HLNENASDAQThe short version
Hamilton Lane Incorporated
Hamilton Lane is an insider-controlled private-markets manager that oversees about $1 trillion of assets and earns most of its money from recurring fees. Its shares have fallen roughly 59% from a 2024 peak.
From an $18 listing in 2017 the shares compounded to a $201.62 peak in November 2024, then fell about 59% to $83.16 by July 2026, near their 52-week low.
P/E FY27E 13.3×
$83.16
Share price
$759M
FY2026 revenue
$81.5B
Fee-earning AUM
27%
Return on equity
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IThe business
The business
A trillion dollars overseen, but only $82 billion pays a management fee
What Hamilton Lane manages (March 2026)
| Layer | Size | How it pays |
|---|---|---|
| Assets under advisement | $905B | Thin, mostly fixed reporting fees |
| Discretionary AUM | $142B | Includes committed, not-yet-paying capital |
| Fee-earning AUM | $81.5B | The recurring management-fee base |
Fee-earning AUM is the slice the recurring fee line is built on.
- Private-markets specialist. Founded in 1991, the firm builds and oversees portfolios of private equity, credit, real estate and infrastructure for institutions and, increasingly, wealthy individuals.
- Asset-light. It invests other people's capital rather than its own balance sheet, and no single client is more than 2% of fee revenue.
Revenue mix
Recurring fees are three-quarters of revenue; carried interest is the lumpy rest
FY2026 revenue by stream
Management & advisory fees$584.2M77%
Incentive fees$174.8M23%
Total FY2026 revenue $759M.
- The steady line. Management and advisory fees reached $584.2M, about 77% of revenue, charged on committed or invested capital that turns over slowly rather than on market value.
- The variable line. Incentive fees — carried interest on realizations — fell to $174.8M from $199.1M even as fees grew; behind them sits about $1.5B of unrecognized carry.
Competitive position
A high-fee, high-margin book — but not the scale leader in its niche
Hamilton Lane vs a direct peer
| Hamilton Lane | StepStone | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee-earning AUM | $81.5B | $144.0B |
| Growth (YoY) | +13% | +19% |
| Blended fee rate | 67 bps | 63 bps |
Higher fee rate, smaller and slower-growing book.
- Pricing over scale. Hamilton Lane charges a rising 67-basis-point blended fee and runs a roughly 50% margin on its fee engine, above peer GCM Grosvenor's 44.5%.
- The counter. StepStone, the fastest-growing solutions peer, is taking share at a lower and falling fee rate — a plausible template for where Hamilton Lane's premium eventually lands.
IIThe record
Growth record
Fee-earning assets doubled in six years, led by higher-fee specialized funds
Fee-earning AUM by type ($B)
Fee-earning AUM grew from $38.7B in FY2020 to $81.5B in FY2026.
- Mix doing the work. Specialized and evergreen funds compounded about 22% a year and now rival the lower-fee separate-account book, lifting the blended fee rate from 64 to 67 basis points in a year.
- Organic, not markets. FY2026's build came from $15.0B of gross inflows against $7.6B of distributions — new money, not just appreciation.
Earnings quality
Recurring earnings grew 29% a year — a performance-linked line supplied most of it
Fee-Related Earnings: clean vs performance-linked ($M)
FRE rose from $206.7M to $344.5M; FRPR supplied about 73% of that two-year gain.
- The label flatters it. Fee-Related Earnings is management's measure of recurring profit, but the performance-linked FRPR line inside it grew from $2.4M to $102.5M and is now about 30% of the total.
- Why it matters. FRPR is charged on high-water-marked evergreen NAV, so a drawdown can hold it near zero for years — while the clean management-fee base still compounded about 13.7% a year.
Balance sheet
Net cash, minimal capital needs, and cash flow that covers the dividend many times
$361M
Cashvs $278M debt — net cash
0.30x
Debt / equity
$425M
FY2026 operating cash flowcovers $88M dividends
27%
Return on equity
Capital expenditure was just $5.8M in FY2026.
- Bankruptcy risk is remote. The firm holds more cash than debt and has no capital-intensive asset base to impair, so the real downside is a lower multiple, not solvency.
- Cash reaches holders. The dividend has been raised every year, to $2.16, and the board lifted the buyback authorization to $100M in May 2026.
IIIThe story now
What happened
The market repriced the shares about 59% while earnings kept rising
From roughly 40x earnings at the peak to about 14x today.
- Earnings did not fall. Non-GAAP EPS rose about 17% from FY2025 to FY2026, to $5.90, and the dividend rose too — the multiple did all the work, contracting roughly 65%.
- A fallen star. At $83.16 the price sits below the entire published range of analyst targets, from a $94 low to a $174 high, even as consensus still models upside.
Valuation debate
The cheap multiple sits on earnings that are not all pure fee
Price / non-GAAP EPS at key points (x)
Forward multiples sit demonstrably below Hamilton Lane's own history.
- From the November-2024 peak to mid-2026 the share price fell ~59% while non-GAAP EPS rose ~17%, compressing the multiple from ~40x to ~14x — but that low-teens multiple values a Fee-Related-Earnings base whose two-year growth was roughly 73% supplied by a performance-linked FRPR line ($2.4M to $102.5M), so the de-rating partly reprices earnings quality, not just sentiment.
- The other side. Strip the performance-linked FRPR and the multiple on the clean management-fee earnings is nearer 19x — yet 13.3x FY27E and 11.3x FY28E still sit below the firm's own history, and the mean target of $126.86 is about 53% above spot.
The central finding
The growth engine, the earnings-quality question and the cycle risk are one asset
~$14.3B
Evergreen NAV layer
~18%
Of the fee base
~75%
Of FY2026 fee-AUM growth
~73%
Of two-year FRE growth
One evergreen layer drives the growth, the quality overhang and the cycle exposure.
- Roughly three-quarters of FY2026's fee-earning-AUM growth and about 73% of the two-year Fee-Related-Earnings increase both trace to the same ~$14.3B evergreen NAV layer — only ~18% of the fee base and charged on high-water-marked NAV — so Hamilton Lane's growth engine, its earnings-quality overhang, and its cyclical exposure are one and the same asset.
- The counter. The management-fee base still compounded about 13.7% a year independently, and roughly 82% of the fee base is not marked to market — so the recurring core keeps growing even if the evergreen layer stalls.
Ownership
Insiders hold the vote and a tax claim ranks ahead of outside holders
Voting power vs economic interest (%)
Officers and directors control 64% of the vote on 25% of the economics.
- Insiders steer 64% of the vote on 25% of the economics while public holders also fund a $235.4M tax-receivable-agreement payable that accelerates to a lump sum on any change of control, so the same block that governs Hamilton Lane also makes it effectively unsellable without insider consent.
- The alignment counter. The same insiders hold their wealth in the identical economics public holders own, their largest awards vest only if the shares roughly double, and the TRA is self-funding rather than added leverage.
IVThe price
Scenario ladder
Net cash and a covered dividend put a firmer floor under the price than a ceiling
Illustrative value range vs $83.16 spot
Bear
$74
Base
$96
Bull
$140
Illustrative EPS times a multiple, most sensitive to the multiple — not price targets.
- Bear is not a rout. Even if the cycle reverses and the multiple converges on lower-fee peers, earnings near $6 hold the shares in the low-to-mid $70s — a modest loss from spot, not a collapse.
- Bull needs durability proven. If the fee rate and evergreen flows hold and the multiple re-rates toward its own history, mid-teens earnings growth reaches the $130–150 area where targets cluster.
The street
Six of seven analysts rate it buy, with the price below every published target
13.3x
FY2027E P/E
11.3x
FY2028E P/E
$126.86
Mean targetabout 53% above spot
2.6%
Dividend yield
Consensus models revenue to about $904M in FY2027 and over $1.0B in FY2028.
- Cheap on forward numbers. At $83.16 the shares trade on 13.3x FY2027 and 11.3x FY2028 consensus earnings, well below the roughly 40x paid at the 2024 peak.
- But the out-year drifts. Near-term estimates are firming while FY2028 EPS saw more downgrades than upgrades last month — the durability of the fee base is the open question left to watch.
What to watch
A cash-rich, aligned compounder at a low-teens multiple — or a fair price for slowing, performance-linked growth.
- 01Blended fee rate: holding at or above 67 bps signals pricing power; drift toward the low-60s means the lift was mix, not power.
- 02Evergreen net subscriptions: net outflows or an invoked redemption gate would show the growth layer's cyclicality feeding straight into fees.
- 03Management and advisory fees: sustained double-digit growth confirms the organic ramp; sub-7% means the core, not the mix, is the true rate.
- 04Co-CEO price hurdles ($150 / $190 / $230): a reset lower after the de-rating would weaken the alignment story.
This distills a guided study built chapter by chapter — the business, its record, what is happening now, and what the market asks you to pay.
Compiled from the full report · 2026-07-28 · For information, not investment advice.