Jessica Hamlin

Los Angeles, New York, United States

Senior Funds Columnist at PitchBook

senior reporter @pitchbook. writing Capital Pool newsletter. she/her. views my own. Thoughts or tips? [email protected]. DM for #.

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Articles

Trump targets Harvard's tax privileges, threatening donations to endowment

1 week ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

The Trump administration asked the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status after the school refused a list of demands to restore its federal funding, multiple outlets reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources.
Elite university endowments confront a 'parade of horribles'

1 week ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

Endowment investment teams at top universities are exploring options to cash out of some of their public market investments, primarily through hedge fund redemptions, to compensate for federal funding cuts and prepare for potential tax increases. “Endowments are reviewing the liquidity terms of their hedge fund investments,” said Alexander Anderson, a partner at law firm O’Melveny, where he advises PE firms and their investors, including endowments, on federal tax issues.
Tariff uproar to further slow distributions to LPs

1 week ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

Buyout funds’ lifecycles are getting longer and longer, to the chagrin of their investors. President Donald Trump’s tariff showdown will not make them any shorter. A standard PE fund has a lifetime of 10 years, meaning it deploys and returns the total capital LPs have invested in it by the time it’s a decade old.
LPs flooded the secondary market during tariff upheaval. Buyers paused.

2 weeks ago | pitchbook.com | Madeline Shi |Jessica Hamlin

In the week since President Donald Trump placed reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries, Hamilton Lane‘s phones have been ringing off the hook. “There’s been a ton of inbound conversations,” said Keith Brittain, who oversees the over $950 billion asset manager’s secondary business.
Jamie Dimon: 'We need to encourage the public markets'

2 weeks ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

Jamie Dimon wants a financial system that encourages companies to go public. Right now, he says, an IPO is too expensive and complicated. In his annual letter to shareholders released Monday, the CEO of JP Morgan outlined his views on the key issues chipping away at the health of the US economy, including the ever-shrinking IPO window. While geopolitical and economic uncertainties play a part in the go-public backstop, Dimon says, overregulation and exorbitant costs are major culprits.
PitchBook's university endowment return tracker

3 weeks ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin |Jordan Rubio

Since Yale University’s late chief investment officer David Swensen pioneered the “Yale model"—an institutional portfolio significantly weighted toward alternative assets—university endowments in the US have grown into some of the largest investors in the private markets. The University of California’s investment manager, UC Investments, for example, has $34.2 billion of its nearly $180 billion portfolio invested across PE, private credit, real estate and real assets.
Real estate funds took a record 21.8 months to close in 2024

4 weeks ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

Real estate fund managers have never taken more than an average of 16 months to raise funds—until last year. Despite some signs of improving performance in the asset class at the end of 2024, closed-end real estate funds have yet to recover from years of negative returns. Last year, GPs in the asset class took an average of 21.8 months to close vehicles, a nearly 65% increase from their historical average time to close, according to PitchBook’s H2 2024 Global Real Estate report.
Have a co-investment opportunity? Call Liberty, Liberty, Liberty

4 weeks ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

Today’s LPs want to be direct dealmakers, too. It’s a bargain GPs are willing to strike, granting co-investment rights to win fund commitments. But stiff competition among co-sponsors is forcing institutional investors to staff up their dealmaking ranks and train their governance committees to move faster. Take Liberty Mutual‘s $100-billion-plus investment arm, which is transitioning its platform from fund commitments to direct and co-investments.
Carlyle, TPG, Ares removed DEI language from annual reports as legal risks heighten

1 month ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

Most of the largest publicly traded alternative asset managers in the US removed significant portions of language related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from their annual filings with the SEC. The changes are a response to mounting investor scrutiny and the Trump administration’s pushback against DEI practices, which the GPs say could leave their firms vulnerable to lawsuits, mounting compliance costs and fundraising challenges.
Rockefeller Capital axes DEI language

1 month ago | pitchbook.com | Jessica Hamlin

Rockefeller Capital Management is the latest firm to remove references to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from its website amid the Trump administration’s crackdown. Several asset managers and banks have scrubbed statements on DEI from their public-facing materials to avoid federal scrutiny. This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan.