For UHNW individuals, alternative assets – including private equity, private credit, infrastructure and real estate – can form an important component of a diversified investment strategy. The Spear’s Private Equity and Alternative Assets Index brings together the world’s top advisers who guide individuals and families through the investment allocation process.
These advisers are at the forefront of a rapidly growing market. In 2025, McKinsey reported that private equity deals reached a record high of over $1 trillion in value, while the five biggest firms – Blackstone, Apollo, KKR, Ares and Brookfield – collectively control over $4 trillion in assets under management.
[See also: Why private capital can help solve ‘world’s most pressing problems’]
This boom is not exclusive to traditional institutional investors. A 2025 Barclays report found that 79 per cent of private investors surveyed expected to increase their allocations in private markets in the future, while 48 per cent who were not currently invested in alternatives said they were considering entering the space.
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‘We continue to see a structural shift towards private markets opening up further to individual investors,’ says Rashmi Madan, global head of portfolio solutions for Blackstone. ‘Our aim is to simplify access to Blackstone’s leading private markets platform through diversified, multi-strategy portfolios.’
Private investments are particularly useful for clients who are ‘comfortable with having some illiquidity in their portfolio’, notes Samuel Guinness of Goldman Sachs. ‘One of the reasons for that is that there is potential for greater returns long-term.’
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However, navigating this world and identifying strategic investment opportunities as an individual or family requires a keen understanding of market dynamics and risk management. It requires an adviser who can open doors that were previously closed and guide clients through a system that has traditionally catered to institutional investors.
Peter Beske Neilsen of EQT warns that that while ‘there is a growing awareness of the different needs between individual investors and institutions’, it is vital that clients instruct an adviser who can ‘understand their specific needs’ while ensuring that they ‘understand the complexities of private markets’.
[See also: Blackstone outpaces rivals in race for private investors]
‘For entrepreneurs and people who know what it is to create wealth, we explain that it’s not so far away from what they have done themselves,’ explains Philip Sauer of Switzerland-based firm Partners Group.
Working for or closely with the world’s top private equity firms, the experts in this year’s rankings work closely with private investors and their teams, simplifying the oftentimes opaque industry, understanding the client’s portfolio needs and carrying out any due diligence needed before recommending solutions.
Private Markets in 2026
The private credit bubble
While private credit continues to attract investor capital, the asset class is facing growing scrutiny over transparency, valuation practices, liquidity and refinancing risks.
For Spear’s issue 100, William D. Cohan spoke to a number of industry insiders who, despite largely rejecting comparisons to the 2008 financial crisis, highlighted concerns over higher interest rates, rising borrower leverage and investor confidence.
Such risks became all too real in early spring when New York-based firm Blue Owl Capital announced that it was permanently ending quarterly redemptions and imposed a 5 per cent quarterly withdrawal cap, exposing the risk of offering liquidity to investors who had bought into highly illiquid funds.
[See also: Crisis, what crisis? Inside private credit’s confidence problem]
‘All you need is the snowball to start going down the hill, and it’s started. Blue Owl is right in the middle of that. I think we are in the super-early innings of the wheels coming off the car.’ said Boaz Weinstein, a hedge fund manager at Saba Capital Management, while speaking at an investor conference in early March.
Cohan suspects that confidence following Blue Owl’s public scrutiny will increasingly depend on managers’ ability to demonstrate the quality of their portfolios. If they are unable to do so, the so called ‘private credit bubble’ may pop.
Second chances
In late January 2026, private equity giant EQT announced its purchase of leading secondaries firm British Coller Capital for £2.7 billion. The acquisition underscores the growing strategic importance of the private equity secondaries market.
Secondary firms buy and sell existing private market investments, rather than investing in a new fund or directly into a company. For example, an investor may buy a pre-existing stake in a portfolio of private assets from another investor who wishes to sell before the fund reaches its end.
It has become an increasingly popular option for individual investors who want to guarantee the option of liquidity and the ability to reshuffle their portfolio without being restrained by the timeline of a fund’s realisation.
‘Entering the secondaries space with Coller Capital represents a natural and important step in EQT’s strategic development,’ said CEO Per Franzén. ‘Secondaries have become an increasingly important tool for clients in managing liquidity and portfolio construction, and in supporting long-term ownership of high-quality assets.’
Click the links below to jump to a section of this article:
- Methodology
- The best private equity and alternative asset advisers: some names to know
- The best private equity and alternative asset advisers: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
The best private equity and alternative asset advisers: some names to know
Michael Horsey
- Focus: Portfolio management
- Firm: Lincoln Private Investment Office
Michael Horsey, a portfolio manager and head of advisory at Lincoln Private Investment Office, leads the firm’s alternative investments offering. The majority of the firm’s UHNW clients invest in some type of alternative asset alongside their existing discretionary portfolio, he explains, whether that is private equity, hedge funds or commercial property solutions – or all of the above.
‘I think a big thing that differentiates Lincoln from its peers is the ability to give clients that access,’ he tells Spear’s. ‘You’re getting a more complete investment solution here than what you might elsewhere.’
Lincoln can also offer clients entry into ‘very popular, large solutions’ alongside more ‘niche investment pathways’ – litigation funding or forestry, for example. ‘Clients here are less interested in a stock or run-of-the-mill private equity fund,’ Horsey says. Instead, ‘they’re interested in what they’re invested in; they want to meet the manager of the fund and ask questions. They like it to be brought to life for them.’
Read Michael Horsey’s full profile on Spears500.com
Philip Sauer
- Focus: High-growth sectors
- Firm: Partners Group
‘Clients’ bandwidth is sometimes very thin,’ Philip Sauer tells Spear’s. ‘For their private equity solutions they want one manager, who is credible and has a long-term track record, and when they look at their performance, they want to be able to sleep well at night.’
Sauer, who is a managing director and head of private wealth for Europe at Partners Group, provides a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach for financial advisers whose clients are seeking access to alternatives.
The industry, which has traditionally been dominated by endowments and pension funds, can feel inaccessible to private clients, he explains. ‘For entrepreneurs and people who know what it is to create wealth, we explain that it’s not so far away from what they have done themselves.’
The firm, which manages $52 billion in private wealth, is industry agnostic but focuses on businesses around the world that are involved in thematic growth sectors.
Read Philip Sauer’s full profile on Spears500.com
Clare Flanagan
- Focus: Families with strategic wealth
- Firm: Capital Generation Partners
‘I love when I’m working with clients and there is a momentum where things just align, when they’re ready and really want to explore [private market] options,’ says Clare Flanagan, partner and head of client development at Capital Generation Partners.
At the boutique firm, which has its roots in the Saïd Holdings family office, Flanagan advises around 40 families of ‘strategic wealth’, helping them to create and maintain a portfolio of private market investments. Clients include multi-generational established family offices as well as entrepreneurs who are starting to explore what they want to achieve with their wealth.
Flanagan says there are ‘a lot of really fine investment managers and great solutions out there’, and so her focus is on ensuring Capital Generation’s clients are matched with services that meet their needs. ‘It has to gel,’ she says.
Read Clare Flanagan’s full profile on Spears500.com
Emma Cory
- Focus: Long-term financial planning
- Firm: HSBC Private Bank
Emma Cory, who leads HSBC Private Bank’s alternative investments advisory offering in the UK, comes to our index highly recommended by a top UHNW wealth manager.
Based in London, Cory has over 10 years of experience in alternative asset management and private banking. Before joining HSBC in 2019, she was a senior investment associate at Partners Capital, where she developed clients’ private market portfolios and acted in the due diligence team.
She is an expert when it comes to advising UHNW and HNW clients on private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private credit, and is often brought in as a specialist to consult on opportunities for the bank’s existing client portfolios.
‘One of the beautiful things about alternatives is that it is still quite long-term, and you should be investing with a long-term horizon,’ she tells Spear’s. ‘It makes for exciting dynamics.’
Read Emma Cory’s full profile on Spears500.com
Rashmi Madan
- Focus: Institutional-quality solutions
- Firm: Blackstone
A US native who moved to London in 1999, Rashmi Madan is a senior managing director and global head of portfolio solutions within Blackstone’s private wealth division.
With a core aim of simplifying access to Blackstone’s private markets platform, Madan tells Spear’s that the private market investor profile has shifted to include UHNW individuals and family offices – alongside the traditional institutional developers.
She explains that clients are seeking access to private market investments because they can ‘provide balanced exposure across asset classes’ and, over the long term, ‘support income, growth and diversification’.
Read Rashmi Madan’s full profile on Spears500.com
The best private equity and alternative asset advisers: the complete list
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