Undeterred by global pandemic, market volatility and a shaky U.S. economic recovery, alternative investment managers moved ahead in May, attracting new capital in macro, alternative credit and private equity opportunities.
In total, 20 funds/strategies collected $19 billion in investment capital, according to fund closing and launch details reported by Alternatives Watch last month.
Interest has remained brisk throughout 2020. In February, private equity managers raised $10.7 billion. And for the entire first quarter, we tracked more than $22 billion in alternative investment mandates mostly by U.S. public pension plans.
April was a huge month for fundraising, with $35 billion in fresh capital chasing new and intriguing opportunities in health care technology, as recorded by fund closings and fundraising activities covered by Alternatives Watch. The majority of activity took place in distressed as Howard Mark’s was reported to have raised $15 billion for the largest distressed debt fund to have ever been raised.
Dominating May’s fund activity are a number of the strategies seek to profit and or/help ease the economic pain of the COVID-19 crisis by providing social impact investments such as Morgan Stanley’s new impact investing platform or to provide liquidity and credit in the case of direct lending deals and collateralized loan obligations.
The largest launch was at KKR completed a capital raise focused on investing in credit opportunities created by recent market volatility, with a total of $4 billion raised in its KKR Dislocation Opportunities Fund. Roughly $1.1 billion came from separately managed accounts committed to the same investment opportunities. The fund and these SMAs were raised in an eight-week period and will operate within KKR’s $67.6 billion credit business.
The fund held its final close on May 19 and included commitments from more than 20 new institutional investors to KKR and more than 40 new investors to KKR Credit. Officials said a major wealth management platform also contributed to the fundraising.
A full run-down of last month’s private market fund launches follows.
