Private equity firms in NYC: 446 SEC-registered PE advisers, the largest 25 and how to read the list

This report is for anyone who needs New York's private equity firms as a list rather than a reputation: founders and bankers looking for buyers, job seekers mapping the industry, analysts and B2B sellers. It works from the filings the firms make with the SEC and the Census Bureau's establishment counts, and shows where each one leaves gaps.

New York's private equity industry in numbers

All 446 PE-focused advisers give a Manhattan main office. Madison Avenue is the address of 74, Park Avenue of 67 and Fifth Avenue of 55. By size, 30 have $25 billion or more of regulatory assets, 93 have $5 billion to $25 billion, 125 have $1 billion to $5 billion, 68 have $500 million to $1 billion and 130 have less. The median adviser has 17 employees.

The 25 largest private equity advisers in New York

Source: SEC, Registered Investment Advisers file, October 2026: regulatory assets (Item 5.F), private fund counts (Item 7.B) and employees (Item 5.A) from each adviser's latest Form ADV. We keep advisers with a main office in the five boroughs whose private equity funds are at least half their private funds and whose private fund assets are at least half their regulatory assets.

How to read this list

Private equity on Form ADV is a residual category. The form defines a private equity fund as any private fund that isn't a hedge, liquidity, real estate, securitized asset or venture capital fund and doesn't offer ordinary redemption rights. Private credit, infrastructure, secondaries and growth funds all land in it, which is why names such as Blackstone Private Credit Strategies, Global Infrastructure Management and Macquarie Infrastructure Partners sit beside buyout firms. If you want buyout firms only, read each adviser's Part 2A brochure for its strategy.

One firm can file as several advisers. Four advisers in the top 25 carry the Blackstone name, each filing its own Form ADV. Others file one umbrella registration that covers related advisers: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s covers 32 relying advisers and Stonepeak's 26.

Some very large managers drop out. Our rule removes firms where private equity is a minority of the business. J.P. Morgan Investment Management ($3,519.4 billion of regulatory assets) reports 27 PE funds among 239 private funds; Goldman Sachs Asset Management reports 239 among 1,286; Apollo Capital Management ($718.5 billion) reports 214 among 712.

Regulatory assets aren't marketing AUM. They count each private fund's assets plus investors' uncalled commitments, for one adviser entity, so compare them with each other and not with the AUM in a firm's annual report.

The listed managers headquartered in Manhattan

Figures as each company's latest 10-K states them, at December 31, 2025 except StepStone (March 31, 2026). Apollo's and KKR's revenues include their insurance businesses, Athene and Global Atlantic.

Private equity is a part, not the whole, of each. Blackstone's Private Equity segment manages $416.4 billion with about 720 employees; KKR's 10-K puts its private equity at $229 billion of the $744 billion.

What the Census count shows

County Business Patterns has no private equity code; it files private equity fund managers under NAICS 523940 with wealth managers, financial planners and mutual fund managers. For the five boroughs, NAICS 5239 (other financial investment activities) counts 2,719 establishments, 3.15% of the US total of 86,389. The Census Bureau published the citywide employee and payroll totals but flagged them as high-noise (the noise added for confidentiality changed them by 5% or more), so they're not reported here, and it doesn't publish most size classes: of the 2,719, 1,616 have 1 to 4 employees.

Manhattan's county file is complete. Its 2,415 establishments paid $44.04 billion in 2023, an average of $478,721 per employee by our calculation, against $245,459 for the group nationally. The size mix is unusually heavy at the top: 1,352 have 1 to 4 employees, but 90 have 100 to 249, 40 have 250 to 499, 18 have 500 to 999 and 15 have 1,000 or more. Counts are establishments with paid employees, not companies, and leave out the self-employed.

Prospecting New York private equity firms

Segment by what the adviser runs before you segment by size. A buyout firm, a private credit manager and an infrastructure fund have different deal teams, data needs and portfolio companies, even if Form ADV calls all three private equity.

• Advisers under $1 billion (198 firms): a founder or managing partner signs; a CFO often runs operations, compliance and IT too.
• $1 billion to $25 billion (218): a CFO or COO owns fund operations, a head of investor relations owns reporting, and deal teams buy diligence per transaction.
• $25 billion or more (30): procurement, security review and a long list of entities. Expect to sell to one strategy or one adviser entity first.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are invented; the counts are from the SEC data above.

Ledgerline (ledgerline.example) sells investor reporting software to private fund managers. It targets the 125 New York PE advisers with $1 billion to $5 billion of regulatory assets and drops those whose Form ADV shows fewer than 10 private funds, an illustrative 40%, leaving 75. At each it wants the CFO and the head of investor relations: 150 people. Ten new clients at $60,000 a year is $600,000 of annual revenue. The fund count on Form ADV is the qualifier: more funds means more capital account statements every quarter. For finding the CFO at each firm, see how to find decision makers; Bebop finds the firms that match and researches each one.

Hi [first name], [firm]'s Form ADV shows [number] private funds now, up from [earlier number]. Every new vehicle adds a set of capital account statements to the quarter-end close. We automate investor reporting for New York managers your size so the close takes days, not weeks. Happy to share how one [strategy] manager cut its reporting time, if useful.

Where to look

Next step: compare New York with the firms in private equity firms in Boston, or see the national ranking in the largest private equity firms.