IPO window reopens
After roughly two years in which few private companies could list, IPO and acquisition activity is reopening. That matters because growth-equity and venture funds have been sitting on large stakes in late-stage private companies with no way to sell them. A sustained exit window lets those funds distribute cash to their investors, which converts paper gains into realized profits and triggers the performance fees that make up a large share of fund-manager earnings. A portfolio under this thesis selects listed alternative asset managers and investment firms with sizeable growth-equity and venture holdings, the investment banks whose equity capital markets desks underwrite listings and advise on sales, and the exchanges that collect listing and trading fees from new issuers. The private companies waiting to go public are not themselves investable; the thesis targets the firms paid when they do.
Houlihan Lokey is an independent advisory bank with no underwriting, lending or trading. fiscal 2025 (march year-end) revenue of $2.39bn split Corporate Finance $1.53bn (64%), Financial Restructuring $544m (23%), Financial and Valuation Advisory $318m (13%). the Corporate Finance segment is the thesis-expressing piece: mid-cap sell-side M&A and private capital raising, with a sponsor franchise that third-party league tables rank first by deal count for private-equity exits in 2025 — exactly the sponsor-backed sale channel in leg 3. the offsets are that HLI does no equity capital markets underwriting, so IPO fee pools bypass it entirely, and the restructuring segment is explicitly countercyclical, so a sustained open window trims roughly a quarter of revenue. sponsor advisory is a majority of the business but the ECM leg is absent → 0.55, just above the dealmakers floor.
Jefferies is a full-service investment bank focused on the north american middle market. its own q3 fy2026 release puts nine-month net revenues at $6.45bn, of which advisory is $2.02bn (31%) and equity underwriting $0.98bn (15%) — ecm plus advisory is roughly 47% of group revenue, and total investment banking including debt underwriting is 55%. management attributes the record advisory quarter to sponsor-led m&a and equity underwriting was up 69% year over year, which is exactly the leg 3 fee channel: underwriting fees on ipos and follow-ons plus advisory fees on sponsor exits. the remainder is equities trading (28%, itself helped by new-issue volume), fixed income (9%) and a shrinking asset management arm (8%). a reopened window moves roughly half of revenue directly and much of the rest indirectly, but trading and asset management keep it short of a pure play → 0.7.
Perella Weinberg is an independent advisory boutique reporting a single segment — M&A execution, shareholder and defense advisory, restructuring and liability management, capital markets advisory, private funds advisory and private capital placement, with underwriting limited to energy via the TPH franchise. revenue was $750.9m in 2025 and $251m in Q3 2026, effectively all advisory fees, so the Leg 3 condition that advisory be a material share of revenue is met in full. the fit to this portfolio's angle is diluted on three counts: there is no meaningful ECM underwriting line, no disclosed tech or sponsor-coverage revenue split, and restructuring is a large counter-cyclical book that shrinks when deal markets open — Q3 2026 showed M&A revenue nearly doubling while restructuring fell from a record 2025. a generalist M&A boutique that monetizes sponsor exits and dual-track sales without an IPO franchise → material exposure, just below the house 0.6 mark.
Evercore is an independent advisory-led investment bank: fy2025 net revenues $3.86bn, of which advisory fees $3.27bn (~85%) and underwriting fees $180m (~5%); equities commissions and wealth management make up the rest. ecm plus advisory is ~90% of revenue, so the firm is a near-pure fee-pool dealmaker with no balance-sheet duration. the thesis-specific slice is narrower: underwriting is a small but highly levered line (q2 2026 fees $97m, up 201%, ~10% of quarterly revenue on IPO and follow-on participation; q3 2026 $56m), and sponsor coverage, private capital advisory and private funds group capture sponsor sales, continuation vehicles and dual tracks. the bulk of advisory remains large-cap strategic M&A and restructuring, and management said sponsor-related deals were still running below historical levels in mid-2026. material, not pure → 0.6.
Lazard is an independent advisory firm plus a long-only asset manager. fy2025 net revenue split roughly $1,834m financial advisory against $1,275m asset management, so advisory is about 59% of the firm. the advisory book is M&A-led with restructuring, sovereign, capital solutions and private capital advisory alongside; it has no equity underwriting franchise, so the IPO fee pool itself does not reach Lazard — the thesis channel is sponsor-backed M&A and dual- or triple-track sale processes, plus the pending Campbell Lutyens deal (Lazard CL, fund placement and secondaries, targeted at about $500m revenue by 2027). asset management is management fees on public-market funds, which the brief excludes. a majority-advisory firm with sponsor coverage but zero ECM and a counter-cyclical restructuring line sits below material: 0.5.
Moelis & Company is an independent advisory boutique: substantially all revenue is advisory fees, FY2025 revenues of $1,516.8m, no lending or trading. the business is roughly two-thirds M&A and one-third non-M&A (capital structure advisory, capital markets, private capital advisory). the thesis-linked lines are sponsor sell-side M&A, a capital markets desk that acts as bookrunner and placement agent on IPOs and late-stage private rounds (record revenues in Q2 2026), and GP-led secondaries advisory as an alternative exit route. the firm does not disclose ECM or sponsor revenue separately, management says sponsor exits remain subdued on valuation, and restructuring is counter-cyclical to an open window. a fee-only dealmaker with material but not dominant exit exposure → 0.6 material exposure for the Dealmakers angle.
Piper Sandler is a mid-cap investment bank. fy2025 net revenues were about $1.9bn, of which advisory services were $1.04bn (roughly 55%) and corporate financing (equity and debt underwriting) $217m (roughly 11%); the remainder is municipal finance, equity brokerage and fixed income. advisory plus ecm therefore runs near two thirds of revenue — well above the double-digit bar for a material leg 3 name — and the firm runs a dedicated financial-sponsor coverage and private capital advisory practice that sells sponsor-owned companies and raises funds. offsets: the advisory book is broad middle-market m&a (financial services, energy, healthcare) rather than exit-specific, and corporate financing is dominated by healthcare follow-ons where it ranks as a top biopharma bookrunner, so ipo-specific fees are a modest slice. not a pure ecm-and-sponsor boutique, hence 0.7 rather than 1.0.