Key Highlights

• GCM Grosvenor reported Q2 2026 fee-related Earnings of $50 million, up 21 percent year-over-year, with adjusted Net Income up 22 percent.

• The firm disclosed that its approximately $150 million Investment in SpaceX had a value of approximately $3.5 billion as of last week's market close, the largest single-issuer gain in company history.

• Second quarter fundraising rose to $2.3 billion from $1.5 billion in the first quarter, with Credit contributing more than $900 million.

• Assets under management reached $97 billion, up approximately 13 percent year-over-year, with fee-paying AUM of $78 billion.

Firm Discloses Scale of SpaceX Gain for the First Time

GCM Grosvenor Inc. ( Nasdaq :GCMG) disclosed for the first time the scale of its SpaceX investment, made across primary fund allocations, direct investments, and Secondary Market purchases at an average cost of approximately $6.37 per share, now valued at approximately $3.5 billion as of last week's market close against an original outlay of roughly $150 million. GCM Grosvenor is an alternative asset management firm offering Private Equity , infrastructure, real estate, credit, and Absolute Return strategies to institutional and individual investors. Management said the gains remain unrealized and generally subject to lock-up, with the timing and form of any exit largely controlled by underlying fund managers rather than by GCM Grosvenor directly.

To separate the SpaceX effect from underlying investment performance, the firm disclosed that its absolute return strategies multi-strategy composite delivered second quarter gross returns of approximately 14 percent including SpaceX and 10 percent excluding it, with year-to-date figures of 15 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Management emphasized that performance excluding SpaceX remains strong on both an absolute and peer-relative basis, an important distinction given how disproportionately a single holding can now influence headline portfolio returns.

Fee-Related Earnings Grow Independent of SpaceX Contribution

Total fee-related Revenue reached $111 million for the quarter, up 11 percent year-over-year, with fee-related earnings of $50 million, up 21 percent, and an FRE Margin of 45 percent. Management was explicit that the SpaceX valuation increase had not yet impacted fee revenue in the second quarter, attributing growth instead to broad-based fundraising strength, including from underpenetrated individual investor and insurance channels that represented 23 percent and 18 percent of year-to-date fundraising against just 5 percent and 4 percent of AUM at the start of the year.

Credit was the largest single contributor to second quarter fundraising at more than $900 million, including the close of the firm's inaugural credit secondaries fund at approximately $1.2 billion. Management described the broader private credit environment as facing increased scrutiny around valuation and Leverage in certain segments, particularly direct lending, but said GCM Grosvenor's diversified, multi-manager approach to credit has limited its exposure to those more challenged areas.

Unrealized Incentive Fees Carry Meaningful SpaceX Sensitivity

The firm estimated it holds approximately $35 million to $40 million of unrealized annual performance fees based on a $110 per share SpaceX price assumption, a figure management said would be higher based on the stock's price at the time of the Earnings Call , with each additional $10 movement in SpaceX shares worth approximately $4 million of performance fees. Gross unrealized Carried Interest across the platform stood at $965 million as of June 30, with $493 million attributable to the firm's own share, though private markets portfolios are marked on a one-quarter lag, meaning the current SpaceX share price will not be fully reflected until the following quarter's disclosure.

This lag creates a structural timing mismatch that investors should weigh carefully: the $84 per share mark used in the second quarter's unrealized carry figure is already well below the stock's more recent trading levels, implying a meaningful increase is likely in the third quarter's disclosed unrealized carry balance simply from marking the position current, independent of any further price appreciation. Management declined to specify a target Payout Ratio above its historical roughly 50 percent firm share of incentive fees, though it acknowledged an opportunity to retain more over time as the scale of embedded gains continues to grow relative to the company's market Capitalization .

Conclusion

GCM Grosvenor's second quarter combined double-digit growth in core fee-related earnings with a landmark disclosure of the SpaceX investment's scale, an outcome management repeatedly cautioned should not be treated as representative of typical portfolio outcomes. The one-quarter lag in private markets carry marking means a meaningful step-up in reported unrealized carried interest is likely in the third quarter even without further share price movement, though the ultimate realization of those gains remains subject to lock-up provisions and manager-controlled exit timing. Continued fundraising momentum across credit, insurance, and individual investor channels, together with an improving private markets realization environment, are likely to matter more for near-term fee revenue growth than the SpaceX position itself.