Curtis Buser: Bill, it’s Curt. Thanks for your question. I’ll start and then Bill might add in. So I’m really proud of what we did in 2022 from a deployment standpoint. We deployed $35 billion across the portfolio. It was actually our most deployment in any year. And between ’22 and ’23, it was noticeably better than what it had been in all prior years. Bill talked about some of the challenges here recently, and we think that, that’s going to pick back up. The diversification across the platform and deployment I was really proud of because what you saw in ’23 was much more coming out of Global Credit and other aspects of even private equity outside of corporate private equity. And so all of that was really good. So the deployment piece was really good.
That leads us into a good place from a fundraising perspective and sets us up well for fundraising. And so because it’s the first and foremost thing, I think, is kind of how the portfolios are performing and then how you think about fundraising. So from a fundraising standpoint, a couple of high-level things for you to keep in mind. Our portfolios are performing really well. And this, I think, sets us up nicely to go as we seek to raise more capital. Second, as Bill said, we expect to raise more in 2023 than we did in 2022, and we’ll have more products in the market to support this. The third thing from a number standpoint, I want you to keep in mind is, in 2021, at the beginning of the year, we said we would raise $130-plus billion over 4 years.
So 2 years in, we’ve raised $80 billion, $50 billion last year, $30 billion this year. And we added $65 billion through strategic transactions. So that’s $145 billion of new fee-earning AUM in just 2 years. And you see that in our fee-related earnings, up 40%, 30-plus CAGR over the last 5 years. And so that’s done really well. And we’ve seen a lot of that growth really in credit and in our solutions business. Now in the buyout funds, we still have, obviously, some congestion in that space, but there’s a number of reasons to have optimism there. First, as Bill said, I think there’s less uncertainty about the global markets today than it was a year ago. Second, public markets seem to be improving here in early days of the year, but it’s still early.
Third, we’re in ’23. So that’s a new set of allocations for investors. And last, with the appointment of Harvey Schwartz, we have a lot of reason to be excited. And we hope that, that carries forward to our investors and taking away some uncertainty that may linger there in certain situations. But look, I’ll reiterate that I think that our buyout funds will be similar in size to their previous vintages. And so I’m confident in that and very excited about kind of our overall growth in the firm. And I think that this will be a better year from a fundraising perspective than it was in 2022 and, again, helping us in our focus on driving fee-related earnings.
William Conway: Okay. And just a follow-up, maybe stick with you, Curt. So just sort of triangulating the notion of FRE up in ’23 over ’22, just sort of wondering how you might be able to ring-fence that. And then just given the sort of yet to be determined incremental strategy with Mr. Schwartz, how should we think about margins? Because I hear a lot of grow the business, grow the business, grow the business. Can you drive FRE up and FRE margins up if you still need to grow the business?
Curtis Buser: Bill, look, I said that we’re confident we’re going to grow fee-related earnings in ’23. I think the first quarter will be a little flat, as I said in my remarks. But thereafter, I think things are really set up nicely. There’s — this is a challenging environment, and we are continuing to invest and that’s why I think this might be a little lower rate of total growth than, say, in the past, but feeling really good about our ability to grow fee-related earnings. I think with Harvey coming on, his past experience in helping companies and helping situations improve profitability will be a good addition to the team, will bring new thoughts to this. But I also want to be careful and give him the opportunity to put his imprint on things. And so I want to be a little cautious in terms of how much specificity I give in guidance, but we’re really well set up to begin ’23.
Operator: Our next question comes from Alexander Blostein with Goldman Sachs.
Alexander Blostein: Maybe just to follow up the prior discussion from Bill’s question. It sounds like you guys still feel pretty confident about the overall fundraising targets that you laid out couple of years ago, but the mix might be slightly different. Obviously, you highlighted the private equity business is a little bit slower. Can you expand on that a little bit? And as you think about the ramp that you’re talking about into 2023 from FRE growth, what are some of the key products and strategies that you expect to be kind of the biggest contributors to that ramp?
Curtis Buser: Alex, it’s Curt. Let me start and then Bill can add. So look, credit did about $15 billion this past year. It’s going to have more product in the market than last, feeling really good about how that continues. Our opportunistic credit fund is out there raising money. Our CLO business will probably start the year a little slower because of all the reasons we’ve talked about. But I think it’s always a heavy weight in the room. And then in the solutions business, we’ve got our co-investment products and our secondaries products and a couple of new things that we’ll bring to market this year. And so again, more products in that space. Think of the solutions business as really being a nice way to kind of really increase from where they were in 2022.
And then in private equity, look, we’re going to have more product in the market in private equity. So a number of buyout funds, U.S., Europe, Asia, will either begin or will be in the market from a fundraising perspective. There’s other products in private equity that will be in the market. And so that, too, I think, is well positioned to do better. I don’t know, Bill, if you have anything to add.
William Conway: Yes. I think solution is going to be a big growing fund and the funds of solutions are going to be a pretty big growing area this year. I also — I don’t want to confine Harvey in any way. I don’t want my comments in any way to limit his ability to imagine a different future or a different way that things could be done better. So I’m a little hesitant to get too specific on this. But I do think that the noncorporate private equity funds, the demand is there, too. I used that credit example before when I was answering a prior question. Sometimes when it’s a little tougher to raise the equity, raising the credit funds is a little easier because the opportunity is great, the spreads are wider and more money can be made by the investors in those funds. But I don’t want to confine my answer in any way that will limit Harvey and his ability to do a great job.
