Wealth advisers at big US banks and independent brokerages generated more than $2bn in servicing fees since 2017 by steering individual investors into private market funds, before lucrative upfront commissions, according to an FT analysis of regulatory filings covering 16 funds run by Blackstone, Blue Owl, Apollo and KKR. The disclosure lands as the same retail investors now try to leave: more than $20bn of withdrawal requests hit private credit vehicles in the first quarter of the year.

The fee stack is layered. Servicing fees — paid annually for managing the client's account — run 0.25% to 0.85% of the investment; placement fees of 0.5% are charged up front (sometimes capped at 0.85% combined); brokerages can also charge commissions of up to 3.5%, averaging around 2%. Blackstone leads on payouts. Its property fund Breit and credit fund Bcred have attracted more than $100bn in combined net assets since 2020 and paid $280mn in broker servicing fees last year alone. Breit recently lifted its cap on such payments from 8.75% to 10% of gross capital raised, freeing up hundreds of millions of additional adviser compensation. Breit has already paid brokerages more than $500mn in commissions.

The return gap from those fees is visible. Breit's lowest-fee share class has earned over 9.3% a year since 2017; the highest-fee class only 8%. Bcred returns since its 2021 launch are 9.5% vs 7.8%. Blackstone counters that a majority of its evergreen assets sit in share classes with no commissions or servicing fees, and that its funds have outperformed public benchmarks by roughly 60% since inception. Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick said alternatives make up just 5% of financial-adviser assets, and that the bank has "harmonised" fees so advisers are not incentivised to push one fund over another. Source: Financial Times, 18 April 2026, Antoine Gara, Amelia Pollard, Eric Platt and Harriet Clarfelt.