Alternative-investment firms have been behaving more and more like traditional asset managers -- even launching mutual funds -- over the last few years, as they've come under pressure to keep up profits.

It's gone so far that, as Henny Sender of the Financial Times reports, George Roberts, the billionaire co-founder of buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), will be manning a booth at the Charles Schwab IMPACT conference this week.

So if you're in Chicago, stop by and greet one of the erstwhile "Barbarians at the Gate."

KKR revealed this summer that it was planning to launch two mutual funds to be distributed through Schwab, and Sender's FT story sees this as part of a larger trend: "once-exclusive buyout firms are launching more mainstream investment products and turning to retail investors with limited savings to supplement their traditional sources of funding." He cites a McKinsey study that projects that alternative investment shops will account for a quarter of retail revenue by 2015.

And Sender spoke with a private equity lawyer who said that formerly exclusive firms are aiming to grow retail assets.

"The game is now to grow assets under management, rather than to grow carried interest," the lawyer said. "It's all about fees and asset size now." 

Edited by: Chris Cumming


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