Goldman Sachs' Kyle Kniffen - the arc of alternatives at Goldman Sachs: AGM Live at SuperReturn

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

We sat down with Kyle Kniffen, Managing Director, Global Head of Alternatives, Third Party Wealth at Goldman Sachs.

We were live from Berlin, which becomes the “capital of private capital” in June as private equity industry leaders make the annual pilgrimage to the city for one of the marquee private equity conferences, SuperReturn Berlin.

With Prosek Partners and former Bloomberg TV journalist Deirdre Bolton as my producer, along with her team, we took over a Tiny Space cabin to hold big conversations with some of the industry’s leading alternative asset managers.

A little over two years ago, I wrote on AGM about how, at $456B in AUM in alternatives, Goldman Sachs was a “sleeping giant” in private markets. In reality, Goldman is anything but a sleeping giant in private markets, having started its private equity business in 1984 and earning the distinction of being a top-5 alternatives manager by AUM across both traditional and alternative asset managers.

Today, Goldman has grown its alternatives business to over $625B in AUM.

The firm has expanded its platform with the acquisition of Industry Ventures and a partnership with T. Rowe Price to deliver public and private markets solutions to the wealth channel, and, most recently, the creation of its Alternative Investment Platform to provide HNW clients with direct access to private companies.

The evolution of Goldman’s Alternatives business reflects a thoughtful, measured approach to understanding the needs of wealth channel investors and finding the utility and purpose of strategy, product, and product structure.

That was much of the focus of the conversation Kyle and I had in Berlin. We discussed the objective and utility of private markets in a portfolio. We covered:

The growth of evergreen funds.Why evergreens are the product structure of choice.Why are evergreens also appealing to institutional allocators, insurance companies, and UHNW investors?How GPs and LPs are approaching LP composition to evergreen vehicles.The next wave of product innovation.The build, buy, partner framework Why Goldman is so excited about the GeoWealth partnership and what the future of model portfolios look like.What is not known but should be known about the Goldman Alternatives franchise.Bio

Kyle Kniffen is a managing director in the Client Solutions Group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He serves as global head of Alternatives for Third Party Wealth (TPW), overseeing