Business
How investment firms of the ultra-rich partner with PE funds to find top deals and save on fees
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Many investment firms of ultra-rich families are keen to buy stakes in private companies directly rather than through private equity funds, which come with fees and less control.
Cutting out the middleman can come at a steep cost, though, and requires hiring an in-house investment team to source proprietary deals.
But family offices have found a way to have their cake and eat it too by backing PE funds while investing directly alongside them.
Under these kind of deals, family offices make large fund commitments in exchange for the right to invest additional capital on their own to individual portfolio companies. They typically pay reduced management or performance fees on their co-investments, and the PE fund handles the burden of sourcing and due diligence.
These co-investing arrangements have grown in popularity over the past decade, lawyers to family offices and fund managers told Inside Wealth. This trend has been fueled by family offices seeking out more direct investments and PE firms facing challenges raising capital.
“The ability to share the burden, share the costs and, in some cases, rely on the private equity funds to source, [perform due] diligence, execute and manage those investments, is extremely attractive to families who want that exposure to direct investing, but don’t necessarily want to build all that on their own balance sheet,” said Scott Beach, who chairs Day Pitney’s corporate and business law department and the family office practice.
By teaming up with private equity funds, family offices are able to get stakes in companies they would not be able to buy outright, according to Michael Schwamm, partner at Duane Morris and co-chair of its family office practice.
“Private equity funds will almost always outbid family offices, at least in the middle market,” he said. “With the vast majority of families we deal with, most of them recognize they will never be highest bidder in the room.”
PE sponsors have become more willing to negotiate co-investment rights as a way to induce family offices to allocate to the fund, according to Kevin Shmelzer, co-leader of Morgan Lewis’ private equity practice and family office strategic initiative. For instance, sponsors may give family offices the right to buy new shares to maintain their ownership percentage when more shares are issued, he said. PE firms may also offer more detailed financial or operational information on portfolio companies than a fund investors would typically get.
However, while family offices are investing alongside PE funds, they are still minority investors. They do not get the same governance or operational rights that they would get if they bought the company themselves.
“These family offices, are not in the room with the PE sponsors, negotiating with the seller,” Shmelzer said. “At the end of the day, the family office is still at the whims of the PE fund.”
Most importantly, family offices rarely have the right to hold onto their equity and prevent the PE firm from exiting. This can be a serious drawback for family offices, which are known for investing for the long term.
“That can create some tension on the back end of a relationship,” Beach said. “The PE firm is going to want to deliver to the buyer preferably 100% of the equity so they want the right to drag along the family office.”
But in turn, family offices are able to deploy capital faster than they would if they relied solely on finding their own deals or allocating to funds, according to Doug Macauley, a partner for the private client practice at investment advisory Cambridge Associates.
Macauley expects family offices to allocate more to co-investing as private markets generally get more attractive. Some family clients have as much as 15% to 20% of their portfolio in co-investments, he said.
He cautioned that families need to watch their liquidity and be selective with fund managers and portfolio companies. When funds invite co-investors to join a deal, it may indicate a lack of conviction by the sponsor or a risky asset, he said.
“I don’t think the rationale to co-invest is that you’re going to get a better return because it’s a co-investment. You might get a better return because the fees are lower,” Macauley said. “It doesn’t make it a bad deal, but it doesn’t make it a better deal than everything else in their fund either.”
Business
MLB faces a historic shift as potential lockout, media rights and other league changes loom
Thursday’s Opening Day may be the calm before the storm for Major League Baseball.
The league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players expires at the end of this season. Owners, with the commissioner’s backing, are almost sure to push for a salary cap (which would likely come with a salary floor to get players to the negotiating table).
MLB owners have never been able to get a cap passed by the players union. It’s unclear if the end of the 2026 season will lead to a different result, but MLB Players Association Interim Executive Director Bruce Meyer told ESPN last month he expects a lockout is “all but guaranteed.”
In addition to the CBA’s expiration, there are major shifts underway for baseball media rights. One-third of the league’s teams didn’t have local TV deals in place for this season until this week.
Nine MLB teams – the Washington Nationals, Seattle Mariners, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, and Detroit Tigers – announced Wednesday their brand new MLB-operated team channels will be carried by DirecTV.
Most of those teams had previously been part of Main Street Sports (previously Diamond Sports Group), which operates FanDuel Sports Networks (previously Bally Sports). That entity has been teetering with liquidation, and the teams terminated their contracts with the company due to missed payments earlier this year.
A 10th team, the Atlanta Braves, is launching a new network called BravesVision. The Braves and Charter’s Spectrum announced a multiyear distribution agreement earlier this week.
MLB ideally wants the rights to all 30 teams in its control by the end of the 2028 season so that it can sell the in-market local games as a national package to a streamer. That would become the modern replacement to regional sports networks, and it would likely be a new, coveted package for streaming services such as ESPN and Amazon Prime Video.
Also at the end of the 2028 season, MLB’s national media rights for all of its packages will expire, allowing the league to redistribute games to its partners and potentially select new ones.
NBC, ESPN, Fox and a combined CBS/Turner have dominated national rights for the past few decades.
“The key in media negotiations now is having all of your rights available,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told me last year. “If you have all of your content – all of your playoffs, all of your regular season – available, there will be buyers, and I’m confident there will be buyers at a higher price for us.”
Manfred has even floated the idea of expanding to 32 teams and realigning the league geographically, upending or even eliminating the American and National leagues that have existed for more than 100 years.
Soaring TV ratings
It’s, of course, unclear how much of this hypothetical change will actually come to fruition.
But the potential for transformation at MLB is greater than at any of the other Big 4 professional leagues in the U.S.
And yet, baseball isn’t struggling — on the contrary. The implementation of the pitch clock in 2023 has led to shorter games, rising attendance and higher TV ratings.
Rob Manfred, Commissioner of the MLB, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., on July 9, 2025.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
More than 50 million people in the U.S., Canada and Japan watched Game Seven of the World Series last year – the most-watched baseball game in 34 years. MLB recently wrapped up the World Baseball Classic – a global preseason tournament – which captured nearly 11 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes for its final game.
MLB team valuations rose 13% from last year. The average MLB team is now worth $2.95 billion, according to CNBC Sport data.
Still, the profitability of the league is in far worse shape than it is for the NFL, NBA and NHL, according to CNBC’s calculations. In 2025, MLB’s 30 teams had an EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — margin of under 2%. Team average revenue was $426 million with average EBITDA of $7 million, including non-MLB ballpark events. In contrast, the comparable margin for the NFL was 20%; the NBA, 21% and the NHL, 22%, according to CNBC’s most recent valuations.
The new CBA at the end of this season could be the first significant step toward a very different MLB. But, similar to the WNBA, which announced its new CBA earlier this week, MLB must ensure negotiations to get a new labor agreement don’t jeopardize a wave of positive momentum.
Business
JLR temporarily halts production at Solihull plant
A JLR spokesperson said: “Due to a part supply challenge with a supplier, we are temporarily pausing production on certain vehicle lines at our Solihull manufacturing facility. We are working closely with that supplier to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and minimise any impact on our clients or our operations.”
Business
WTO reform push: India flags dysfunctional dispute system at MC14, seeks review of e-commerce duty moratorium – The Times of India
India on Thursday urged members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to restore a fully functional dispute settlement system, saying the current mechanism has deprived countries of effective redressal, PTI reported.Speaking on the opening day of the WTO’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14) in Yaounde, Cameroon, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal stressed the need to revive the automatic and binding nature of dispute resolution within the global trade body.“A dysfunctional Dispute Settlement System has deprived Members from effective redressal. We must restore the automatic and binding dispute settlement system,” he said.The WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism has faced prolonged disruption since 2009 after the US blocked appointments to the Appellate Body.Goyal also called for a reassessment of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, which WTO members have periodically extended since 1998. India has repeatedly raised concerns over the potential revenue implications of the arrangement.“In the absence of a common understanding among Members on the scope of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions and given its potentially significant implications, the continued extension of this moratorium warrants careful reconsideration,” he said.The four-day MC14 is scheduled to conclude on March 29.On broader WTO reforms, Goyal emphasised that any restructuring should be transparent, inclusive and member-driven, with development concerns at the centre. He underlined that core principles such as non-discrimination, consensus-based decision-making and equity must be upheld. The minister added that the principle of special and differential treatment (S&DT) should be made precise, effective and operational.On agriculture negotiations, he said a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security purposes, the special safeguard mechanism and cotton are long-pending mandated issues that member countries “must deliver on them on priority”.“India remains committed to negotiating a comprehensive Fisheries Subsidies Agreement that balances current and future fishing needs, protects the livelihoods of poor fishers, with appropriate and effective S&DT,” Goyal said.He also stated that incorporating plurilateral outcomes into the WTO framework should be based on consensus and should not undermine the rights of non-participants or impose additional obligations on them.“We will engage constructively to show that WTO remains central to global trade and strive to Reform it to remain responsive, Perform in delivering on development, equity, and inclusiveness, and Transform to better serve the interests of the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized people, anchored in consensus and multilateralism,” he said.Other WTO members also highlighted the need for reforms. According to a statement from US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the organisation has struggled to address systemic issues such as persistent trade imbalances, structural excess capacity, economic security and supply chain resilience.“As ministers, our focus should be on reforms that would make the WTO more responsive to Members and improve our ability to achieve outcomes that optimize our trading relationships,” Greer said, adding that countries should consider making the e-commerce duty moratorium permanent.Separately, a ministerial statement by the G-33 grouping of developing countries reiterated that public stockholding for food security remains a crucial policy tool for developing and least developed nations.“We urge all WTO Members to work together in reaching a permanent solution on this issue as per the Ministerial mandates,” the statement said.China also called for restoring a fully functioning dispute settlement mechanism at the earliest to strengthen the WTO’s role in global economic governance. The UK said it wanted to “improve accountability by reinstating a functioning dispute settlement system”.EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic warned that inaction could weaken the rules-based trading system. “Maintaining the status quo is not an option — we cannot go on as we are. If we do, we risk erosion of the rules-based system and the WTO sliding into irrelevance. Therefore, I strongly believe we must act urgently to reform the WTO,” he said
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