Expanded access to non-traditional investments

October 30, 2017  | By Kevin Smith

We have expanded our access to non-traditional investments through an independent exchange called CAIS.

This platform provides third-party research reports, analytics tools and streamlined transaction execution for private equity funds, private loan portfolios, hedge funds, real estate funds, and others.

Non-traditional, privately traded investments are not for everybody.

• They typically require a household with at least $1M investable assets and at least $5M in some cases.
• They are only suitable for investors with a higher than average risk tolerance with ample liquidity.
• These investments are typically ‘illiquid’, meaning your money is tied up for some period of time, which varies based on the program.
• The risk level can also be higher than with traditional diversified mutual funds.

You can have a successful investing experience without the use of these types of investments, and we only recommend them for clients who meet a specific set of criteria. The potential benefits include:

• Some private investment funds tend to behave very differently from traditional stock and bond indices. This dynamic can provide greater diversification, with the objective of lowering the volatility of performance for your overall portfolio.
• Some categories of private market funds have historically provided the opportunity for higher potential returns than traditional, publicly traded funds, although this opportunity comes at with higher risks, illiquidity, and typically higher operating costs.

Benefits of the CAIS platform include:

• Direct access to top-tier alternative investment funds, rather than paying an additional layer of cost for access.
• Lower minimum investment requirements, sometimes as low as $50k.
• Independence – CAIS does not provide their own products.
• Third party due diligence from Mercer and State Street.
• Vendor-neutral technology.
• Integration with the rest of AWM tools, such as Orion consolidated performance reporting and eMoney financial planning.