The Ledger / Scott Kapnick
Scott Kapnick
◼ Origin
Spent over two decades at Goldman Sachs rising to co-head of the global investment banking division before departing in 2012 to co-found and lead HPS Investment Partners (initially Highbridge Principal Strategies, a division of JPMorgan's Highbridge Capital Management), building it into one of the world's largest alternative credit and private equity firms with approximately $117B in assets under management by 2024. In January 2025, BlackRock announced the acquisition of HPS Investment Partners for approximately $12B — one of the largest private credit firm acquisitions in history — with Kapnick and co-founders receiving substantial proceeds; the transaction closed in early 2025.
◼ Self-Made Verdict — YES
Built his career at Goldman Sachs from a junior position to co-head of global investment banking without an inherited financial firm or family capital base in finance; co-founded HPS Investment Partners from scratch in 2012 and grew it to $117B AUM before the BlackRock acquisition in 2025. His wealth reflects decades of original professional achievement in investment banking and private credit.
◼ Documented marks
01
Co-founder and CEO of HPS Investment Partners, one of the world's largest alternative credit and private equity firms with approximately $117B in assets under management as of 2024; HPS focuses primarily on private credit (direct lending, mezzanine financing, distressed credit) and private equity, serving institutional investors including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and insurance companies. In January 2025, BlackRock announced the acquisition of HPS for approximately $12B in BlackRock stock — one of the largest acquisitions of an alternative investment manager in history — with Kapnick and co-founders expected to receive proceeds in the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars as part of the transaction.
02
Kapnick spent 25+ years at Goldman Sachs, rising to co-head of the global investment banking division alongside David Solomon and others who later led the firm; his Goldman career spanned leveraged finance, mergers and acquisitions, and principal investing across multiple market cycles, giving him a foundational network and technical expertise that he applied to building HPS's deal origination and relationship infrastructure. When HPS was established (initially as a unit of JPMorgan's Highbridge Capital Management), Kapnick's ability to attract institutional capital and source large private credit opportunities drew directly on his Goldman and investment banking relationships.
03
HPS Investment Partners operates primarily in private credit markets — direct loans to mid-market and large corporate borrowers — that sit between traditional bank lending and public high-yield bond markets; this 'shadow banking' segment grew dramatically after the 2008-2009 financial crisis as regulatory capital requirements reduced banks' appetite for leveraged loans and subordinated debt, creating space for private credit firms like HPS to offer flexible financing to borrowers at higher rates. Critics of the private credit sector, including the Federal Reserve and IMF, have noted that concentration of credit intermediation in less-regulated private funds creates systemic opacity and potential credit-cycle amplification risks, though no enforcement action against HPS specifically has been publicly disclosed.
No inheritance, or primary accounts documented for this billionaire yet.
◼ List of charges
No documented charges yet.
These are moral charges, not legal ones. The actual legal system has not — and will not — bring them.
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