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Now the dust has settled, 2023 has emerged as the poorest fundraising year for unlisted, closed-end structures since 2015.
Only $112 billion was raised last year, a 35 percent drop from the $172 billion raised in 2022, the asset class’s high watermark. As usual, capital raised was highly concentrated, with the top 10 closed-end funds accounting for $67 billion of the total amount. Multi-regional funds dominated the top 10 landscape, as is customary. Less typically, debt funds made a particularly strong showing, with three in the top 10, two of them the third and fourth largest vehicles closed last year. The fifth largest fund close was a secondaries strategy, highlighting their coming of age in an infrastructure context.
Last year, though, there was one firm that truly dominated: Brookfield Asset Management, which amassed $36 billion across its equity and debt flagships – 32 percent of all capital raised in 2023. That includes its fifth equity fund, which closed on $28 billion (excluding co-investment capital) to become the asset class’s biggest closed-end blindpool. Fund V alone accounted for about 25 percent of all capital raised last year – circa 27 percent, counting co-investment capital. And its $6 billion third debt flagship was the fourth largest close of 2023.
Looking ahead, over $420 billion is being sought by closed-end structures in market. Some 33 percent of that amount – or about $140 billion – is set to be raised by the top 10 funds in market, including flagships by the likes of Global Infrastructure Partners (recently acquired by BlackRock), EQT, Brookfield, Stonepeak and more.
Check out our interactive fundraising report above for the full breakdown of fundraising activity in 2023. You can also download the report as a PDF here and download the data here.