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Hamilton Lane says retail investors are a ‘massive’ opportunity for PE; Vista bets on shipping supply chain

Good morning, Hubsters. MK Flynn here in New York with the US edition of the Wire.

“Total individually held wealth globally is measured in the hundreds of trillions of dollars – the opportunity is massive, and the impact will be seismic if even a small percentage of those dollars move into private markets,” Erik Hirsch, co-CEO of Hamilton Lane, told me.

Hirsch shares insights about the impact retail investors will have on private equity, along with his forecast on dealmaking, in the latest edition of PE Hub’s Outlook series of interviews.

Also today, we’ve got a look at OceanSound Partners’ plans to pursue add-ons for its debut healthcare platform.The portfolio company aims to improvesupply chain management for hospitals.

Also on the supply chain theme, we’ll take a look at a deal announcement from Vista aimed at improving logistics in the shipping industry.

Ripple effect

Hamilton Lane is one of the largest private markets investment firms in the world, with $940 billion in assets under management and supervision as of June 30, 2024. Erik Hirsch and Juan Delgado-Moreira began serving as co-CEOs on January 1, as Mario Giannini, who had held the CEO role for 22 years, joined Hartley Rogers as executive co-chairman.

For PE Hub’s ongoing series of interviews with private equity thought leaders, Hirsch shared his outlook for dealmaking in the months ahead.

Upgrade to the premium edition of the Wire to read the interview.

For more insights from Hamilton Lane, see PE Hub’s Outlook Q&A with Rogers, published in January.

And for more of PE Hub’s interviews with PE thought leaders, see:

• Blackstone’s Jonathan Gray: ‘M&A will come back’

• Thoma Bravo’s Orlando Bravo: Strategic buyers are ‘incredibly active’

• H1 healthcare deal rebound leaves PE investors ‘cautiously optimistic’: Bain & Company’s Nirad Jain

• Baird’s Louise Kingston: US offering opportunities for UK businesses

Key partner

OceanSound Partners aims to pursue potential add-on opportunities to help its debut healthcare platform, Par Excellence Systems, a provider of supply chain management technology, become an active consolidator in the hospital inventory management space and potentially expand into other healthcare subsectors, Joe Benavides, managing partner and co-founder of OceanSound, shared with PE Hub’s John R Fischer.

More details in the premium version of the Wire.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”

Over the weekend, I noticed a couple of large ships in the New York Harbor. One of them was an especially big container ship, and it made me think about the depth of the harbor.  I found myself thinking about the Ever Given, which blocked the Suez Canal for six days in 2021. Thankfully, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the US Army Corps of Engineers announced in May that they are investing more than $51 million to make the Port of New York and New Jersey ready for the next generation of bigger ships, including deepening the channel.

Earlier this morning, Gnosis Freight, a supply chain software developer for the shipping business, announced a strategic growth investment from Vista. Gnosis monitors more than 95 percent of global ocean commerce, aiming to provide logistics specialists visibility over their supply chains.

Upgrade to the premium version of the Wire to learn more.

That’s all for today. As always, I’d love to hear from you at mk.flynn@pei.group.

Tomorrow, Nina Lindholm will bring you the Europe edition of the Wire, and Michael Schoeck will bring you the US edition – both are filling in for Craig McGlashan, who’s taking a couple of days off.

Happy dealmaking,

MK

Read the full Wire commentary on PE Hub ...

Also of note (may require subscriptions)

Oaktree Capital Management’s agreed sale of Italian bank Banca Progetto has generated a “lot of interest” in Italy’s financial sector due to the infrequency of such deals and the number of banks that followed Banca Progetto’s business model, Mario Adario, managing director at Oaktree, told PE Hub.

In the inaugural episode of The Infrastructure Investor Podcast, DigitalBridge CEO Marc Ganzi walks us through data center resource bottlenecks, how to stay on the right side of the infra risk-return spectrum and much more.

Brookfield Asset Managment has raised nearly half of the $5 billion it is targeting for its Catalytic Transition Fund, the firm said on Monday. (New Private Markets)

Caisse de dépôt de placement du Québec has acquired a minority stake of an undisclosed size in Chinook Forest Partners, as it builds a Pacific Northwest timberland platform within its Sustainable Land Management unit. (Agri Investor)

Sustainability efforts in private markets typically involve LPs seeking to learn more about their GP’s portfolios. However, LPs themselves are now coming under scrutiny as founders try to understand the source of their investment, according to Paul Murphy, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. (New Private Markets)

They said it

“Infrastructure is …. one of the fastest-growing sectors within the private markets, underpinned by the fundamental themes of energy transition and the ongoing rollout of AI, which is driving strong demand for data-related infrastructure and the requisite power that goes with that. In addition, there are clearly significant needs related to healthcare, considering the significant aging populations in many major economies.”

— Erik Hirsch, co-CEO of Hamilton Lane, on his outlook for dealmaking