GAM Investments today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Liberty Street Advisors, Inc. (“Liberty Street”) to provide clients with access to leading late-stage privately-owned technology and innovation-driven companies.
The team at Liberty Street is deeply experienced in private markets investing and has an extensive track record investing in late stage, high-growth innovation companies. In partnership with Liberty Street, GAM plans to launch a capability which will leverage the expertise of Liberty Street’s private markets investment team. This capability will give clients the opportunity to gain exposure to a market which has historically been difficult for them to access.
Growth equity is a segment of the private equity asset class which sits between venture capital and traditional private equity. The growth equity space is expanding at unprecedented levels, with disruptive technology-driven growth across multiple sectors and industries. This growth has led to a proliferation of unicorns, with more than 900 venture capital backed companies currently valued at over USD 1 billion and many more on a similar trajectory.[1] By investing in these types of late stage high-growth, innovation companies the Liberty Street team seeks to participate in their potential appreciation while they are under private ownership.
Peter Sanderson, Group Chief Executive Officer at GAM Investments, said: “We are delighted to partner with Liberty Street to provide our clients with access to leading privately-owned companies. The team at Liberty Street has deep, multi-decade investing experience, as well as established relationships within the venture eco-system, and is an ideal partner for us.
“An increasing number of our clients are seeking to diversify their portfolios by including longer-term private asset investment strategies. In our view, privately-owned companies in their later-stage non-public funding rounds could offer investors strong long-term performance potential, while their historical downside resilience and lower volatility compared to public equities also makes this asset class attractive for portfolio diversification.”
Kevin Moss, a Managing Director at Liberty Street, said: “We are seeing companies stay private for longer, driven primarily by regulatory changes, ease of business model development in the private sphere and a larger pool of available private capital. A significant portion of these companies’ value appreciation occurs prior to entry into the public markets, at mid or large cap size. We believe that late-stage, private growth companies can present an attractive balance of risk and return for investors, compared to early-stage venture investments and public equities.”
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