Raising the bar

Alternate assets: The new cash cow for financial corporates

Even as private equity funds struggle to raise money, financial services firms—backed by their wealth management business and distribution strength—are growing their alternative asset management aggressively

Pooja Sarkar, 3 Sep 2018

Financial services firms are leveraging their wealth management business to raise capital for their alternate asset funds

These funds are launching new strategies at a rapid rate to raise capital from domestic and offshore investors

FinServ firms are now moving away from pure lending to fund strategies as it directly adds to their return on equity and increases profitability

With the rise of the alternate asset businesses of financial corporates, the lines are blurring for what constitutes a private equity fund business

This is not a well-known story, so it bears telling. Five years back, in 2013, a global real estate fund decided to shut shop. Its partners, though, decided to stick around. With a plan to raise a Rs 300-crore ($42.8 million) residential fund. Over the next two years, they met investors across New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore, but capital never found its way.

AUTHOR

Pooja Sarkar

Pooja has been a journalist for about a decade now. She has worked at DNA Money, Business Standard and Mint. In her last assignment, Pooja was a chief correspondent at ET Now. At The Ken, she will write on private equity and the venture capital ecosystem. This, in the context of company strategy. Along with work, she is picking up important life skills these days, like the art of knitting a muffler.

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Alternate assets: The new cash cow for financial corporates