Wealth & Finance International - Fund Awards 2015

www.wealthandfinance-intl.com 25 How important do you believe awards like this are, both to individual businesses like yourselves and to your wider industry? This award represents an important validation of our consistent investment strategy to acquire high quality secondary limited partner- ship interests. Our motivation for success will always be to honor the commitment we have made to our investors, and we are flattered when the product of our team’s hard work yields industry awards. Please give us a brief overview of your client base. Since inception, we have raised over $17 billion dedicated to private equity and real asset fund solutions. Our deep existing investor base includes public / private pensions, endowments / foundations, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, fund of funds, insurance companies, family offices and HNWs. Similarly, please tell us more about Global Private Equity Secondaries Fund. What do you believe are the reasons behind its successful performance? Strategic Partners focuses on acquiring secondary interests in mature private equity and real estate funds globally. We believe our success is driven by our approach of originating proprietary investment oppor- tunities via proactive sourcing to acquire highly diverse portfolios of secondary private equity and real estate assets. We maintain a nimble and flexible approach to investing which, along with our deep and experienced team, leads to unique and often propri- etary investment opportunities. While working on a fund, what measures do you take to ensure that it performs to its full potential and beyond? Fundamentally, we work to identify high-quality assets managed by proven sponsors. However, evaluating transactions with confidence and acquiring interests with the conviction of reaching our performance targets requires rigorous up-front analysis. To adequately understand each possible transaction, we generally perform a detailed analysis of companies in underlying funds, regardless of the transaction’s size and complexity. This granular underwriting approach is difficult for organiza- tions that lack the resources and / or information necessary to analyze a broad spectrum of funds, which favorably positions us in considering diverse portfolio transactions. As a leading investor in the secondary private equity market, what have you done to be at the forefront of your industry and what do you do to sustain this success? We have differentiated ourselves with our multi-asset discipline and flexible investment approach, which does not discriminate based on deal size, complexity, geography or seller type. As previously mentioned, the success of our investment approach is predicated on extensive bottom-up analysis, which is possible by virtue of maintaining a mar- ket-leading database of funds and underlying companies. To sustain this success, we will continue to actively monitor our holdings, foster our deep investor and general partner relationships, and maintain our reputation as a trusted liquidity solution. Additionally, we stress the importance of retaining a culture where our professionals are collabora- tive, supportive, and actively train and mentor our newest hires. Main- taining strong team alignment where our professionals remain hungry and eager to win has helped to sustain our compelling deal flow. What would you say are the advantages and disadvantages (or challeng- es) of being involved with a company as large as Blackstone? Our partnership with Blackstone has materially benefited our business. By harnessing Blackstone’s global capabilities, relationships and exper- tise, we maintain a competitive advantage in sourcing, analyzing and executing secondary transactions. In addition, leveraging the Black- stone platform for insights and perspectives, all subject to Blackstone’s information barrier policies and conflicts procedures, provides an important advantage for us. What is your philosophy behind client service? How do you maintain the high standards you set yourselves across your company? We are focused on building strong and long-standing partnerships with our investors, many of which have invested in multiple Strategic Partners mandates. We partner with investors to provide thoughtful portfolio solu- tions, which is often differentiated from other options in the market. As a result, we believe we are considered a trusted partner to our investors. What makes your firm unique? How do you distinguish yourselves from your competitors, and present yourselves as the best option for your clients? We believe Strategic Partners’ consistent investment approach com- bined with our team’s in-depth private market experience and strong relationships with both our investors and fund managers gives us a relative strength amongst competitors. Our flexible mandate allows us to pursue a wide range of transactions, which we believe also differentiates our platform. Tell us about the culture within your company and the things you do to maintain and develop it. How does it influence your interactions with and results achieved for your clients? We believe that we have built an outstanding team. Our cohesive culture and commitment to “growing our own” has led to a very stable and long-tenured team, with our senior professionals having worked together for an average of more than 12 years, and virtually all of the team join- ing Strategic Partners early in their professional careers. What have been the most prevalent trends in your industry over the past 12 months? Secondary private equity and real estate transactions have dramatically increased over the last several years. Both institutional and individual investors have become increasingly proactive in managing their private equity portfolios, choosing to divest interests for asset allocation, risk management, cash flow, financial regulatory reform or other strategic reasons. 2014 was a record year for secondary transaction volume, and we as a group have experienced sustained deal flow throughout 2015. Finally, what does the future hold for your firm? What plans do you have to both maintain and build upon your success? We are confident that we are well-positioned to take advantage of the growing acceptance among private equity investors of the secondary market as a means to gain liquidity. We intend to continue focusing on our core strengths, extensive investment experience, deep relationships, and informational resources, and we will work in earnest to sustain these competitive advantages as we continue to be a leader in the secondary market. Wealth & Finance International selected award winners by distributing vot- ing forms to its subscribers as well as individuals and firms active across the fund sector. Voting forms were also open to visiting traffic to the W&F website. Nominations are vetted by W&F’s in-house awards committee. A different set of voters may have achieved different results. Blackstone does not know whether it has been rated by this or any other third party in any way that would conflict with these awards. There may be other categories for which Blackstone, its funds or its portfolio companies were nominated but not awarded. The awards may not be representative of a particular investor’s experience or the future performance of any Blackstone fund or transaction. There is no guarantee that similar awards will be obtained by Blackstone with respect to existing or future funds or transactions. This information is provided solely for informational purposes. It should not relied upon as any indication of future performance of Blackstone or any of its funds or portfolio companies.