KBRA releases research that summarizes key quarterly performance trends and thematic takeaways across KBRA’s rated universe of 70 asset managers, as well as key performance results across publicly listed alternative asset managers in North America and Europe.
Key Takeaways
■ Alternative asset managers entered 2H26 from a position of relative strength, with 2Q results highlighting the sector’s resilience despite continued macroeconomic, geopolitical, and market uncertainty.
■ Assets under management (AUM) and fee-paying AUM trends for leading North American and European alternative asset managers were generally constructive in 2Q26, supported by fundraising, deployment, and continued expansion across credit, infrastructure, insurance, and private wealth strategies. Artificial intelligence (AI) also remained a prominent theme across the sector, representing both a significant investment opportunity and an emerging portfolio risk.
■ However, performance dispersion across managers and products remains pronounced, reflecting differences in fundraising momentum, deployment rates, investment performance, and product and investor mix. Areas of weakness remained relatively concentrated in select software investments, older private equity (PE) vintages, office real estate, and certain credit and infrastructure assets, including select renewable energy and digital infrastructure investments exposed to valuation, development, financing, or demand-related risks.
■ Infrastructure remained an area of relative fund raising strength, particularly across digital and energy-related assets benefiting from secular demand and investment trends. However, strong capital formation relative to available transactions has increased deployment pressure in parts of the infrastructure market, elevating the importance of mandate and underwriting discipline. Credit fund performance was largely resilient despite periods of weaker market sentiment, with limited evidence of broad-based deterioration, although performance dispersion across managers, vintages, and underlying borrowers remained elevated.
■ Realization activity generally improved during 2Q26, although the pace of recovery varied across managers, and distributions remain below historical norms with holding periods extended. Fundraising continued to favor scaled, diversified platforms with broad product capabilities and established institutional relationships, contributing to greater concentration of industry inflows. Meanwhile, capital formation continued to broaden beyond traditional flagship funds. Private wealth trends were somewhat mixed, with growth at some managers offset by elevated redemption activity in certain evergreen and private credit products. Managers with greater exposure to redemption-eligible retail and wealth products experienced more visible flow and liquidity management pressure.
■ Strategic mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and partnerships remained active so far in 2026, particularly among larger, diversified managers seeking to build scale, add complementary investment capabilities, and diversify capital sources. Partnerships with insurance companies also continued to deepen, providing managers with access to long-duration capital while expanding fee-earning AUM.
■ KBRA’s rated universe has expanded since 2019 to over 70 asset managers globally, spanning PE and private credit, as well as real estate, infrastructure, and wealth management firms with ratings ranging from AA through below-investment grade categories. Over one-quarter of KBRA’s rated portfolio encompasses managers based outside the U.S. (primarily Europe).
■ Despite a more demanding environment with increasing visible dispersion, performance of KBRA-rated managers has remained resilient. KBRA continues to closely monitor underwriting and risk discipline, deployment pressure, infrastructure-related exposures, AI-driven disruption and uncertainty, and redemption and liquidity risks, but expects these risks to generally remain contained for the rated portfolio.
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About KBRA
KBRA, one of the major credit rating agencies, is registered in the U.S., EU, and the UK. KBRA is recognized as a Qualified Rating Agency in Taiwan, and is also a Designated Rating Organization for structured finance ratings in Canada. As a full-service credit rating agency, investors can use KBRA ratings for regulatory capital purposes in multiple jurisdictions.
Doc ID: 1016747
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