Goldman’s Petershill Seeks $5 Billion for More Private Stakes

A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. business that raises funds to buy stakes in other private-market investment firms is seeking cash for its next fund.

Petershill Partners, which recently delisted from the London Stock Exchange after years of trading at a low valuation, has started trying to raise money for its fifth flagship fund, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is seeking to raise about $5 billion, the same size as its previous flagship fund, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private plans.

A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

Businesses like Petershill typically take minority stakes in asset managers such as private equity, private credit or real estate firms in exchange for a share of their management fees, profits or carried interest, and any other revenue streams. Petershill has backed managers including ArcLight Capital Partners and Francisco Partners.

It’s a tough time for private equity firms looking to gain investors’ trust and cash. As dealmaking ground to a halt after interest rates rose in 2022, buyout shops struggled to return profits to investors.

That led to a tough fundraising environment: Globally, private equity firms collected about $408 billion last year, falling short of the roughly $612 billion raised in 2024, according to Pitchbook.

It’s a challenging time for the private credit market as well. This week, Blue Owl Capital Inc. said it would restrict withdrawals from one of its private credit funds, sending shares falling. Investors have been concerned about valuations and the quality of investments given that the $1.8 trillion market has grown significantly in recent years.

Petershill, which is a unit of Goldman Sachs Alternatives, said in September it would return capital and delist after years of “dampened public market investor interest in the alternative asset management sector.” The shares traded well below their listing price for most of the time since the unit’s 2021 stock market debut.

Executives became frustrated after Petershill successfully exited a number of investments with high success, but without much recognition from public investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

Petershill’s last flagship fund, which launched in a tough market environment in 2020, already has a distributed to paid-in capital ratio of 0.45, indicating that investors have already received nearly half their money back, according to a person who’s viewed marketing materials for the new fund. Petershill also says it’s returned about $3.2 billion to investors since January 2024, the person added.

In January 2025, Petershill announced the sale of a majority of its stake in General Catalyst. It also sold its stakes in Harvest Partners, LMR Partners and sold a partial stake in Accel-KKR.

In the first half of last year, Petershill’s investments had a fair value of $5.5 billion, and the firm returned $265 million of capital during that period.