With alternative assets hurtling towards the $20 trillion mark, VanEck is offering investors a fresh opportunity to catch the private market wave — without taking a seat at the private equity table.
The company today launched the VanEck Alternative Asset Manager ETF (NYSE:GPZ), the first U.S.-listed ETF that provides broad exposure to publicly traded companies dedicated to private market investing.
From venture capital and private equity to real estate, infrastructure and private credit, alternative asset managers are transforming global finance. Previously exclusive to institutional investors, these companies are now at the forefront of portfolios that pursue diversification and non-correlated returns.
“Volatility in the equity markets, the growing potential for rate cuts and a number of other factors appear to be converging, creating a far more favorable environment for many private market managers to deploy the massive reserves of capital they have accrued,” observed Brandon Rakszawski, VanEck vice president and director of Product Management. “That makes now a fascinating potential entry point for investing in the stocks of these firms themselves as they prepare to embark on a new cycle of deployment and growth.”
To be part of GPZ’s underlying index, the MarketVector Alternative Asset Managers Index, companies have to be “ultra-pure play” with 75% or more of revenues from private market business. The index is composed of publicly traded U.S., Canadian and developed European companies that meet certain market cap and liquidity screens, with a limit on individual company weights of 12%.
Top holdings at inception include industry giants such as Blackstone Inc (NYSE:BX), Brookfield, KKR & Co. Inc. (NYSE:KKR), and Apollo Asset Management (NYSE:APO), providing investors with exposure to the dominant participants in the alt asset boom.
Assets in alternative ownership rose from $7.4 trillion in 2014 to almost $19 trillion as of the close of 2024, fueled by investors’ pursuit of yield, postponed IPO schedules and private credit’s growth.
GPZ is busily following a market that’s no longer quite so alternative anymore, just ever more necessary.
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