Brand Architecture in Private Markets

A large number of GPs have expanded across private markets by launching new business lines and acquiring other GPs. As they grow into multi-strategy platforms (spanning private equity, real estate, infrastructure, credit, secondaries, etc.), these firms face a critical branding decision: How to structure their brand architecture.

In other words, when one firm integrates another, should it present a single unified brand (a “branded house”), preserve multiple distinct brands under one umbrella (a “house of brands”), use an endorsed brand approach (combining parent and subsidiary names), or some hybrid of these models?

This article analyzes how leading private investment firms have approached this question, focusing on external branding. We also discuss how branding decisions impact investor trust, brand equity, reputational risk management, and strategic flexibility.

Brand Architecture Models in Private Markets

Brand architecture refers to the framework defining relationships between a parent brand and its sub-brands, businesses, or products. In private investment firms, four broad models are evident:

• Branded House: The firm uses a single dominant brand across all businesses and strategies. All funds and divisions carry the parent name, signaling one cohesive identity. (E.g. Blackstone labels its credit arm “Blackstone Credit” and real estate funds “Blackstone Real Estate”.)

• House of Brands: Each major business or acquired GP retains its own independent brand, often with minimal reference to the parent. The parent firm operates more like a holding company. (E.g. Brookfield owning Oaktree Capital Management but allowing Oaktree to continue under its own name)

• Endorsed Brand: A hybrid where the acquired firm’s brand is kept but endorsed by the parent’s name (often as a tagline or combined name). This maintains the acquired brand’s identity while leveraging the parent’s reputation. (E.g. Carlyle AlpInvest, where Carlyle Group’s secondaries business uses the AlpInvest name alongside Carlyle’s)

• Hybrid Approach: A mix of the above, often evolving over time or varying by division. Many firms start with an endorsed or house-of-brands approach for new acquisitions (to reassure stakeholders of continuity) and later move toward a unified brand once integration is matures. For instance, a firm might keep an insurance subsidiary’s name separate (house of brands) but fully integrate its private equity and credit units (branded house).

Blue Owl’s brand evolution

These models each offer advantages and trade-offs. A branded house projects consistency and a one-stop-shop image, but a house of brands can preserve the goodwill of legacy names and compartmentalize reputational risks. The endorsed and hybrid strategies seek middle ground, aiming to combine credibility of a global brand with the niche strength of specialist brands. Below, we examine the pros and cons as well as how top investment firms have implemented these approaches in practice.

---

Raising the Brand

Delve into the stories and strategies behind the leading brand builders & capital raisers in the private markets.

In this series, we highlight the creative minds and strategic thinkers who are redefining how private market firms connect with their audiences, build trust, and tell their stories.

---

Impact on Investor Trust and Brand Equity

Brand architecture decisions significantly influence investor trust, brand equity, and reputation. LPs entrust capital for a decade or more, so their perception of a firm’s brand and stability is crucial.

Below we discuss how the different approaches affect these factors:

• Unified Branded House - Consistency and One-Stop Trust: A single brand across all strategies can signal to clients and LPs that they are dealing with one integrated firm with a consistent culture and quality standard. This can enhance trust if the parent brand is strong. Blackstone’s case demonstrates this, once GSO fully became Blackstone Credit, one would associate it with Blackstone’s 30-year reputation, providing “instant credibility” in new areas . "Linking the Blackstone brand to our business really meant instant credibility with LPs we had never met, but they know Blackstone and the reputation they've built over 30 years," said Verdun Perry, a senior managing director and global head of strategic partners in a Business Insider article covering the rebrand.
  
  A branded house also enables a one-stop-shop value proposition: investors can access multiple products under one trusted name, simplifying marketing and potentially deepening the client relationship. Moreover, a single brand allows centralized messaging and brand investments to lift all parts of the business, potentially increasing the overall brand equity more efficiently than if efforts are split among disparate names. However, maintaining this consistency requires careful internal alignment, every division’s actions (and performance) may reflect on the common brand, which raises the stakes for reputational risk.

• House of Brands – Specialist Credibility and Risk Isolation: Keeping acquired GPs as separate brands can bolster trust among those stakeholders who value the specialist’s independence or legacy. A house-of-brands can preserve each unit’s unique brand equity and client loyalty. This strategy also aids reputational risk management: issues in one brand may be compartmentalized. If, hypothetically, one strategy were hit by a fund performance problem or controversy, the other businesses (with different names) might suffer less contagion in the eyes of investors and the public. Apollo keeping Athene separate meant that any insurance-sector concerns (regulatory scrutiny, etc.) would be more associated with Athene than with Apollo’s investment funds. The flip side is that the parent doesn’t get full credit for the subsidiary’s successes either, the brand equity remains siloed. And clients may not perceive the breadth of the overall platform as readily, which can be a disadvantage when cross-selling products or conveying scale.

• Endorsed Brands – Balanced Assurance and Synergy: The endorsed brand/hybrid model seeks to strike a balance, and its impact on trust is situational. By combining the parent and affiliate names, it assures investors that the acquired firm has the parent’s backing (which can mean more resources, oversight, and stability) while retaining part of the original name to signal continuity. Carlyle AlpInvest’s branding is a good example: LPs see the Carlyle name (connoting a large, global firm with extensive networks) together with AlpInvest (connoting a dedicated specialist with a long track record), which can increase confidence that they are getting the best of both worlds.

  Endorsement can also mitigate the risk of an acquired brand being seen as an isolated boutique, it now has a powerful sponsor. From a brand equity perspective, the parent begins to transfer some of its equity to the sub-brand and vice versa. Over time, if handled well, the two can become inextricably linked. However, endorsed brands need careful management: the parent must uphold its standards across the sub-brand’s operations to protect its own name, and the sub-brand must continue delivering on its legacy promise to not tarnish the parent. If mismanaged, neither brand fully benefits.

• Investor Perception and Cultural Fit: How LPs and clients perceive a brand structure often comes down to transparency and cultural fit. LPs typically care most about the people, process, and performance of the teams managing their money. A rebranding can cause concern if it signals a cultural change or loss of autonomy of those teams. Firms that have managed this well (Ares/Landmark, Carlyle/AlpInvest, etc.) maintained LP confidence throughout. On the other hand, firms must also avoid a perception of disunity, if multiple brands under one roof give an impression of silos or incoherence, that can subtly erode confidence. Clients might wonder if the right hand knows what the left is doing.

• Reputational Contagion vs. Shielding: A unified brand means reputational contagion is a serious concern, a scandal or poor performance in one strategy can taint the whole firm quickly. A famous example in finance is how issues at one business line of a bank can undermine trust across all its divisions because they share a name. In alternatives, a misstep in a branded house firm’s side-pocket (say a problematic real estate fund) could make LPs second-guess committing to its other funds. By contrast, separate brands can act as a firebreak. If Brand X PE fund has a loss, and Brand Y Credit (same parent) is totally differently branded, many LPs (and certainly retail observers) may not connect the two as readily. However, sophisticated institutional investors usually know the corporate linkages, so this shielding has limits. Additionally, separate brands might lessen positive spillovers too. Each architecture choice therefore manages a trade-off between shared glory and shared risk.

The impact on trust and equity is about aligning branding with investor expectations. A well-respected parent brand can lend credibility to new areas, accelerating growth. But an acquired brand that carries its own trust capital should not be discarded lightly, or investor goodwill could be lost. The best firms evaluate where their brand equity is strongest versus where an acquired brand is stronger, and allocate branding accordingly. They also time changes to minimize shock, earning investor trust in an integrated model before fully switching names. Consistency of service and performance ultimately matters most, but branding is the vessel that carries those messages to the market.

Strategic Flexibility and Marketing Considerations

Brand architecture also affects a firm’s strategic flexibility, marketing strategy, and ability to differentiate offerings:

• Strategic Flexibility & Expansion: Firms that maintain multiple brands for different strategies can have more flexibility in expansion and restructuring. For example, you preserve the option to potentially spin-off the business independently in the future without disrupting its core brand. A branded house, conversely, integrates everything – making it harder to separate a division without a high-profile split that could confuse clients (though not impossible, as evidenced by some firms spinning out entire groups). On the flip side, a unified brand strategy can signal commitment to a business, which might reassure LPs that the firm is “all-in” and won’t easily sell or shut the unit. Strategic flexibility, therefore, is a double-edged sword: a house-of-brands gives corporate manoeuvrability, whereas a branded house can provide stability (or at least the impression of it).

• Cross-Selling and Client Coverage: From a marketing perspective, a single brand simplifies cross-selling. A client of Blackstone’s real estate funds is very clearly a client of Blackstone, and can be approached about Blackstone’s credit or infrastructure funds under the same relationship umbrella. It makes it easier to present a unified menu of products.

  In contrast, if a firm operates as a house of brands, it might need separate marketing teams or pitches for each brand, and clients might not automatically connect that one can serve multiple needs. Thus, branded houses tend to maximize marketing efficiency and synergy, with one set of materials and a coherent story, whereas multi-brand firms have to balance distinct brand stories under a corporate narrative.

• Differentiation of Investment Strategies: While a unified brand portrays consistency, separate brands can be used to differentiate strategies or target markets. A firm may choose a different brand for a retail-focused strategy versus an institutional one to appeal to each audience appropriately. Apollo did this by keeping Athene for the retail annuity market – Athene’s brand is tailored to insurance buyers, which differentiates it from Apollo’s institutional asset management brand. Endorsed brands can also differentiate sub-cultures within a firm: “Carlyle AlpInvest” is implicitly positioned as Carlyle’s solutions arm, distinct from its direct investment arm, which might attract a slightly different set of LPs. By fine-tuning branding, firms can avoid a one-size-fits-all image that might not resonate with all client segments. However, too much differentiation can silo businesses and inhibit the unified culture. Private markets firms often stress their “one-firm” culture even if branding externally is segmented, to ensure internal cohesion and consistent values (after all, a compliance issue in one part could affect all). Effective brand architecture finds a sweet spot between highlighting specialized expertise and reinforcing a common corporate ethos.

• Talent and Culture Considerations: Although external branding is the focus here, it’s worth noting that brand architecture also sends signals to employees and acquisition targets. A GP being acquired may prefer promises of brand autonomy (appealing to their pride and legacy) or might see benefit in adopting a bigger brand (access to greater resources and prestige). How a firm structures branding post-merger can impact talent retention. Consistency in branding can bolster a cohesive culture for employees if done right (everyone feels part of “One [Firm]”), but if done insensitively it can breed resentment (people feeling their heritage was erased). The best private investment firms treat branding as part of integration strategy, aligning it with how they integrate teams operationally and culturally.

Brand Architecture of Major Global Players

KKR: Unified Branding with Select Exceptions

KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) has emphasized the parent brand across most of its platform, with one notable exception. For core alternative strategies, private equity, infrastructure, real estate, credit, KKR uses a unified brand (e.g. KKR Private Equity, KKR Credit, KKR Infrastructure). The firm tends to incubate new businesses internally or acquire teams and then operate them under the KKR name. An example is KKR’s expansion into hedge funds: it acquired Prisma Capital in 2012 and branded it KKR Prisma (an endorsed approach). Even when KKR later merged Prisma with PAAMCO, the venture was known as PAAMCO Prisma (keeping both identities). This indicates KKR’s preference to insert its name for credibility, but also to respect an acquired team’s brand when it adds value.

The most prominent deviation from KKR’s branded house approach is its insurance subsidiary Global Atlantic. In 2021, KKR acquired a majority stake in Global Atlantic, a large annuity and life insurance provider. KKR deliberately kept Global Atlantic as a separate brand, recognizing the value of its existing identity in the insurance market. According to the acquisition announcement, “After closing, Global Atlantic will continue to operate as a separate business with its existing brands and management team.”. In other words, policyholders and distribution partners would still see the familiar Global Atlantic name, not KKR, in their insurance products. This house-of-brands approach insulated KKR’s core brand from direct exposure to a heavily regulated insurance business and allowed Global Atlantic’s team to maintain their client-facing brand equity. For KKR, which markets itself primarily to institutional investors in alternatives, there was little need to rebrand an annuity provider under the KKR name, and doing so might even have sown confusion or mistrust among insurance customers.

Thus, KKR employs a hybrid strategy: a strong branded house for its alternative asset management operations, enhancing unity and recognition in those businesses, combined with a house-of-brands element for its retail insurance affiliate.

Apollo: House-of-Brands for Insurance, Unified Asset Management

Apollo Global Management’s branding strategy shares similarities with KKR’s hybrid model. Apollo’s core alternative asset management operations (private equity, credit, real assets) are firmly under the Apollo name. However, Apollo’s transformative growth in the past decade came from its affiliation with Athene, an annuities and retirement services company that Apollo helped launch in 2009 and grew alongside. Apollo and Athene formally merged in 2022, turning Apollo into a fully diversified holding company with two main subsidiaries: Apollo Asset Management and Athene (retirement services). From a branding perspective, Apollo explicitly chose to keep Athene as a separate brand for its insurance business. Post-merger, Athene continues to operate under its own name with its own leadership, now as Apollo’s “Retirement Services” division. Athene’s consumer annuity customers and reinsurance clients still interact with the Athene brand, not Apollo, just as before. Apollo’s CEO Marc Rowan emphasized that the deal was “about coordination, not consolidation… There is no plan to consolidate the businesses” (reuters.com), underscoring that Apollo saw no need to blend Athene into the Apollo brand family.

By maintaining a house-of-brands structure for Athene, Apollo achieves several things. It preserves Athene’s brand equity in the insurance domain (where Apollo’s Wall Street persona might not translate directly). It also protects Apollo’s asset management brand from direct retail insurance exposure – important if, say, regulatory or reputational issues arise in the insurance unit. Meanwhile, within the alternative asset management side, Apollo operates as a branded house. For instance, when Apollo acquired other asset managers or teams, it often rebranded them under Apollo. A past example: Apollo bought a credit manager Stone Tower in 2012 and folded it into Apollo-branded credit funds. More recently, Apollo has acquired growth inorganically (e.g. buying Athene itself, and last January agreeing to acquire Argo Infrastructure), but in these cases as well, the acquired investment teams are expected to adopt the Apollo identity.

Apollo’s two-pronged brand strategy (one name for investment management, another for insurance) has arguably bolstered investor trust and strategic flexibility. On one hand, Apollo can market a “One Apollo” integrated model to institutional investors – highlighting that its $600+ billion platform can deploy capital across the risk-reward spectrum (credit to equity) under one brand. On the other hand, Athene’s stakeholders see continuity and specialization, as Athene remains a focused insurance brand. This separation also aids reputational risk management.

Brookfield: House of Brands via Acquisition (Brookfield & Oaktree)

Brookfield Asset Management, known for real assets (real estate, infrastructure, renewables, etc.), pursued a major acquisition in 2019 by buying 62% of Oaktree Capital Management, a leading distressed debt and credit specialist. In executing this, Brookfield took a house-of-brands approach. The firms announced that “Brookfield and Oaktree will continue to operate their respective businesses independently, each remaining under its current brand and led by its existing management”. This meant Oaktree, a storied name in credit investing (helmed by Howard Marks), would not be renamed or absorbed into Brookfield’s brand. Instead, the two companies became sister entities offering a “comprehensive suite” of alternative strategies side by side.

Brookfield’s rationale for a separate-brand strategy was clear. Oaktree’s brand carries significant value, it stands for a distinct investment philosophy and expertise in distressed debt that complemented Brookfield’s strengths. An interesting offshoot of this is Brookfield Oaktree Wealth Solutions, a co-branded initiative to market both firms’ alternative products to wealth management channels. That platform’s very name is an endorsement combo, implicitly telling high-net-worth clients they are getting the best of both brands.

Brookfield’s overall brand architecture can be seen as hybrid, but skewed toward multi-brand. Within its own traditional real asset business lines, Brookfield uses a branded house (e.g. Brookfield Renewable Partners, Brookfield Infrastructure). Yet, for the Oaktree acquisition it leaned fully into a house-of-brands posture, akin to a conglomerate. This case exemplifies how a house-of-brands strategy can protect and capitalize on a powerful acquired brand.

Other Notable Branding Strategies in GP Acquisitions

Beyond the above listed firms, several other private markets players have engaged in acquisitions and implemented diverse brand architectures:

• Ares Management – Landmark Partners: In 2021 Ares acquired Landmark Partners, a well-known private equity secondaries firm, to fill a product gap in secondaries. Initially, Ares kept the acquired name, branding the unit “Landmark Partners, an Ares company” (endorsed brand). This gave Landmark’s team continuity during integration. By 2022, Ares fully rebranded the business as Ares Secondaries, completing a shift to the branded house model after a transition period. This phased approach let Ares benefit from Landmark’s brand equity during fundraising (Landmark had ongoing fundraises) and then unify under Ares for long-term consistency.

• TPG – Angelo Gordon: In 2023, TPG (a major PE firm) acquired Angelo Gordon, a $73+ billion credit and real estate investment manager. TPG chose an endorsed brand strategy post-deal: the unit is now called “TPG Angelo Gordon”, positioned as a diversified credit/real estate platform within TPG. By appending its name to Angelo Gordon’s, TPG signals ownership and support while preserving the acquired firm’s well-regarded brand in credit markets. Over time, TPG could either drop the Angelo Gordon name or continue dual-branding, depending on client reception. For now, TPG Angelo Gordon conveys a blend of TPG’s scale with Angelo Gordon’s specialization – aiming to reassure legacy LPs and broaden TPG’s appeal in private credit.

• Blue Owl Capital – Owl Rock, Dyal, Oak Street: Blue Owl is a newly formed alternative asset firm created in 2021 via the merger of Owl Rock (direct lending) and Dyal Capital (GP stakes), followed by the acquisition of Oak Street (real estate). At inception, Blue Owl itself was a new brand – effectively a branded house combining two previously separate firms. Interestingly, in the first year the legacy divisions were still often referred to as Owl Rock or Dyal within industry circles. However, Blue Owl soon undertook a “One Blue Owl” branding initiative, retiring the old names entirely. By 2022, “our legacy brands – Owl Rock, Dyal Capital and Oak Street – have been renamed to [Blue Owl] Credit, GP Strategic Capital and Real Estate investment platforms, respectively,” the company reported. This strategic shift to a unified brand was deliberate: “The transition to one Blue Owl…reflects our long-term commitment to delivering the collective power of our investment capabilities to the market.” Blue Owl believed a single identity would best communicate its integrated suite of offerings and avoid confusion. In effect, Blue Owl went from a house-of-brands (multi-firm merger) straight to a branded house, showing a strong conviction that the new brand’s equity could quickly subsume the predecessors’. This move likely hinged on the fact that Owl Rock and Dyal were relatively young firms without decades of public brand heritage, and that Blue Owl wanted to present itself as one firm to capture synergies in distribution. The outcome has been a consistent branding of products (e.g. Blue Owl GP Strategic Capital Fund V, instead of “Dyal Fund V”), which helps branding consistency but required careful communication to ensure clients understood that the investment teams remained the same.

• Franklin Templeton – Specialist Alternatives (Benefit Street, Clarion, Lexington Partners): Traditional asset managers acquiring alternative firms often adopt a house-of-brands or endorsed model, and Franklin Templeton is a prime example. In recent years, Franklin (a global asset manager) bought several alternatives GPs: Benefit Street Partners (private credit), Clarion Partners (real estate), and Lexington Partners (secondaries). Franklin labels these affiliates as “Specialist Investment Managers” within its group. Each retains its own name and management, with Franklin acting as an owner and distributor. For instance, Lexington Partners continues to operate under the Lexington brand post-acquisition, ensuring “continuity for Lexington’s highly experienced team and continued strong alignment with investors.”.

  From an external viewpoint, an LP investing in a Lexington secondaries fund still sees Lexington’s branding (now with the footnote of Franklin Templeton’s ownership). Franklin Templeton benefits by broadening its alternatives capabilities while each affiliate benefits from the parent’s distribution network but isn’t forced to rebrand. This multi-brand approach is common in cases where the acquired firm has a strong independent reputation and caters to a different investor segment than the acquirer’s traditional base. It minimizes disruption and protects the brand equity that made the acquisition attractive in the first place. The potential downside – less visibility for the parent brand – is one Franklin manages by periodically co-branding initiatives (e.g. a “Franklin Lexington” interval fund product was launched to bring secondaries to new investorsbusinesswire.com). In essence, Franklin Templeton’s approach underscores using separate specialist brands to build a diverse alternatives platform, a strategy also seen with other asset managers (for example, Morgan Stanley with Eaton Vance and its alternatives, or Allianz with PIMCO).

These examples highlight that across private markets, there is no one-size-fits-all branding formula. Instead, firms consider the strength of the acquired brand, the target investor base, and strategic goals when deciding on brand architecture. A summary of various firms and their approaches is below:

Firm	Notable Acquisition(s)	Brand Strategy	Brand Approach Details
Blackstone	GSO (credit), Strategic Partners (secondaries)	Branded House	Eventually rebranded acquisitions under Blackstone name (e.g. GSO → Blackstone Credit) for one unified brand. Early period of endorsement gave way to full integration, leveraging Blackstone’s brand for credibility.
KKR	Global Atlantic (insurance)	Hybrid (House of Brands for insurance; Branded House otherwise)	Keeps insurance arm as separate Global Atlantic brand to preserve its identity, while all core investment strategies use KKR name. Balances unified image in alternatives with a distinct retail insurance brand.
Carlyle	AlpInvest (PE FoF/secondaries), Metropolitan Real Estate (real estate FoF)	Hybrid (Endorsed Brands)	Uses combined names (e.g. Carlyle AlpInvest) and “a Carlyle company” endorsements. Preserves acquired firms’ reputations while signaling Carlyle oversight. Core PE business is pure Carlyle brand; Solutions segment had sub-brands.
Apollo	Athene (annuities insurer)	Hybrid (House of Brands for insurance; Branded House for asset mgmt)	Athene remains separate-brand insurance subsidiary, even post-merger. Apollo’s asset management arms (PE, credit, real assets) all under Apollo name. Enables Apollo to keep distinct identities in distinct sectors.
Brookfield	Oaktree (credit)	House of Brands	Acquired Oaktree but kept it as an independent brand. Both firms operate under own names, leveraging respective strengths. Little co-branding except in specific joint initiatives (e.g. Brookfield Oaktree Wealth Solutions).
Ares	Landmark Partners (secondaries)	Transitional (Endorsed → Branded House)	Initially “Landmark Partners, an Ares company” to reassure stakeholders, later fully absorbed into Ares Secondaries. Illustrates a phased branding integration.
TPG	Angelo Gordon (credit & real estate)	Endorsed Brand	Adopted a combined name TPG Angelo Gordon post-acquisition. The endorsement keeps Angelo Gordon’s brand equity in credit while associating it with TPG’s platform. Future branding may evolve as integration deepens.
Blue Owl	Owl Rock (direct lending), Dyal (GP stakes), Oak Street (real estate)	Branded House (via New Brand)	Created a new unified brand for merged entities. Initially acknowledged legacy names, but soon retired Owl Rock, Dyal, Oak Street names in favor of Blue Owl platform names. Emphasizes one cohesive brand delivering all services.
Franklin Templeton	Lexington Partners (secondaries), Benefit Street (credit), Clarion (real estate)	House of Brands / Endorsed	Operates alternatives via specialist subsidiaries with their own brands. Lexington, for example, continues under its name with Franklin as parent, ensuring “continuity” for team and investors. Franklin’s name is used in product co-branding but not forced onto the acquired firms’ identities.