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JP Morgan and Citi Enter Private Markets
Today's 5 mins on the infra of private markets: also featuring moves from KKR, Apollo, Goldman and S&P Global... Here's your lens →
Private markets are being built in real time.
New infrastructure. New products. New ways to access what was once the exclusive domain of institutions.
The Private Markets Forum has been tracking these shifts, but most of our content has been relegated to LinkedIn.
Today we launch something different. Welcome to The Brief, a new lens on how private markets get built. Curated by the team at PMF and me, Marc Andrew.
Signal over noise. Clarity over commentary. Intelligence to help you understand how the next $15T+ in private capital will be wired for the next decade.
In today’s brief:
JP Morgan and Citi shift their focus
Infra moves from KKR, Apollo, Goldman and S&P…
Overheard this week: open pastures, private markets and new rails.
Here’s what’s happening…
WHAT ARE JP MORGAN AND CITI DOING IN PRIVATE MARKETS?
Wall Street's biggest research machines are chasing companies that don't report earnings.
Last week, JPMorgan launched coverage of OpenAI - its first systematic tracking of private companies. This week, Citi followed, hiring Goldman's Heath Terry to lead private AI coverage and targeting 100 large private firms.
The signal is clear: traditional research is broken.
The New Reality
When 1,500 startups carry billion-dollar valuations and SpaceX trades at $350 billion, ignoring private markets isn't just incomplete. It's borderline irresponsible..
Public companies can't be understood without private context. Nvidia's stock moves on OpenAI partnerships as much as quarterly earnings. Microsoft's AI strategy depends entirely on a company that never files a 10-K.
"Understanding their impact is crucial for both public and private market investors," says JPMorgan's research head.
The efficient market hypothesis assumes all relevant information is public. But what happens when the most important companies never report earnings?
Following the Signal
Both banks are taking the same approach: pure intelligence gathering, no ratings or price targets. They're not trying to value these companies. They're trying to understand them.
The focus is surgical: AI, software, emerging tech. The sectors where private companies don't just compete with public ones, they define entire industries.
JPMorgan's 800+ analysts now track the companies that actually matter. Citi is building similar capability from scratch.
This is about fixing a fundamental blind spot that makes traditional research increasingly irrelevant.
What We're Watching
Public market infrastructure will need to adapt the new private reality too. When private companies drive public market movements, research has to follow the signal wherever it lives.
The reconstruction of Wall Street's intelligence apparatus has begun.
DATA SNAPSHOTS
Mega-Deals: 37% of U.S. PE deals with disclosed values are $1B+ (was 20% in 2020)
LP Dynamics: 42% of new private capital committed went to funds $5B+ (megafunds), the highest share on record | source: Future Standard
Carve-Outs: 10.6% of buyouts YTD (five-year avg: 8.7%) - reflects opportunistic sponsor behavior | source: The Lead Left
Value: Global private equity deal value up 19% in H1 2025 | source: S&P Global
Secondaries: Secondaries deal volume Q2 2025: up 45% YoY, GP-leds a growing slice | source: Northleaf Capital
INFRA TAKES
Capital Group + KKR filed for a public-private equity fund, launching early 2026. The 60/40 structure (see what they did there?) follows their credit fund's $100M+ success across 100+ advisors in three months. 'The enthusiasm from financial advisors as we define this category is tangible,' says Capital Group's Matt O'Connor. New products will accelerate from here.
S&P Global launched standardized LoanX IDs for private credit assets: think social security numbers for $2T+ in loans. Every allocator and manager currently maintains fragmented views of the same assets, creating expensive reconciliation and blind spots. The big idea: The new identifiers will (in theory) enable apples-to-apples manager comparisons, cut operational overhead, and build infrastructure for secondary trading. Private credit wants to compete with public markets - but it needs plumbing to make that possible. Plumbing like this.
Apollo won the mandate to manage Singapore's $1B private credit platform, targeting high-growth local enterprises. Singapore is building a full-stack private markets infrastructure play: sovereign capital, retail access frameworks, digital asset policy, and now a global institutional partner. Innovative sovereigns create platforms, proven institutions run them. Now watch other countries copy the playbook.
Goldman Sachs launched its Private Credit Collective Investment Trust and immediately partnered with BlackRock and Wilshire on Panorix target date funds - combining Goldman's private credit, BlackRock's allocation strategy, and Wilshire's liquidity management. The play: Building the pipeline to funnel retirement money into private markets.
OVERHEARD IN PMF CONVERSATION THIS WEEK:
Private markets were so ready for disruption, it's like a huge open pasture. Let's go throw some buildings up."
"The younger generation is pushing for more quantitative techniques, but they find it very hard to get buy-in from the C-suite because the C-suite is not trained in that respect."
"My cap table is about to get a hell of a lot more confusing. Forget Series A, B, C, D. Now we have senior debt, junior debt, preferred equity, common equity - and systems to help the CFO manage all of it."
“We need the payments rail for private markets smoothed out - how are we going to make sure private markets is a digital payments rail.”
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