Largest private equity firms in the U.S. 2024, by assets under management

Blackstone had the largest value of assets under management (AUM) than any other private equity firm in 2024, with a total of one trillion U.S. dollars. Apollo Global Management followed, with approximately 600 billion U.S. dollars in assets under management at that time.  What is private equity? Private equity is investments in firms that have not yet made an initial public offering. Because these companies are publicly traded, normal people cannot directly invest in them. For this reason, intermediaries such as the Carlyle Group are necessary both for investors to be able to access the market and for fundraising by private firms. Reasons for investing in private equity Many private companies can be quite large. Unicorns are private firms valued over one billion U.S. dollars, many of which are promising investments. A subset of private equity is venture capital, which focuses on smaller firms with high growth potential. These firms are often in competitive industries, so the risk are high. However, the hope of large returns for being early investors brings billions of U.S. dollars in venture capital investment every year, a significant portion of the private equity volume.

Blackstone 在2024年以高达一兆美元的总资产管理规模（AUM）超越任何其他私募股权公司，位居行业首位。Apollo Global Management 则紧随其后，彼时其资产管理规模约为六百亿美元。何谓私募股权？私募股权指的是对尚未进行首次公开募股（IPO）的公司进行的投资。由于这些公司未上市，普通大众无法直接对其投资。鉴于此，像Carlyle Group 这样的中介机构对于投资者进入市场以及私募公司进行融资均属必要。投资私募股权的缘由：众多私营企业规模庞大。独角兽企业，即市值超过十亿美元的非上市公司，其中许多具有巨大的投资潜力。私募股权的一部分是风险投资，它专注于具有高增长潜力的中小企业。这些企业通常处于竞争激烈的行业，风险较高。然而，作为早期投资者的回报预期，每年吸引了数十亿美元的风险资本投资，占私募股权投资规模的相当大一部分。