Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are among the world's top 20 private credit fund managers

Private credit and private equity are both alternative assets

Like private equity fund managers, private credit managers typically raise funds directly from investors, lending to corporations. The borrowers can benefit from the lack of middlemen and resulting efficiency, and the lenders often yield comparatively higher returns.

Some private credit funds trade on the stock market

These funds, which trade at market prices, are called "public BDCs," which stands for "business development companies." For instance, the global alternative investment manager Ares Management Corp. has a public BDC.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was the world's largest private equity firm as of 2025

Headquartered in New York City, KKR raised more than $117B between 2020 and 2024. KKR is credited for pioneering the leveraged buyout strategy for private equity in the 1970s and now owns nearly 300 companies.

Family offices have been increasing their allocations to private credit

Private firms that manage family fortunes have been investing more in alternatives like venture capital and real estate, impacting the wider financial world.

The world’s top 10 hedge funds

The world’s top 10 hedge funds based on total assets under management include Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates and Citadel.

Private credit grew from a $250B asset class in 2010 to around $1.5T in early 2024

That's partly due to the industry's rising interest rates that created more upside for investors. Interest rates have increased in recent years alongside the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes beginning in 2022. Private credit loans typically stretch over multiple years (typically between five and seven years, although term lengths vary).

Some semi-liquid private credit funds saw a surge in investor redemptions in early 2026

This raised red flags about the state of the private credit market at large. However, experts have cautioned that the idea that private credit is on the verge of collapse is overstated.

In 2024, US private equity posted an 8.1% return

Tracked by Cambridge Associates, 2024 performance saw limited partner distributions overtake contributions for the first time in years. Cambridge Associates, a leader in the space, typically uses a 2.0x+ MOIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) as a benchmark for top-quartile PE fund success.

The world's 50 most valuable private companies

While public companies typically have the highest valuations, private companies get close. This list breaks down the top 50 as of 2025, with SpaceX at the top with a value of $350B, followed by ByteDance. Over three-fifths of the list are located in the US, with eight in China.

American Express is one of the top-ranked places to work in the US

In 2026, American Express came in eighth place in Forbes' annual ranking of the best large workplaces (meaning workplaces with more than 5,000 employees). It's the top-ranked finance company on the list. The rankings were determined by survey data that asked employees to anonymously rate the salary, opportunity for advancement, benefits, and workplace at their company.

See a database of large companies owned by private equity firms

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project tracked more than 200 companies owned by private equity with more than 7,000 employees. Companies on the list include J. Crew, Jersey Mike's Subs, Barnes and Noble, Panera Bread, and Tropical Smoothie Cafe.

Blackstone acquired a majority stake in Bumble's former parent company in 2019 ahead of the dating app's IPO

The New York City-based investment management company paid about $3B for its stake in female-focused dating app Bumble. The app's 2021 IPO that made Bumble Founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd a billionaire at age 31 proved lucrative for Blackstone as well.

Alternative investments can be sorted into seven major categories, according to some experts

These categories include real estate, private equity, private debt, hedge funds, collectibles, and more.

Abu Dhabi operates 6 different sovereign wealth funds—one of which is the most active SWF in the world

Abu Dhabi, the capital district of the United Arab Emirates, manages its own funds distinct from those held by the United Arab Emirates federal government. Like other SWFs in the Middle East, the funds are secretive, but they are estimated to be worth about $1.8T altogether. Mubadala, one of Abu Dhabi's SWFs, became the most active fund in the world in 2024, deploying nearly $30B.

Facts and figures on the largest credit unions

As of early 2024, credit unions had $2.31T in assets under management and were growing exponentially. Some of the biggest players limit access to military personnel, residents of specific states, and those with active religious affiliations. If you want to bank with some of the top names in the US, this list will help you check to see if you qualify.

The 'Two and Twenty' structure allows hedge funds and private equity firms to earn significant returns

With this structure, firms charge limited partners or "LPs" a 2% management fee for overseeing the fund (assets under management or AUM) and take 20% of the fund's overall profits (carried interest). Many private credit funds also operate under this structure.

Venture firm a16z's crypto canon

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a leading venture capital firm with deep expertise in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. For 10 years, the firm has built its internal knowledge in the area, and archived a wide range of explainers exploring everything from fundamentals to emerging crypto trends, and much more.

PetSmart and Hilton are among 10 of the most famous leveraged buyouts in history

Some of the most famous leveraged buyout deals include Blackstone's 2007 acquisition of Hilton Hotels, in which Blackstone took the then-public company private and then returned it to the public markets in 2013. A British PE firm bought PetSmart for $9B in 2014—one of the most expensive leveraged buyouts since 2007.

Global investing in startups hit a record $297B in Q1 2026

The level of startup funding around the world broke all previous records in Q1 2026 by a significant margin: Only $118B was raised in the previous quarter, and Q1's haul outpaced every full year of global VC activity before 2019. The increase was partly due to the enormous funding rounds from AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

90 percent of active managers of large public funds underperform

High fees tend to eat away at whatever edge professional managers accrue, resulting in most such funds performing worse than their underlying benchmark indexes like the S&P 500.

BlackRock says investor demand and improvements in underlying fund technology have supercharged ETF availability in 2025

Investors are likely most familiar with ETFs that invest in an index or other grouping of stocks. However, BlackRock breaks down a wide variety of options, including commodity ETFs, currency ETFs, and bond ETFs.

Explore an alternative investments timeline

From what’s known as the first leveraged buyout, when JPMorgan acquired the Carnegie Steel Company, to the creation of the first-ever hedge fund, alternative investments have a long history.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

A look at Harvard University's endowment

​Harvard University holds the world's largest academic endowment, valued at $53.2B in fiscal year 2024. This official Harvard webpage explains how the endowment supports the university's mission, funding areas like financial aid, faculty positions, and research initiatives.

Citadel founder Ken Griffin has a $1.5B property portfolio

Take a look inside Griffin's real estate portfolio, from a $1B home in Palm Beach to his New York City penthouse on Billionaire's Row.

Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, sent its first passengers to space in 2021

Founded in 2000, Bezos spent many years working on the company as a side project before it became more well-known around 2004, when a plot of land in Texas was purchased as a launch site for the company’s rockets. He has said that the goal of Blue Origin is to build “reusable space vehicles.” This resource details what passengers experience from takeoff to landing on a Blue Origin flight.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Animal phobias are likely the most common type of phobias, followed by an extreme fear of heights.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.