Richard Hough

It was great to be back in Boston last week, reconnecting with returning Institute members and meeting new market and investment leaders! We are excited for the events and research areas we have coming up in the next few months! #ocio #investmentsolutions #investmentmanagement #investmentconsulting

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Looking forward to participating in this annual must-attend conference! I'll be talking about how we're using advanced technology to drive our operations. HFM Global #hedgefunds #ai #emergingmanagers #alternativeinvestments

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❗️Critical Compliance for Fund and Asset Manager Marketers: How do you stay compliant while implementing digital marketing and AI to elevate your fundraising? ➡️ Join us at the Revenue Revolution Symposium at the Questrom School of Business, Boston University to explore this and other critical business development issues in the digital age. 🎤 Featured Speaker: Derek Stern, Head of Global Distribution Compliance at Manulife Investment Management and John Hancock, and a panel of legal and compliance experts will provide crucial insights on navigating compliance in our online era: 1️⃣ Compliant Growth Strategies - Explore techniques to expand your digital presence and engage investors without crossing regulatory boundaries. 2️⃣ Surviving the New SEC Marketing Rule - Understand how to optimize your marketing strategies while complying with the latest regulations. 3️⃣ Thriving under multiple regulators - Learn how to grow your business while complying across multiple jurisdictions and regulations. 📍 Event Details: Join us on May 29, in Boston or online, for this groundbreaking symposium, sponsored by the Digital Business Institute BU. 📅 Act with Urgency: The regulatory landscape is swiftly evolving—stay ahead of the curve. Register now: https://lnkd.in/eYynjitW #DigitalMarketing #Compliance #AssetManagement #QuestromMeansBusiness #DigitalRevolution

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More important today than ever before.

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All areas of commerce are benefitting from data analysis, and our industry is no different. And when it comes to hard data, Henry Schwartz is among the very best. Good, punchy interview here fresh from the OIC on many hot topics in the listed options space, including the rise of the "ProTail" customer using options strategically. #Options #OptionsStrategies #Cboe #SPX #VIX #XSP #OIC #0DTE

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Golub Capital has partnered with the NYU Impact Investment Fund to establish the Golub Capital Social Impact Investment Education Fund and support its experiential learning program, which provides students with hands-on experience making impact investments and managing a fund. Read more: https://okt.to/qX74wZ #AbuDhabi #privatecredit #NYUStern #impactphilanthropy

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The popular VC Secondary Series interviews have been compiled into a free book available at the Point Capital website. Expanding the series to include PE Secondaries interviews. In this release, Joseph Marks, the Global Head of Secondaries at Capital Dynamics having started his career with Coller Capital, offers his knowledge and perspectives. Published on SecondaryLink. For a copy, DM with your email. “I think we are going to look back and see that this time period was still the early innings. I can see a stable state with these GP-led vehicles becoming a constant and reliable source of liquidity for private equity managers, helping to address the DPI challenges seen recently. We may see GP-leds essentially becoming the third leg of liquidity for GPs (alongside IPOs and M&A transactions), happening when it is needed most…although at a market clearing price.” https://lnkd.in/eZzPTVQe

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Interesting article from Douglas Appell in Pensions & Investments about the post-ZIRP, “higher for longer” interest rate environment that boils down to advocating for the pursuit of satisfactory investment outcomes that are relevant to asset owners’ actual spending needs and goals, rather than continuing the historically common practice – and expected future folly – of tethering one’s equity beta to that of an equity benchmark whose performance from today’s elevated levels is widely expected to be sluggish and insufficient to fund minimum liabilities (ie: payout rates, actuarial hurdles, spending goals, etc.).   Quoting the inimitable Ben Phillips, “In that world, the relevant benchmark becomes the client’s required cash flows.”   Fresh perspectives and new ideas are warranted. Satisfactory outcomes not benchmarks.

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The new GIPS OCIO guidance will impact everyone in the investment solutions ecosystem, so we welcomed the chance to discuss this with II. James' article is a well-rounded overview of the issue, worth the read. #OCIO #institutionalinvestors #investmentsolutions #GIPS #investmentconsultants #wealthmanagement

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Hot off the press from my Cliffwater colleague William Dornbrook: Startups on Sale: The Opportunity in VC Secondaries This paper outlines our perspectives on venture capital secondaries, an asset class at an important inflection point for future growth. Structural changes in private markets, a growing need for liquidity from LPs, and near-term headwinds in the IPO market have led to increased investor interest in VC Secondaries. Amid this backdrop of highly motivated sellers and improving metrics for startup quality, we believe VC Secondaries are priced attractively.

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You should listen to Nathan Geraci and I leverage VettaFi sentiment data to talk #ETFs for ‘25. But it’s ok to read the recap Nicholas Wodeshick from the show too. . - Use case for defined outcome, structured protection, and covered calls from NEOS Investments Calamos Investments Innovator ETFs® - Growing interest in CLOs and bank loan #ETFs from Janus Henderson Investors Invesco US Panagram BondBloxx - #Dividend strategies from SS&C Technologies and ProShares - Plus Ben Johnson, CFA commentary Zachary Csillag Troy Cates Tim Urbanowicz, CFA Andrew Nelson, CFA Matt Kaufman, CETF® Frank J. Tirado, MS Jessica Fernandez Michelle DeWitt, CIMA® Rob Stewart Danielle Gilbert Christopher Murphy Paul Baiocchi, CFA Steve Munroe JoAnne Bianco, CFA Joanna Gallegos Colleen Kapoor Cole Feinberg

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Our latest whitepaper highlights the disconnect between core #DC plan investment menus and target date funds: https://lnkd.in/euANZsTv Did you know that 90% of DC plans offer both active and passive standalone fund options—but only 36% use TDFs that combine active and passive underlying strategies? Lanyon Blair, CFA, CAIA and Susan Viston from Voya IM's Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions team explain some potential reasons for this disconnect and what sponsors may be missing out on by overlooking blended TDFs. #DefinedContribution #TargetDateFunds

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In this week's equity highlights we focus on the results from our newest equity risk monitor, which details Russell 1000 through the lens of the Axioma US5.1 equity models. https://lnkd.in/e-YNQapy #russell1000 #equityriskmodels

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I had the pleasure of speaking with Amy Whyte from With Intelligence to discuss the True North Institute LLP’s aims to tackle the “biggest elephants in the investment committee board room,” supported by a forum of highly respected endowment CIOs and other deep thinkers. I am particularly pleased that she has captured the most important message I have for large institutions about their net zero pledges and how best to invest in the energy transition. You can read The Allocator's newsletter below The three biggest long-term issues facing CIOs, according to Miranda: the energy transition, artificial intelligence, and the future of private equity. “A third of the stock market faces existential risk from the energy transition,” Miranda said. Citing a University of Chicago study, Miranda noted that carbon abatement costing $100 per ton in high emitting sectors would cut profit in half — or eliminate it altogether. The problem: “The vast majority of asset managers are not factoring the cost of carbon into valuations.” Miranda said TNI is responding by publishing “pretty detailed, nerdy research” on energy transition investment frameworks, with future topics including electric vehicles and long-duration energy storage. What’s not the solution, according to Miranda: the net-zero policies recently being adopted by European pension funds and other allocators. “How do you go to net zero in a 10-year period?” he asked. “What do you do? You sell anything with a carbon footprint.” “We need about $6T investment a year for energy transition,” he added. “Where does that come from? Big public companies that have carbon footprints. If big institutions are selling them over time, that raises the cost of capital, which affects investing in the energy transition. They’re actually impeding the energy transition by starving these companies of capital.” Once TNI has finished covering the energy transition, Miranda said the think tank will move on to AI, and then the future of private equity. And in the meantime: analyses of prominent groups of institutional investors, like TNI’s debut white paper on alpha disappearing at top endowments. The next cohorts to go under the microscope will be Canadian pensions and sovereign wealth funds. “Within sovereign wealth funds we’re going to find a wider dispersion of alpha,” Miranda said. “I’m dying to see how their performance stacks up when you properly benchmark them.” Through these performance analyses, Miranda said he hopes to answer big-picture questions, such as: Is the endowment model really the best model for true long-term investors? “It’s a pretty simple model if you really distill it — it’s just private equity,” he said. “Is there a better model going forward?” Institutional allocators can subscribe to The Allocator newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/eEtadJza  You can read TNI's quarterly newsletter here

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𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗘𝗧𝗙 https://lnkd.in/dCYdE-zK   Risk parity funds for retail investors have not worked well over the past decade or so (and Bridgewater’s All-Weather strategy has also underperformed for some time): the pioneer in the industry (Wealthfront Risk Parity Fund with $1.3bn in AUMs) is going to be liquidated in January https://lnkd.in/dya2H6SZ , and other products have also failed to beat a simpler 60/40 strategy.   This despite the carnage in bond markets in 2022 and the elevated asset correlations (or, more likely, because of…).   I guess it all boils down to the specific strategy used: this product will also use leverage in an ETF, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. 

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