Private Equity Is Hunting for a Quicker Path to Tap 401(k) Money
The trillions in retirement plans were largely off-limits until Donald Trump signed an executive order empowering employers to add alternative investments of all kinds
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Alternative asset managers are exploring what may be the fastest, most direct route yet to the roughly $12.5 trillion in American workers’ retirement plans: adding their illiquid assets to investors’ existing vanilla funds.
Blackstone Inc., Carlyle Group Inc., Apollo Global Management Inc., and Blue Owl Capital Inc. are among Wall Street firms that are talking with mutual fund companies about finding a way to add private credit and potentially private equity to some existing target-date funds, the premixed portfolios that have become a mainstay of 401(k) plans and that typically invest in stocks and bonds, according to people familiar with the ongoing discussions who asked not to be identified citing private talks.