Adams Street RSP

Adams Street Partners, LLC sponsors the RSP. The plan serves current and former employees of the firm, which has operated as a private-markets investment manager since 1972 and is headquartered in Chicago. Adams Street Partners designs and manages the fund strategies into which the RSP commits capital.

The RSP primarily commits to funds managed by Adams Street Partners, giving participants exposure to the same venture capital, growth equity, buyout, private credit, and secondary strategies the firm runs for institutional clients. SEC records confirm the plan has also invested as a limited partner in funds managed by external sponsors — one disclosed position is in a BC Partners buyout vehicle — indicating selective co-investment alongside managers with whom Adams Street Partners has long-standing relationships.

The plan's mandate is to allocate retirement assets across the private-markets asset classes that Adams Street Partners specializes in: primarily venture capital, growth equity, private credit, and secondary investments. Because the plan invests through the parent firm's own fund families, the effective strategy mirrors that of the institutional investors Adams Street Partners serves — globally diversified, multi-stage, and concentrated in manager-underwritten private companies rather than publicly traded securities.

The plan operates under ERISA fiduciary standards, requiring that investment decisions be made solely in the interest of plan participants. Adams Street Partners structures fund terms for the RSP to mirror those offered to unaffiliated institutional limited partners. The firm's status as a PRI signatory and its registration with the SEC as an investment adviser provide additional regulatory oversight layers. Specific governance documentation — including any independent fiduciary review — is not publicly available.

The plan invests in private-market funds with multi-year lock-up periods, meaning underlying assets are not liquid on demand. Distributions flow to participant accounts as the underlying funds exit portfolio companies and return capital. This illiquidity profile distinguishes the RSP from a conventional public-markets 401(k) and reflects the partnership-model structure that ties employee retirement outcomes to the long-term performance of the parent firm's investment strategies.