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PRIVATE MARKETS SOLUTIONS

Direct Private Opportunities (DPO)

Growing and compelling opportunity set

As traditional private markets strategies have matured and institutionalized, average deal sizes have grown meaningfully. At the same time, the diversity and complexity of the overall private opportunity landscape has increased dramatically. We seek opportunities in growing and less efficient areas of capital markets.

Emerging assets growth from 2011 to 2024
Emerging assets aum from 2011 to 2024

Source: BlackRock, as of 1 July 2025. Underlying data sourced from Preqin, as of 11 June 2025. For illustrative purposes only.
*Emerging assets include: Digital Infrastructure, Insurance, Blockchain, Trade Finance, Sports, Other Intellectual Property, Litigation Finance, Healthcare Royalties, Music Royalties, Film & Media, Art.

Why Direct Private Opportunities?

BlackRock Direct Private Opportunities invests opportunistically across private markets to build portfolios of uncorrelated investments. DPO employs a flexible investment approach, sourcing idiosyncratic opportunities that exhibit low beta to public equity and debt markets.
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Access to differentiated investments

Capture differentiated return sources from areas with lower competition.
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Portfolio diversification

Access private assets that are complementary to core alternatives.
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Structuring expertise

Structuring expertise to mitigate investment risks on a deal-by-deal basis through various features.
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Flexible strategy

Investing dynamically across asset classes allows access to wider opportunity set.

DPO thought leadership

Road through forest

Creative Capital: Private Investments in Media & Entertainment

Unlocking the enduring power of entertainment IP and how iconic content can be turned into resilient private market opportunities.

DPO in the spotlight

Podcast:

The evolution of private markets in modern portfolios

In this podcast, Paul Braude, CIO of DPO, and Vidy Vairavamurthy, CIO of APS, dive into the current themes driving private market opportunities, how they identify and evaluate emerging trends, and how private market investments can complement public market exposures.

DPO’s competitive advantages

DPO seeks to deliver strong risk-adjusted performance that is uncorrelated to public markets and complementary to “core” alternative holdings through various investment themes (e.g., sports & entertainment, business & consumer finance, nature capital, insurance & risk management, disrupted sectors, etc.)

DPO competitive advantages
DPO investments’ characteristics

Our DPO team in Americas

Paul Braude
Chief Investment Officer, Head of Direct Private Opportunities
Andrew Bakowski
Senior Portfolio Manager, Direct Private Opportunities
Nitin Dahiya
Senior Portfolio Manager, Direct Private Opportunities
Isabelle Rucart
Head of AMRS Product Strategy, Private Markets Solutions