The art of handling illiquid assets

By Jayson Forrest - Managing Editor  - IMAP Perspectives

Dale Holmes (Spire Capital), Shane Hawke (Oreana Portfolio Advisory Service) and Brad Matthews (Brad Matthews Investment Strategies) examine the options and merits of allocating illiquid assets in managed accounts at the 2022 IMAP Portfolio Management Conference.

Typically, when you think of illiquid assets, you think of property and infrastructure assets. These assets are generally hard to sell quickly. Illiquid assets tend to have a lower trading volume, wider bid-ask spreads, and greater price volatility.

However, increasingly, more products are becoming available in the retail space, such as private equity and private debt, as well as in many of the alternative asset classes. Yet, despite this increasing availability of products and the potential diversification benefits that an allocation of illiquid assets can bring to a portfolio, there is still widespread reluctance by advisers to use illiquid assets.

Speaking at the 2022 IMAP Portfolio Management Conference, Dale Holmes - Director at Spire Capital - firmly believes that the key to building robust portfolios is to allocate across a variety of sectors; both liquid and illiquid. He points to private and public markets as being very complementary, with private markets delivering a 3-5 per cent premia over public markets.

“Put simply, private companies exist in the private markets and are funded through institutional investors, whereas public companies are publicly traded on the stock market and can be invested into by the general public,” says Dale.

But why do private markets provide an opportunity for a premia?

“It’s fundamentally because private markets are backing innovation and entrepreneurism. The dispersion of return you get in private markets is so much greater than the public markets, and it provides investors with the opportunity to back the best managers,” he says.

And a number of fund managers agree with Dale’s summation, with the Future Fund - an Australian sovereign wealth fund - currently allocating over 31 per cent to private markets.

But the first step of incorporating illiquid assets in a client’s portfolio is to properly understand the client’s needs. Dale believes advisers are best placed to talk to their clients about their liquidity needs and how they want to allocate for future liabilities. This may include adopting a bucket strategy, where the client has a bucket for liquidity, a bucket for 5-7 year money, and perhaps a bucket for longer term financial needs of 15+ years.

“This is how advisers are beginning to think about how to get clients to allocate to private markets. It might mean that advisers end up having a core satellite approach as part of the portfolio construction process,” he says.

Shane Hawke - Head of Research and Advisory at Oreana Portfolio Advisory Service - agrees that  understanding the client’s needs and objectives is crucial as part of the overall financial planing process. He adds this is particularly important when allocating illiquid assets in a managed accounts structure, which he adds can be complex but potentially rewarding for clients.

The way in which Oreana handles illiquid assets when building portfolios is by using a highly repeatable process based on a five-step process. It includes:

1. What is the overall investment mission and objective?

2. Advice-based investment strategy.

3. Diversified portfolio versus specialist satellite.

4. Available investment universe and constraints.

5. Investment due diligence.

Step 1: What is the overall investment mission and objective?

When constructing portfolios, rather than jumping straight to a product, it’s best to start by identifying the ‘why’, rather than the ‘what’, of using a particular product or solution, says Shane. This involves understanding the overall investment mission and objectives of clients.

“This process includes looking at your own investment beliefs, and how this aligns to the overall objectives and purpose of the portfolio you are constructing and managing for clients,” he says. “Our process starts with the client – their mission, their objectives, their goals. Our investment management process is a framework for maximising the likelihood that clients achieve their objectives.”

Step 2: Advice-based investment strategy

Unless investment advice is delivered in a consistent and meaningful way, it can be episodic. Advice can be highly customised, which means an adviser may look at a particular product for one client, but not use that product across their client base. To ensure investment advice is delivered consistently and efficiently, Oreana has implemented an advice-based investment strategy across the business.

“We use a repeatable process to determine long-term asset allocation targets. This helps us diversify across a range of asset classes, and repeatably manage risk and return to increase the likelihood of achieving a client’s mission and objectives.”

Step 3: Diversified portfolio versus specialist satellite

Whether it’s having a diversified portfolio or a specialist satellite, the question advisers need to ask themselves, says Shane, is why are they looking at illiquid assets in the first place? Is it to meet a client’s income need, or is it to meet a diversification requirement?

“The challenge is to put aside the actual illiquid nature of the asset and instead, think about the underlying asset. What is it that you are looking to invest in and why?,” he says. “Is it private credit, private equity, or multi-strategy? What is it that you are looking for? Is it to provide negative or low correlation to other asset classes? Is it to provide downside protection? You need to understand the role of that underlying asset in the portfolio.

“By doing this, advisers can develop a long-term sustainable strategy that will meet their clients’ specific needs. It will also help you with regard to articulating an investment strategy that is appropriate for your beliefs and philosophy, and which is repeatable.”

As part of this process, Oreana also uses dynamic asset allocation, where it looks at a range of factors from a medium-term outlook.

“Our asset allocation is disciplined, repeatable and managed within a clear risk framework. We can make changes to reduce exposure to downside risks, protecting a client’s wealth and supporting their journey towards their mission.

“The benefit of this process is it helps us understand the role of an underlying asset in a diversified portfolio, while also potentially allowing us to have exposure to something else from a satellite perspective.”

Step 4: Available investment universe and constraints

According to Shane, this step is where the real challenges of using illiquid assets in a portfolio crop up. Advisers need to contend with numerous issues when considering investments, including: the ability and inability of platforms to make illiquid assets available; trustee obligations; and licensee considerations.

“In terms of an adviser’s practice, it’s not only important to stay true to your business and client base, but ensure that whatever process you are following, you have access to the investment universe,” says Shane.

“In the case of having a diversified portfolio, some of the truly uncorrelated less liquid asset classes are not available on a daily listed liquid solution. It therefore presents opportunities for advisers to think about illiquid assets more strategically in terms of their portfolio construction and advice strategy.”

Oreana’s Manager Research Team has a repeatable process supported by deep quantitative research and a clear, actionable set of core beliefs. It chooses the best managers from a universe of thousands to support portfolio returns and risk management – all aimed at achieving a client’s long-term goals.

Step 5: Investment due diligence

Many of these underlying illiquid assets are currently available in markets around the world, with increasingly more coming to Australia. Shane adds there are also more wholesale-only type investments in the illiquid asset space.

“So, there are no shortages of opportunities. It’s simply a matter of how you choose to apply these opportunities in relation to your investment strategy,” he says.

However, that means conducting sound and robust due diligence on investments, including accessing relevant research and ratings, and undertaking corporate governance checks on investment teams and processes.

“Good governance is critical in managing risks that could result in a client missing their long-term objective. Our investment management governance framework is clear, robust, internally and externally reviewed, and managed by global experts in the field.”

Dale confirms there is currently a lot of product innovation happening in the market, which will enable greater investor access to private markets. This includes: liquid alternatives via the listed market; semi-liquid alternatives via the unlisted market; and traditional private market unlisted and illiquid strategies.

“Industry stakeholders are working out how we build product that will enable advisers to allocate more to private markets - whether that’s in an MIS with a unitised product, or through an MDA or an SMA,” says Dale. “Ultimately, by providing investors with greater access to illiquid assets, it will provide greater portfolio diversification for them, which will be in the best interests of clients.”

However, what about products that are available which provide daily liquidity, but where the underlying asset is clearly illiquid? Should advisers be concerned about using these types of products in a managed account environment, particularly with the risk of a redemption freeze?

For Dale, it’s a risk not worth taking.

“Personally, I wouldn’t make this kind of solution readily available for advisers or investors, other than working with businesses that have an understanding of this type of strategy, and where advisers can control liquidity with their clients,” he says. “Where it becomes challenging is when this type of strategy becomes openly available in the market. In that respect, there needs to be a pathway to liquidity.”

To what extent are advisers sufficiently knowledgeable enough to be able to look at and compare the likes of private equity versus, say, global macro funds, even if some of these illiquid strategies might make sense to them?

“It’s a great question,” says Shane. “Advisers need to ask themselves, what’s the problem I’m trying to solve? I would be really focused on the role the illiquid asset has in the portfolio, and then look to deploy the capital in a satellite way from both a strategic and dynamic perspective. 

“I would also encourage portfolio managers to work closely with advisers, by focusing on their investment strategy and helping them with the concepts of strategic and long-term portfolio construction.”

Dale reiterates the importance for advisers to access research and product ratings that are available through a number of research houses, including institutional research through some of the larger global managers.

“I agree,” says Brad Matthews - Founding Director at Brad Matthews Investment Strategies. “Using illiquid assets in managed accounts is complex, requiring high due diligence and an understanding of the underlying asset. Many of these illiquid products are only open for a fixed period, which requires advisers to continually repeat their research and due diligence process.”

Dale Holmes is Director at Spire Capital; and Shane Hawke is Head of Research and Advisory at Oreana Portfolio Advisory Service.

This session at the IMAP Portfolio Management Conference 2022- ‘Handling illiquid assets in managed accounts’ - was moderated by Brad Matthews, Founding Director at Brad Matthews Investment Strategies.