Traditional investment options have been viewed as a safe spot for financial advisors, but over the last couple of years, firms have been increasingly shifting away from traditional bonds and stocks and towards private markets amid the call for more diversified assets. 

As clients’ demand for private markets swells, over 90% of advisors view private market offerings as “essential” and have incorporated private equity, private credit, and real estate into their portfolios. Meanwhile, about 83% of advisors plan to increase their allocations within three years, according to the 2025 AssetMark Advisor Insights: Private Markets Report, which surveyed 400 financial advisors across the country. 

“Depending on what clients are looking for, whether it’s yield, return, liquidity — all those are important factors that go into why a financial advisor assembles a portfolio in the first place,” Christian McCormick, SVP and head of client portfolio management at Meketa Investment Group, said. “It has been primarily a yield and return-driven issue in private credit for example. On the public equity side, market valuations are very high, which is why one reason we’ve seen a rise in allocations to private credits, which have produced equity-like returns over the past few years.” 

Within the asset management industry, private markets are on track to become the dominant revenue engine, generating approximately $432.2 billion and accounting for more than half of total industry revenues by 2030, according to PwC’s 2025 Global Asset & Wealth Management Report. 

“By looking at private equity funds, it’s opening a lot more possibilities and investing opportunities for our clients,” Eric Sterner, CIO at South Carolina-based Apollon Wealth Management, said. “The U.S. remains the innovation leader, especially in the technology space. More than 15% of the Russell 2000 is technology, while within private equity, anywhere from 30% to 40% is tech.” 

Apollon Wealth Management provides clients and firms with access to private equity as part of its investment strategies. Apollon Wealth also acts as the investment advisor to the Apollon Private Credit Fund, Apollon Private Credit Fund II, and the Prism Jade Fund, according to the firm’s Form ADV Part 2 Brochure. 

The firm oversees $7.7 billion in assets under management across nearly 21,000 accounts, according to its Form ADV updated on January 20. 

The shift towards pooling investments in private markets also comes as advisors are navigating higher inflation, interest rates, and heightened geopolitical uncertainty. However, some advisors remain a bit unsure about the pros and cons of introducing their clients to private markets. 

In a recent Invesco study, 43% of clients say they are “somewhat familiar, understand them a little bit,” and 17% have “heard of them, but don’t understand them at all.” Compared to 29% who say they are “very familiar” with private markets investments and “understand them well.” On the other hand, 11% of respondents have not even heard of private market investments. 

Financial literacy among advisors remains a top priority and concern as they look to their firms to provide educational resources so they can better provide more tailored financial advice and portfolio options to their ever-changing client base. 

In 2024, Sanctuary Wealth and the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association partnered to launch the Sanctuary Wealth AltVantage program, which is intended to educate advisors to position alternative investments in a client’s portfolio, which includes private equity, private credit, real assets, and hedge funds. 

For firms that are rallying on maintaining client relationships, firms need to ensure that their advisors understand the “suitability” of the products they are offering to their clients, as well as explaining them, Sterner said.  

“Suitability is by far [Apollon’s] number one concern with clients. For these more beginner classes, we are just explaining what private credit is, all these different strategies and getting advisors comfortable with that,” he said. 

In addition to balancing the education, steering liquidity pressures has been another concern point for financial institutions and advisors that are turning to address prolonged rate uncertainty, market volatility, and shifting public policy. 

In response to the mounting issues, institutions are now expanding their liquidity toolkits that go beyond traditional secondary sales and are heavily offering evergreen funds in an effort to manage private market exposure more vigorously.

With evergreen funds, investors are turning to reframe liquidity management for their high-net-worth clients to offer relief from constant market uncertainty. Evergreen funds currently account for 5% of private markets, and that figure is expected to grow to 20% in the next decade, according to Hamilton Lane. 

When firms can be able to provide clients with liquidity solutions, it will allow advisors and their clients to be “much more comfortable” with understanding the investments they are discussing, and how they could manage them when financial emergencies arise, McCormick said.