Sixth Street repurchased the stake in the firm owned by partners at TPG in a transaction valuing the alternative-asset manager at about US$10 billion , a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Sixth Street paid more than US$1 billion last month as it exercised an option to repurchase the stake, the person said. The deal was prompted by TPG Inc becoming a direct competitor to Sixth Street through the purchase of credit firm Angelo Gordon, which was completed in November.

Representatives of San Francisco-based Sixth Street and TPG declined to comment. 

Sixth Street, founded in 2009 and led by chief executive officer Alan Waxman, has more than US$75 billion of assets under management. In 2020, Sixth Street and TPG told investors they would operate as independent organisations. TPG transferred its stake in Sixth Street to a group of individual partners before it went public in early 2022.

The 2020 decision was spurred by the rapid growth of the two firms, and a partnership agreement that limited them from getting into each other’s focus areas, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The agreement called for TPG to stick to private equity deals and for Sixth Street to limit itself to credit and credit-related opportunities. But as the two expanded into new businesses - like growth financing and real estate - those lines became harder to define.

Sixth Street was founded by Waxman and nine others, and was originally called TPG Opportunities Partners.

Sixth Street’s repurchase of the stake owned by TPG’s partners was reported earlier by Semafor.

  - Bloomberg