Goldman arm offers latest route into private equity investing

Goldman arm offers latest route into private equity investing

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When the pioneers of modern private equity, ​​Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, raised $30m for their first buyout fund in 1978, the money came from a tight circle of backers.

In the decades since, as KKR and its private equity peers have grown into behemoths with trillions of dollars under management, the industry has never quite shaken off its reputation as the preserve of institutions and the ultra rich, where sophisticated investors can find far higher returns than those available to the average saver. 

More recently, however, private equity has become steadily more accessible as leading managers such as Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle, Apollo and Ares have gone public, and new investment vehicles opened the door for individual investors to share in private equity’s alluring returns. 

Retail investors will soon gain another entry point into private capital, as Goldman Sachs’s Petershill Partners, which owns minority stakes in a range of alternative asset managers with a combined $187bn of assets under management, has announced plans for an initial public offering in London.

But, at a time when the shares in major listed private capital managers have tripled in value since the depths