Goldman, Hightower, H.I.G. Capital Vets Launch PeakAlts
A group of industry veterans from Goldman Sachs, Hightower Advisors and H.I.G. Capital has launched New York-based Peak Altitude Partners (PeakAlts), aiming to provide RIAs, family offices, multi-family offices and endowments with access to private market investments. PeakAlts comes to market advising over $30 billion in assets.
The firm positions itself as a “white glove service” for the private wealth channel instead of a broad marketplace for all things alternatives. PeakAlts is leveraging its principals’ collective backgrounds to sift through and perform due diligence on the wider ecosystem of alternative investments and curate opportunities. It will offer access in a few different ways, including feeder funds, co-investments and model portfolios.
The firm’s value proposition is sourcing “hard to access investments, performing institutional-grade diligence and structuring terms for alternative investments across private equity, private credit, real assets, esoterics and niche co-investments.” The firm is also supported by an integrated tech platform that provides automated subscription processing, fund administration and performance reporting. (Its tech is built of a third-party solution customized for PeakAlts.)
“Our backgrounds combined speak the PeakAlts story,” said Joshua Desai, managing partner and co-chief investment officer. “There are lots of players that are doing things. Where we differentiate is the investment process. We are investors and focused on one thing: net risk-adjusted return. We are not about making placements. We are not a GP. We are focused on structuring the best investments.”
Prior to co-founding PeakAlts, Desai held various roles at Goldman Sachs, most recently as co-head of private credit in alternative capital markets. He was responsible for sourcing, structuring and syndicating private markets exposure to Goldman Sachs’ wealth management clients. Prior to Goldman, Desai worked at Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers.
“For the last decade, there have been solutions solving for access to alternatives, but there have still been some hindrances to growing allocations,” said Adriana Tullman, managing partner and head of capital markets. “We can partner on a bespoke and curated basis, whether it’s with RIAs or family offices or multi-family offices that … don’t have private markets programs. We can craft business models that allow them to have their target allocations.”
While the firm doesn’t have strict criteria, its target clients will be firms with $500 million or more in AUM looking to raise their alternatives allocations to around 15%.
“Qualitatiuvely, it’s folks that value the diligence and true research analysis we bring to table and also are very responsive,” Tullman said. “It’s hard to raise capital from the wealth segment. There are numerous layers—sometimes a home office, an alts team, individual advisors and end clients. It’s hard to get all these responses. … That makes it hard for smaller GPs. We think that screening for folks eager to build, allows us to be partners to GPs and negotiate better terms.”
Before co-founding PeakAlts, Tullman held leadership roles at asset management firms Manna Tree and Sound Ventures. Prior to that, she spent a decade with Hightower Advisors, where she led marketing, strategy and advisor development.
“From a macro perspective, we will focus on strategies we believe are suited for current times,” added Richard Boghosian, managing partner and co-chief investment officer. “We have built out target pipelines of what are in demand or what we believe are going to be performing asset classes.”
It’s focusing on private equity strategies, such as middle-market buyout funds and co-investment, and on more esoteric buckets, such as distressed opportunities, that can provide non-correlated returns and help maximize risk/return profiles.
Boghosian previously served as a senior private equity investor at H.I.G. Capital and Cohere Capital. Before that, he worked in investment banking at BB&T Capital Markets and began his career at State Street Bank.
Peak’s launch adds to an already busy stretch of alternative investment developments in the wealth space.
Earlier this month, RSM US LLP, an assurance, tax and consulting firm for middle-market companies, partnered with alts management platform Arch to bolster its private market investment management capabilities.
In addition, fintech SEI launched a new alternative investment marketplace aimed at wealth managers and financial advisors.
CAIS announced a new leadership structure, naming Tim Shannon and Brad Walker co-presidents. That followed its announcement of a new capability to let advisors integrate and manage alternative investments within third-party turnkey asset management platforms and managed account platforms.
In other news, LPL Financial launched LPL Alts Connect, a full-service platform where advisors can research, purchase and manage alternative investments.
Meanwhile, InvestCloud, a tech provider for the advisory and wealth management market, announced alternative asset manager Apollo Global Management as a founding partner in its Private Markets Account Network, an initiative combining public and private assets within a single platform.
Apex Fintech Solutions announced it was launching Apex Alts, a platform for managing alternative investments, with a planned start toward the tail end of the second quarter.
Lastly, Addepar, a technology platform provider to RIAs and wealth managers, announced the launch of several new toolsets and features, including Alts Data Management, Private Fund Benchmarks, and cash flow forecasts within Navigator.
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