TPG, Temasek to Take Stake in Cliffwater | Chief Investment Officer

Alternative manager TPG Inc. and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, announced Monday that they have entered a definitive agreement to make a minority investment in alternative investment adviser Cliffwater LLC.

Cliffwater, with $36 billion in assets under management and $80 billion under advisement, provides access to alternative investments for wealth management channels through its interval funds. The firm also houses an investment advisory and consulting practice.

Both TPG and Temasek will join private equity firm TA Associates as investors in Cliffwater. TPG first invested in the adviser in 2023.

An increasing number of private equity firms are looking to expand into retail, retirement and wealth management channels—markets largely untapped by alternative investment managers—that are reeling from a recent decline in fundraising and have been slow to return capital to limited partners as a result of a growing backlog of unsold portfolio companies.

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In 2025, alternatives managers and traditional defined contribution investment providers and recordkeepers have launched or announced plans for retail investment offerings that include alternative assets like private equity and private credit. BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink, in his annual letter, wrote of the need to expand investor access to alternatives.

“Since our investment in 2023, Cliffwater has consistently outperformed expectations, delivering meaningful growth and deepening its relationships in the high-net-worth channel,” said Todd Crockett, TA Associates’ managing director, in a statement.

Cliffwater’s management, including Founder, CEO and CIO Stephen Nesbitt, will continue to be majority stakeholders in the firm. The transaction will close in the year’s second quarter, according to a joint statement from TPG and Temasek.

“Individual investors continue to seek exposure to private markets as a way to diversify their portfolios and access some of the most dynamic corners of the economy,” said Peter McGoohan, a partner in TPG, in a statement.

TPG manages $246 billion in assets, and Temasek manages $311 billion in assets.

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Tags: Alternatives, Cliffwater, Peter McGoohan, Private Equity, TA Associates, Temasek, TPG

The $68 billion Maryland State Retirement and Pension System’s board of trustees unanimously approved a slate of nominations to its new climate advisory panel, nominations submitted by Executive Director Martin Noven and CIO Andrew Palmer.

The five-member team, which will begin meeting later in the spring, will guide the pension fund’s board of trustees through potential climate-related investment hazards, as well as investment opportunities.

The creation of the panel was borne from a 2022 state law that requires MSRPS fiduciaries to consider certain climate risks to the retirement system’s assets. The law also requires a climate risk assessment that reviews the MSRPS investment portfolio to determine the level of climate risk among sectors and asset classes. The same law also authorizes the board to set up an advisory panel of experts to analyze climate change risk “to provide the most current science and data available.” The pension fund’s board approved a governance charter in December 2024 that established the panel.

“As chair of the system’s investment committee, it is our responsibility to evaluate all risks to the pension portfolio. These risks include the consequences of extreme weather and climate change,” Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman said in a statement. She added that the panel “will provide the board with valuable expertise and guidance as we manage these risks for the benefit of our 415,000 members and retirees.”

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The panel includes Angelo Calvello, co-founder and chairman of the board of Rosetta Analytics; Mary Cerulli, founder of Climate Finance Action Inc.; Maria Elena Drew, director of research for responsible investing at T. Rowe Price; Douglas Lawrence, vice chair of Climate Group’s board of trustees; and Stacy Swann, founder of Resilient Earth Capital.

According to the MSRPS, the panel will receive support and resources designated by Palmer, and it will collaborate with the state’s investment division on climate projects and reports. It also said the panel will make recommendations for evaluating and monitoring climate change risk within the system’s portfolio.

“Sustainability is the keystone to all our investment decisions, and in some sense, it is made more concretely tangible when considering the impact of climate risks on assets,” Palmer said in a statement. “To that end, we are fortunate to have climate experts lending their expertise. They analyze the preservation of value through a different yet wholly necessary lens.”