.5B) - Matthew Rinklin (NYC). They look at fund investments, co-investments, and direct. Real Estate ($3B) - Peter Braffman: Open architecture: Invest in primary funds, co-investments, joint ventures, and seeding arrangements. They look to invest early in fundraisers to reduce fees, and experience as much growth with the manager as possible. They focus on the middle market. Credit ($15B) - Craig Goldsmith: Invest in structured credit, corporate, distressed, direct, and real asset credit. Invest through primary funds, co-investments, secondaries, and direct transactions. Strategic investments ($2.5B) - Michael Murawczyk: Look for opportunistic co-investments and direct investment opportunities. Small & Emerging Manager Program (Also Diverse Managers): they are often used for larger pensions - one of the big ones that comes to mind is Texas Teachers Retirement System where they actually have an employee on-site in Texas - his name is Charles Pippen. For PE and Real Asset managers, they invest in funds with less than $1B, or managers that have launched three or fewer funds. Diverse managers are firms in which women or minority professionals account for at least 25% of firm economics. Breakdown of Assets for their EM/Diverse Manager Program: Private Equity ($10B) - Stephen Cammock (NY), DM: $4.1B, Hedge Fund ($3.4B) - Wei Yee Cheng (Chicago), DM: $1.7B, Real Assets ($2.5B), DM: $1B. read less

Primary ($40B): Scott Voss, Managing Director. Scott is the key contact where they invest in funds anywhere from the US to Asia, and emerging markets. They have small, medium, and large buyout partnerships. They venture capital managers that specialize in seed, early stage, later stage, and growth equity investments. Secondaries ($24B): Chris Row, Principal. They build a global commingled fund that looks at secondaries in Venture Capital, Buyout, and Credit. Co-Investments ($8B): Ian Lane, Managing Director. Ian specializes in these opportunities in the venture, buyout, and even mezzo transactions. Emerging & Diverse Program ($1.9B): Craig Fowler, Managing Director. This program is managed by the former BAML Capital Access Funds team, where they really only focus on domestic partners here. This program really only focuses on the lower middle market as well as underserved markets (primarily first-, second-, or third-time funds), diverse managers (women or minority general partners), and the underserved markets (funds that invest in companies that have historically lacked access to capital). Private Credit ($3B): Karen Simeone, Managing Director. Mezzanine and distressed debt partnerships. Real Assets ($2B): Michael Dean, Managing Director. They have real asset funds focused on infrastructure, power, energy, Real Estate, and natural resources. read less

For Private Equity, they look at buyout, venture capital, growth and special situations where they manage roughly $25B that includes 765 funds for primaries, with an additional $13B in secondaries that has closed 390 deals. They also like to leverage their current GP relations for these, as well as co-invest opportunities where they have closed 224 deals worth up to $3.4B. On the primaries side, they have a team of 30 plus professionals that are located in New York and San Francisco with offices also in London and Hong Kong as they have a European and Asia Fund of Funds. As you can imagine, with being around as long as they have, they have their long term relationships of managers, but they are definitely open-minded towards emerging managers. A good person to reach out to in San Francisco is Sara Lonergan. For secondaries, they have a heavy focus on infrastructure and real assets. For secondaries, reach out to Kevin Dunwoodie, where he is looking for those more mature assets that are selling at a discount, and for infrastructure and real assets where they have invested $12B - reach out to Evan Corley where they are also based in San Francisco. As for their private debt, they just launched their platform in 2019, so more to come on that front. read less

They currently only do private debt / private credit directly in house - so they do not allocate to outside managers there, they also make direct growth equity investments but do allocate to outside managers. They have a large focus on ESG, which is integrated into the investment process and actively monitored on an ongoing basis. The firm’s research function is organized by sub-strategy, so think co-investment, primary investment, growth equity and secondaries. Key contacts are: US LMM buy-out - Jim Korczak, Turnaround and Distressed - Jeff Burgis, and Venture - Brijesh Jeevarathnam. read less