GCM Grosvenor Inc. (GCMG) Stock Price & How to Invest

GCM Grosvenor is an open-architecture alternative asset manager, meaning it does not primarily run its own buyout deals. It designs and manages portfolios of other people's private funds, co-investments and hedge fund strategies on behalf of large institutions, and increasingly invests directly alongside sponsors. The firm was founded in 1971, employs roughly 530 people out of Chicago with offices in New York, London, Frankfurt, Singapore and Hong Kong, and listed on Nasdaq in November 2020 through a merger with the CF Finance Acquisition Corp II blank-check company. As of the first quarter of 2026 it managed about $91.5 billion, up roughly 12% year over year, of which about $73.5 billion was fee-paying. Private markets (private equity, infrastructure, real estate and credit) account for about $64.4 billion, and absolute return strategies, the hedge fund side, carry about $26 billion of fee-paying assets. Clients skew institutional: public pensions are about 36% of the base, insurance companies about 17% and corporations about 12%, with roughly 59% of assets sourced from the Americas, 26% from Asia-Pacific and 15% from EMEA.

The investment picture rests on two very different earnings streams. The first is management fees on long-duration, contractually committed capital, which produced about $185 million of fee-related earnings over the twelve months to March 2026 (up roughly 6%) at an adjusted EBITDA margin near 44%, versus roughly 31% in 2020. The second is performance revenue, which is genuinely lumpy: the firm's share of unrealized carried interest reached a record of about $510 million in Q1 2026 against roughly $134 million a few years earlier, with about $577 million of gross unrealized carry sitting in maturing 2018 to 2021 vintages that only becomes cash when portfolio companies are sold. The strategic mix has shifted meaningfully toward higher-fee work: direct-oriented strategies are now about 54% of private markets assets against 39% in late 2020, and the individual investor channel raised roughly $500 million in Q1 2026 alone, more than the channel had historically raised in a full year. Management has publicly committed to doubling fee-related earnings by 2028 through a combination of top-line growth and further margin expansion, and reminds investors that the path will not be linear. Q1 2026 illustrated why: fee-related revenue of about $106.7 million came in well below a roughly $132 million consensus, largely because the prior-year quarter included about $7.6 million of catch-up management fees, and stripping that out the same lines grew about 8% and 20%.

The public float is small: only about 58.7 million shares trade freely against roughly 202 million fully exchanged units, a consequence of the Up-C structure left over from the 2020 blank-check listing, so day-to-day liquidity is thin and voting control rests with co-founder and executive chairman Michael Sacks rather than public holders. Fundraising is lumpy by design, with specialized funds concentrated in the back half of the year, and Q1 2026 showed how a single prior-period catch-up fee can make a growing business screen as a large revenue miss against a consensus that only four to five analysts contribute to. The dividend consumes close to 98% of trailing GAAP earnings, which leaves limited cushion if performance fees or carry realizations slip, and the firm carries roughly $422 million of debt. Carried interest is unrealized until exits happen, so a frozen IPO and M&A market defers a large share of the stated value indefinitely. Competition for the same institutional allocations comes from far larger balance sheets at Blackstone, KKR and Apollo and from listed peers Hamilton Lane and StepStone, and management has flagged credit as an area it is watching closely even while saying it sees no systemic issues in its own portfolios.

4 analysts publish price targets on GCMG, averaging $15.00 against a $13.48 price as of August 2026, or +11.3%. The published targets run from $12.00 to $17.00, a moderate spread, and the ratings split 4 buy, 1 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 3 raises and 3 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full GCMG forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on GCM Grosvenor Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. The 2028 fee-related earnings doubling target. Management has anchored the equity story on doubling fee-related earnings by 2028, split between growing fee-paying assets and continued margin expansion. The most optimistic published target, $17.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. The public float is small: only about 58.7 million shares trade freely against roughly 202 million fully exchanged units, a consequence of the Up-C structure left over from the 2020 blank-check listing, so day-to-day liquidity is thin and voting control rests with co-founder and executive chairman Michael Sacks rather than public holders. The most pessimistic target, $12.00, is roughly what GCMG is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on GCMG, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see GCM Grosvenor Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$553 million, up ~4% year over year
• AUM / fee-paying AUM: ~$91.5 billion and ~$73.5 billion at Q1 2026, up ~12% and ~11%
• Fee-related earnings (LTM): ~$185 million, up ~6%, at a ~44% adjusted EBITDA margin
• Adjusted net income (LTM): ~$167 million, up ~12%; Q1 2026 adjusted EPS ~$0.18
• Unrealized carried interest: ~$1.0 billion gross, ~$510 million firm share (a record)
• Market cap / multiples: ~$2.7 billion at ~$13.50 a share, ~27x trailing and ~15x forward earnings, ~3.6% dividend yield

The gap between the ~27x trailing and ~15x forward multiple is the whole debate in one number: trailing GAAP earnings are depressed by the Up-C structure's non-controlling interest split and by amortization, while forward estimates assume the 2028 fee-related earnings plan is on track. Enterprise value is about $2.97 billion against roughly $422 million of debt, putting EV/EBITDA near 21x, richer than a pure fee-annuity manager would normally screen but below the mega-cap alternatives. Price-to-book of roughly 31x is close to meaningless here because the Up-C structure keeps almost no equity on the Class A balance sheet, so cash-flow and fee-related earnings measures carry the analytical weight. Second quarter 2026 results were scheduled for August 10, 2026, with consensus near $0.18 of adjusted EPS on about $131 million of revenue.

Other names that sit close to GCMG: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get GCMG exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so GCMG sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where GCMG fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

GCM Grosvenor is a small, fee-heavy alternative manager with a record carried interest balance and a stated plan to double fee-related earnings by 2028, priced against a thin public float, founder-controlled voting and famously lumpy quarterly fundraising.

Whether GCMG is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is GCMG a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the GCMG stock forecast.

For income investors, whether GCMG pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does GCMG pay a dividend? And to weigh GCMG against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: GCMG vs STEP and GCMG vs OWL.