KKR & Co. on Nov. 7 reported quarter-over-quarter growth in assets under management, while Carlyle Group and TPG, announcing third-quarter earnings on the same day, saw declines in AUM from the end of the second quarter.
All three reported AUM increases from the end of the year-earlier quarter.
KKR had $527.7 billion in AUM as of Sept. 30, up 1.8% at the end of the second quarter and a 6% increase year over year.
"While the fundraising environment has been tough, we feel as though we're positioned very differently than a number of our peers," said Robert H. Lewin, KKR's chief financial officer, during the firm's third quarter earnings call on Nov. 7. "None of the $54 billion that we have raised over the LTM (last twelve months) period has come from our flagship strategies" with about 80% of the capital raised in the year ended Sept. 30 from newer strategies that are less than five years old, Lewin said. In the next 12 months, KKR will be raising about 30 different strategies, of which 22 are funds one, two or three or the equivalent, he said.
Carlyle Group had $382 billion in AUM at Sept 30, down 1% from the prior quarter but up 4% from the end of the third quarter of 2022. TPG had $136.1 billion in AUM as of Sept. 30, down 2% from the second quarter's end but up 1% year over year. TPG's third quarter AUM doesn't include its acquisition of Angelo Gordon, which had $74 billion as of June 30, that closed after the end of the third quarter on Nov. 2.
KKR attributed the growth in assets under management to $14 billion of new capital raised in the third quarter and $54 billion in the year ended Sept. 30. Carlyle raised $6.3 billion in the third quarter and $20.2 billion year to date. Carlyle didn't report the 12-month period. Fundraising in the first three months of 2023 was down 19% compared to the prior year-to-date period, Carlyle reported.
"Overall, we've not been pleased with our pace of fundraising thus far in 2023, but our current expectation is for a step higher" with new capital raised in the fourth quarter, said Harvey M. Schwartz, chief executive officer of Carlyle during its third quarter earnings call on Nov. 7.
TPG reported raising $3.4 billion in the third quarter. However, its Angelo Gordon business, now called TPG Angelo Gordon, experienced a pause in fundraising across its strategies "from LPs who naturally wanted to understand exactly what was happening in the transaction," said CEO Jon Winkelried during its third quarter earnings call on Nov. 7. Among their questions were how Angelo Gordon will be integrated into TPG and whether decision making and investment processes would change, he added.
"So, not surprising in the context of a … transaction that is somewhat transformational for both organizations," Winkelried said. "I think we're very confident coming out of it that we will be able to accelerate capital formation together."
Carlyle and TPG are not alone among the eight publicly traded alternative investment firms tracked by Pensions & Investments. Real estate manager Cohen & Steers reported a 6.5% AUM decline to $75.2 billion in assets under management as of Sept. 30.
While Blackstone, dwarfing the other publicly traded alternative investment managers, had more than $1 trillion in assets under management at the end of the third quarter, which was relatively flat, up less than one percent (0.6%) from the end of the prior quarter.
