Clearlake Capital Launches Clearlake Private Wealth
Clearlake Capital Group, a $185 billion asset manager, has launched Clearlake Private Wealth as a platform to expand its strategies to the private wealth channel.
Concurrently with the launch, the firm is rolling out an interval fund, the Clearlake Private Markets Fund, which is currently awaiting SEC approval and expected to go live in the first quarter of 2027.
Clearlake, which also operates Pathway Capital Management as a division, has historically served institutional investors. The Clearlake Private Markets Fund will seek to provide access to LP-led secondaries, GP-led secondaries, and co-investments through a single investment, leveraging Pathway’s investment experience and expertise. The strategy is designed to provide diversification across GPs, vintages and strategies, and seeks returns driven by value creation and pricing discipline, as well as J-Curve mitigation.
Vestmark, First Trust Expand Customized Model Portfolio Solutions for RIAs
Wealthtech Vestmark and asset manager First Trust Portfolios are teaming up to offer customized model portfolios for the registered investment advisor marketplace.
RIAs will be able to access a white-labeled, customizable experience for constructing and managing model portfolios using First Trust strategies. The collaboration combines First Trust’s investment capabilities with Vestmark’s portfolio implementation infrastructure.
The offering will initially support ETF, mutual fund and interval fund strategies and leverage Vestmark capabilities including trading, tax-aware portfolio transitions and tax management. They will be implemented through the Vestmark Model Marketplace.
“RIAs increasingly want access to the investment expertise of leading asset managers without giving up the flexibility to tailor portfolios around individual client needs,” Rob Battista, executive vice president, advisory solutions at Vestmark, said in a statement.
Kroll, StepStone Launch PIK Indicators for Private Credit Benchmarks
Kroll, a provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, and private-markets specialty StepStone Group have launched three new payment-in-kind indicators within the Kroll StepStone Private Credit Benchmark to provide visibility into the use of noncash interest in private credit.
The indicators cover more than 28,000 direct lending instruments, 18,000 deals and 13,000 borrowers, with historical data extending back to 2012. The measures track loans with an active PIK component across the U.S. and Europe.
The measures track PIK as a percentage of interest income, the proportion of PIK loans by deal count and the proportion of PIK loans based on outstanding principal.
Across loans originated globally during the previous 12 months, PIK represented 2.86% of interest income as of Oct. 10, 2026, compared with 6.67% across the global cohort of outstanding loans at the end of the second quarter, according to the new benchmarks.
“Private credit and private capital markets have demonstrated relatively solid fundamentals, despite a prolonged period of higher borrowing costs and economic uncertainty,” Michael H. Dolan, president of financial advisory at Kroll, said in a statement.
The PIK metrics expand upon the Kroll StepStone Private Credit Benchmarks that were originally launched in September 2025
Global X Launches Magnificent Six ETF
ETF provider Global X Management Company has launched the Global X Magnificent Six ETF (SIX).
The actively managed ETF seeks to provide exposure to Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and NVIDIA.
“These six companies have been a significant contributor to recent U.S. earnings growth,” Pedro Palandrani, head of product research and development at Global X, said in a statement. “Over the 12 months ending September 30, 2026, they delivered almost two-thirds—roughly 66%—of the Bloomberg 500 Index’s earnings per share growth over the trailing 12 months. And these six companies could invest, based on current estimates, approximately $700 billion in capital expenditures in 2026 and $1 trillion in 2027, with much of that spending expected to go toward AI.”
Mercer, Arch Expand Private Markets Partnership
Alternative investments tech platform Arch and Mercer Advisors announced a multi-year deal for managing Mercer’s private markets strategy.
Mercer has employed Arch’s platform since early 2025. The new partnership expands upon that. According to Arch, since Mercer implemented the platform in its workflows, the firm’s operational costs for managing client alternative investments have decreased by 40%.
Arch’s platform will continue to support Mercer Advisors’ portfolio monitoring, liquidity planning and workflow tracking, including the tracking of capital calls and distributions and the delivery of private markets insights.
“As we continue delivering on our promise to provide a fundamentally different investment experience for the more than 43,000 families we serve, we’ve built an institutional-grade approach that pairs high-quality private investments with a streamlined operational experience,” Don Calcagni, chief investment officer at Mercer Advisors, said in a statement. “Arch has become a key component of our private investments platform and operations, bringing critical investment data into our central advisory platform and giving advisors and clients real-time visibility into private investments, much like they already have with public markets.”
C.J. Lawrence Brings Its ‘Bulldog’ Strategy to the ETF Market
C.J. Lawrence, a division of Apollon Wealth Management, has launched the Buffered Bulldog ETF (ACJL), which brings CJL’s “Bulldog” equity strategy to the ETF market, complemented by an options overlay on the S&P 500.
ACJL invests in a concentrated portfolio of approximately 30 to 50 U.S.-listed equities, drawing on C.J. Lawrence’s Bulldog investment philosophy. The team seeks to identify durable, long-term investment themes and applies fundamental research to select companies it believes are well-positioned to benefit from those trends. Its high-conviction approach emphasizes businesses with durable competitive advantages, market leadership, pricing power, strong balance sheets and the ability to gain and defend market share. The portfolio is actively managed and is not constructed to track an index.
ACJL complements its active Bulldog equity portfolio with a systematic options overlay on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) that resets quarterly. Each quarter, the overlay is designed to cap SPY’s upside at 5% and buffer the next 15% of SPY losses following an initial 5% decline.
Franklin Templeton Launches Two ETFs Combining U.S. Equities, Bitcoin Through Systematic Dividend Reinvestment
Franklin Templeton, a global asset manager, launched two ETFs that combine U.S. equity exposure with Bitcoin through a rules-based strategy that systematically reinvests dividends into Bitcoin. Both ETFs will be listed on Nasdaq.
The Franklin U.S. Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF (FBEQ) and Franklin U.S. Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF (FIBT) both begin with a 95% allocation to their respective equity indexes and a 5% allocation to Bitcoin, with dividends generated by the underlying equities systematically reinvested into Bitcoin. The indexes evaluate Bitcoin exposure quarterly and employ rules designed to maintain Bitcoin as a secondary allocation.
“Bitcoin has matured as an investable asset, supported by deeper market infrastructure, broader adoption and a growing understanding of the role it can play in portfolios,” Dina Ting, senior vice president and head of index investments at Franklin Templeton, said in a statement. “As that evolution continues, we believe investors will increasingly look beyond simply gaining access to Bitcoin and consider how they want to incorporate the asset within a broader investment strategy. A systematic approach to building exposure is one way to address this next stage of adoption.”
FBEQ tracks the VettaFi U.S. Large-Cap 500 Bitcoin DRIP Index, providing exposure to approximately 500 of the largest U.S. companies by market capitalization alongside Bitcoin, available for 9 basis points.
FIBT tracks the VettaFi U.S. Innovation 100 Bitcoin DRIP Index, providing exposure to 100 of the largest U.S. issuers listed on Nasdaq, excluding financial companies, alongside Bitcoin, available for 19 basis points.
