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13 Investment Must Reads for This Week

The secular shift from mutual funds to ETFs, including through conversions, shows no signs of letting up in 2024, according to FINSUM. Asset managers that historically catered to institutions continue to roll out new products aimed at advisors, reports FundFire. These are among the investment must reads we found this week for wealth advisors.

  1. Will Active and Fixed Income ETF Momentum Continue in 2024? “A major factor is that mutual funds had net outflows, while ETFs had nearly an equivalent amount of inflows. This is an indication of a secular shift as investors and institutions increasingly favor ETFs due to more liquidity and transparency. In response, many asset managers are now converting fixed income mutual funds into active ETFs or offer dual versions.” (FINSUM)
  2. Apollo, Partners, KKR Lead Pack in Tally of Alts Products for Advisors “With vehicles that aim to offer wealthy clients of advisors exposure to alts strategies with some form of periodic liquidity, the segment occupies a middle ground of sorts between classic private funds that lock up institutional capital for a decade or more and the daily-traded mutual fund world.” (FundFire)
  3. Traders swoop on bitcoin ‘cash and carry’ trade after ETF launches “The number of bitcoin futures contracts open at Chicago’s CME Group has climbed to record levels in January as traders target a short-term return from the difference between those contracts and the spot price—aping a strategy that has long been popular in more established financial and commodity markets.” (Financial Times)
  4. Working at an alts house ups pay by more than 50% “Citywire has recorded 68 hires, by the biggest private markets players, from private banks and traditional asset managers over a two-year period. Firms such as Blackstone, Ares Management, KKR and Apollo Global Management, have all set up dedicated divisions to target private wealth clients.” (Citywire)
  5. 15 Top Wealth Creators in the Fund Industry “To some extent, this is a chicken-and-egg exercise. By definition, the biggest funds will create or destroy more value in dollar terms. And money tends to flow to the funds that have been successful in the past, so the big generally get bigger.” (Morningstar)
  6. For Blackstone’s Property Fund, Resilient Valuations Might Have a Downside “Blackstone does give Breit more leeway than its peers to calculate the value of its own property portfolio, though. According to analysts at Stanger Investment Banking, the portfolios of most nontraded REITs are appraised by an independent valuer at least quarterly. Breit asks an outside appraiser to give it a range of values, but has the final say on calculating the value of its assets.” (The Wall Street Journal)
  7. "There is currently a trillion dollars trapped in VC funds and investors are desperate for liquidity” “The years 2021 and 2022 became industry milestones with record fundraising surpassing $300 billion, and even the Israeli venture capital market joined in the celebration. However, the winds shifted in 2023, leaving many disillusioned from their VC ventures as valuation levels plummeted, new fundraising rounds vanished, and exits disappeared from the horizon.” (CTech)
  8. PE Worries Climb as Investors Increasingly Claw Back Incentive Fees “The risk that investors will seek clawbacks is rising, as managers face challenges in selling companies at a profit or listing them publicly. Managers may have received carried interest—incentive fees—as they sold investments early on in the private market rally. But the drop-off in private equity activity since then could result in investors clawing back some of those fees.” (Institutional Investor)
  9. Covered-Call Funds: A Mystery Wrapped Within an Enigma “As with other stock funds, the highest relative gains for derivative-income funds come when stock prices increase. But because derivative-income funds sign away some of their potential capital growth, they will likely trail traditional equity funds during such times.” (Morningstar)
  10. Private Credit Is Changing Everything, Even Bankruptcy “Businesses that extended and amended their way through the past three years may be out of runway, and what’s more, depending on their overall balance sheet, they may not have the equity available to get refinancing, even from flexible lenders.” (Chief Investment Officer)
  11. World’s largest hedge funds record bumper year of profits, research shows “The 20 leading funds made $67 billion in investor profits in 2023, up from the $65 billion recorded during the pandemic-era rally of 2021, according research Monday from LCH Investments, a fund of hedge funds. That’s also around triple the $22.4 billion fund managers earned for investors in 2022.” (CNBC)
  12. Terminated private equity-backed deals rise as percentage of overall total “For full year 2023, terminated deals worldwide, including whole company and minority stake acquisitions and asset deals, were worth $150.60 billion, with private equity backers involved in about $28.16 billion, or approximately 19%, of the total value.” (S&P Global Market Intelligence)
  13. Strong Second Half Drives 2023 Secondary Deals to $112 Billion “Global secondary deals reached roughly $112 billion in 2023, up 4% from $108 billion recorded in 2022, yet still short of a record $132 billion achieved in 2021, according to newly released data from Jefferies, one of the largest brokers of such deals.” (The Wall Street Journal)
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