Peak Square Ventures

Happy Saturday!

This is one of favorite quote:

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. - Steve Jobs

I’m the sum of the obstacles I overcome!

Breaking news: Fed cuts rates by quarter point

The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by a quarter-percentage point Wednesday, as forecast, and lowered the number of reductions expected in 2025 to two - from four in September. The central bank reduced the benchmark target to between 4.25% and 4.5%. The rate influences a variety of consumer debt such as auto loans and mortgages. The bank also sees unemployment at 4.3% and inflation of 2.5% next year. Its projections come as consumer-price growth has begun to stick. All three major stock indexes turned lower after the decision.

On Tuesday, BlackRock announced an agreement to acquire private credit firm HPS Investment Partners for $12 billion in an all-stock deal.

HPS manages around $150 billion and is one of the few private credit managers with enough scale to move the needle for BlackRock. If completed, the deal would grow BlackRock’s alternative assets by more than 25 percent to nearly $600 billion ($220 billion in private credit), placing the firm's alternatives business on level footing with private markets specialists like KKR and Apollo Global Management.

Despite managing $12 trillion in total assets, BlackRock's market capitalization is not much larger than KKR. The firm's conventional public markets business falls short on fee structures and margins—the ‘barbell effect’ bifurcation between low-fee passive strategies and high-fee active alternatives (part of the reasoning behind BlackRock’s push into private capital).

Such a fun night supporting Aerial Recovery … great event well done Nicholas DiLeone Asano Nickester turner Ortiz Tuttle Dao Tuttle mayfield Mayfield Barness Nolan Long Vera Bob Cassara Bob Cassara