Owl Rock Capital Partners LP and Dyal Capital Partners agreed to merge in a complicated deal that would take them public through a blank-check company. The new company, to be named Blue Owl, would combine one of the biggest owners of private-equity firm stakes with Owl Rock, a rapidly growing credit investor. It would be valued at about $12.5 billion.
The firms plan to go public through a merger with Altimar Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company sponsored by an affiliate of HPS Investment Partners LLC. The deal also includes additional funds of about $1.5 billion from institutional investors.
According to Marc Lipschultz, co-founder of Owl Rock and James Clarke, a managing director at the firm, a hallmark of this deal was CalSTRS’s thorough due diligence. “The depth and breadth they brought to this, coronavirus or not, is noteworthy,” Lipschultz said by phone. “Needless to say, the terrible impacts of the pandemic are severe on everybody. It doesn’t change that they have a lot of pensioners who count on them.”
