Latest news with #AlternativeInvestment
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Still See Single-Digit Upside to Stocks: Sundar
Sitara Sundar, Head of Alternative Investment Strategy at JPMorgan Private Bank, still sees upside to the market due to earnings growth and the broadening out of that growth. She speaks to Bloomberg's Katie Greifeld and Matt Miller on 'Open Interest.' (Source: Bloomberg)
Time of India
04-08-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Dont blindly trust any brand, company to last forever, track new flows to better investing, advises this MF house CEO
After eight years running a Portfolio Management Service (PMS), what convinced you to enter the mutual fund space? You are known as a data-driven asset manager. Is that how you will differentiate yourself in the MF arena? Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills You've been running a successful momentum strategy. Will that define your mutual fund investing style? How has your investing experience shaped your thought process? How have you refined your framework? Recent years have seen a lot of chatter around underperformance in active funds. What are your thoughts? Your first offering, a flexi-cap fund, comes into a space currently filled with look-alike offerings running a distinct large-cap bias. How will you position it? Will you prefer operating within niche categories or have a wider bouquet of offerings? How are you reading the current market scenario? What themes and sectors are you favouring? RAPID FIRE There is growing recognition that people need professional asset managers, but many may not have the Rs.50 lakh typically required to access a PMS or an Alternative Investment Fund (AIF). Mutual funds offer easier access to asset classes such as equity, debt, gold, and international stocks. In some way, almost all our investors, even in the PMS space , would have a mutual fund portfolio as well, because it's not easy to use a PMS to access debt markets or overseas markets. We realised we were not able to serve the complete needs of investors, even HNIs. We want to serve customers in a more holistic and retail investors are similar in the sense that they need diversification, or access to different asset classes. Taxes are more efficient in a mutual fund. Multiple asset classes have now become equal to an extent. Insurance, for instance, enjoyed a huge tax advantage earlier versus mutual funds. That has more or less evened out. Tax exemption on Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) contributions has also been capped to a certain extent, leading to greater parity among different asset classes. People are better off investing through mutual funds than investing on their own. You pay capital gains tax and dividend tax if you invest on your own or through a PMS or AIF. Mutual funds give you a taxation-efficient in PMS, your ability to get everybody aligned to the same portfolio is very complicated. Some people may enter early, some late; some stocks may have run up by that time. So you have to buy smaller positions in some stocks and larger positions in others. Sometimes you do not want to buy any more of some stock, but you do not want to sell it. So some investors own a stock, but others don't. This is the complexity in PMS, because we are managing individual accounts. In a pooled vehicle like a mutual fund, everybody gets access to the same set of stocks, whether they have five units or 5,000. So that way, it is easier. Plus, you get access to large stocks or large portfolios. Overall, the mutual fund is a more attractive pooled investing is our forte. That's what we excel in and are most comfortable with. That's why our first NFO, Capitalmind Flexicap, is oriented towards people looking at a more quantitative we may have analyst coverage of 30 to 60 companies, our primary reason to buy these stocks will be quant-based. That is how we differentiate ourselves, but it does not mean that this is the only way. There are lots of ways to make money in the of them require value and subjective analysis, which other mutual funds are doing quite well. Since our approach is quant-led, we have less focus on subjectively driven value or growth potential, because our ability to choose a stock is very strongly dependent on what shows up in the numbers— whether we use prices, profitability or growth, those numbers need to show up in the data. For instance, we may not buy a stock when it is a turnaround story. We may buy if the turnaround reflects in the data. That's the kind of fund house we what we have figured out is that momentum is one of the strongest factors in the investment zone. Having said that, it does not work in two types of markets— when there is no trend and when there is a strong downtrend. We have other ways to figure out the markets in such in the no-trend phase, we could move to different factors. We may buy into stocks of another factor itself. If the market has a downtrend, then our process will take us into hedging territory. We will still be 65% equity, but we will have hedges to our positions so that we are less exposed to the market and earning yield at that time, because we want to ride out the downtrend and then buy into stocks later.A lot of times while we talk about things like back-testing, quantitative analysis and all that, the biggest thing we've learned is that you can't always trust the data. 90% of our job is cleaning the data. If you give an experienced woodcutter an axe, he'll spend half an hour sharpening the axe and only 10-15 minutes cutting. Similarly, stock selection forms only 10-15% of our overall time exposure. More time is spent refining the model, working through various scenarios, which we've learned in real of our beliefs is that price sentiment is a very important driver of returns; sometimes even more important than earnings growth itself. We gauge perception using prices, market information that allows us to get confidence about a stock. Second, we don't try to predict, we respond. It is easier to do that. So when you have surprises, you don't have to worry that you are wrong in your prediction and then make a change. You don't have to predict at some point, if things change, you change. We don't have any problem churning stocks. One thing I've realised is that the best companies can falter. You can't trust that a brand or a company will last forever. So if a company is great today, things may change. You must track news flow carefully and gauge promoter hunger. Promoters who are hungry will typically drive their companies faster up the curve. But some of them may actually have corporate governance issues. So you have to be very careful of corporate governance as a concept. We have included this in some of the discretionary elements in our flexi-cap have observed that active tends to beat passive. Also, passive itself underperforms the index by a considerable degree. If you compare the corresponding active funds to the best of the passive funds, you find that the outperformance ratios of active funds becomes even higher. Often it's just 30-40 basis points that makes the active fund outperform the passive fund, but underperform the can only execute according to the index, whereas the fund manager has many levers. I can use derivatives to get into or out of a stock as an active fund manager. Passive fund is also not allowed to migrate away from the index, even if the companies underlying it are bad or have shown bad corporate governance. There is no choice in that matter. We can actively change those positions if bad things happen. Lastly, our fee structures are very low. Direct funds are charging between 0.5-1.1%. So active management is here to stay. I think there is a lot of outperformance potential in approach is quantitative in nature, which is a little oddity among flexi-cap funds , because they tend to be more discretion-led than quantitative. Also, we recognise that the flexi-cap strategy actually allows for flexibility, which means it allows us to change our mind, our strategy. It allows international diversification also. The flexi-cap mandate has the most potential to diversify. That's why I feel it is useful for other part of the equation is using technology and execution excellence, whether it is building better execution frameworks for stocks, that means we can get them at a lower price than otherwise, or by simply using the positional attributes better. So we will hedge in downtrending markets, we may write covered calls in up-trending markets, etc. We may be able to exploit a different factor over a period of may not offer a lot of funds, but we do want to cover the bigger categories within equity, debt and hybrid. We may not have all of large-cap, mid-cap, solution-oriented, value, momentum, and others. But we will have a few more in the equity categories. If RBI opens the limits, we may look at international stocks, both within existing funds, and for a new category of funds. We will have a few offerings in the debt and hybrid categories as a long-term perspective, India has a great story, whether it is infrastructure, new inventions, manufacturing or domestic consumption. This is the point at which we start moving away from the essentials, which is food, shelter, clothing, into discretionary items like travel, tourism, hospitality, and so on. So this is a time when the push is likely to happen. More people are also keen on spending and enjoying themselves. That is a concept we have called 'win-at-life', which suggests that you should not worry about your long-term investments if they are in the right place. Beyond what you are saving for your goals, you should be able to spend. And that spending is what will make you happy. Investors must also think about how they are going to spend their money in the long term, and not just fixate on how to build wealth for the flexi-cap strategy is quantitative, it figures out what to buy—whether it is momentum, value or any other. By and large, we find that all the sectors that are India-facing are poised for long term growth. They are likely to come into all momentum portfolios. In PMS, we used to see companies come into the momentum portfolio first, and then the favourable news flows would come through. Many of these sectors like defence and manufacturing continue to be favourable but we will buy those only if our algorithm suggests in equity instead of predict. Respond. And have patience.I'm still 75% equity but most of the debt is for my son's by Michael Lewis. Old one, but has the philosophy of winning through data!
India.com
25-07-2025
- Business
- India.com
Over Rs 11,606 Crore Booster To Nurture Startup Ecosystem Via 3 Schemes: Minister
New Delhi: The government on Friday said that a net commitment of Rs 9,994 crore has been made to 141 Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) supported under the Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) scheme (till June 30), as it aims to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation. Under the 'Startup India' initiative, the government is implementing three flagship schemes -- FFS, Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS), and Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups (CGSS) to support startups at various stages of their business cycle. FFS has been established to catalyse venture capital investments and is operationalised by the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), which provides capital to Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)-registered AIFs, which in turn, invest in startups, said Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Jitin Prasada, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha. SISFS provides financial assistance to seed-stage startups through incubators. Rs 945 crore have been approved to 219 selected incubators (as of June 30), the minister said. CGSS, implemented to enable collateral-free loans to startups through eligible financial institutions, is operationalised by the National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC) Limited. "As on June 30, 2025, 289 loans amounting to Rs. 667.85 crore have been guaranteed for startup borrowers," said Prasada. As per the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), the Project 'Swavalambini' is being implemented through autonomous institutes, namely the National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD), Noida and Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE), Guwahati, in collaboration with NITI Aayog and its Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP). The project includes Entrepreneurship Awareness Training and Entrepreneurship Development Training for students, as well as a Faculty Development Programme (FDP) for capacity building of faculty members. "As on June 30, 2025, Entrepreneurship Awareness Programmes have been organised for 591 students and FDPs have been completed for 43 faculty members of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)," the minister said.
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ares Management Enhances Infrastructure Debt Team and Global Positioning to Advance Growth
NEW YORK, July 23, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ares Management Corporation ("Ares") (NYSE: ARES), a leading global alternative investment manager, announced today enhancements to its Infrastructure Debt team, including the most recent addition of Jon Plavnick as a Partner. Mr. Plavnick is based in New York and will focus on sourcing, structuring and managing infrastructure debt investments throughout the Americas. In addition, Spencer Ivey, Ares Partner and Head of Americas and Asia-Pacific Infrastructure Debt, has relocated to Ares' Sydney office to help accelerate the strategy's buildout in the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Plavnick brings nearly two decades of experience in infrastructure debt, most recently serving as a Partner at Global Infrastructure Partners ("GIP"), where he played a key role in advancing the firm's global infrastructure private credit platform. Prior to GIP, he was responsible for high-yield and distressed private credit opportunities as a Managing Director at Oaktree Capital Management, in addition to previous roles at BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank. "Over the past three years ago, we have continued to enhance the positioning of our Infrastructure Debt platform as a leading, scaled financing solutions provider to businesses and assets across the digital, transport, energy and utility sectors," said Patrick Trears, Partner and Global Head of Ares Infrastructure Debt. "We are thrilled to welcome Jon, and we look forward to benefitting from his deep sector knowledge, strong origination network and commitment to collaboration as we continue to reinforce the strength of our capabilities. In addition, having worked with Spencer for 15 years to build our existing platform, I am confident that his focus on expanding our presence and increasing our access to the attractive opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region should further propel our global growth." "Equity investment in infrastructure has increased significantly, bolstered by the assets' essential nature and demonstrated resilience through cycles, and the resulting demand for flexible and scalable financing continues to outweigh supply," said Mr. Plavnick. "I believe the Ares Infrastructure Debt platform is well positioned to meet this exciting opportunity, and I am eager to work alongside Patrick, Spencer and the talented global team as we build on their achievements and deploy in the key sectors that we believe will define the next wave of infrastructure." Originally from Australia, Mr. Ivey has helped lead the platform's growth from New York over the past 11 years, including through Ares' acquisition of the Infrastructure Debt business in 2022. "Driven by secular demographic tailwinds, including rapid urbanization and a growing middle class, coupled with industry megatrends of digitization and the energy transition, the opportunity for private infrastructure debt capital in Asia-Pacific is significant," said Mr. Ivey. "By leveraging the deep experience of our team and the strength of Ares' global Credit platform, our Asia-Pacific business is focused on providing differentiated solutions to support the infrastructure demand in this market." These developments follow recent team enhancements designed to further strengthen the global Ares Infrastructure Debt platform. This includes the addition of investment professionals Brent Canada as a Partner in New York in 2022 and Lorenzo Ceretti as a Partner in London in 2023. In addition, Daniel Katz, who joined Ares in 2006 and was previously a Partner in Ares' U.S. Direct Lending strategy and co-led portfolio management, was appointed Head of Portfolio Management for Ares Infrastructure Debt in 2024 and oversees portfolio monitoring and restructuring. With over two decades of industry experience investing across market cycles, the global Ares Infrastructure Debt team has an established track record and longstanding relationships that allow the platform to seek to generate exclusive deal flow and high-quality investment opportunities. As of March 31, 2025, the Ares Infrastructure Debt strategy managed nearly $11 billion in assets and has deployed over $21 billion in its 15-year history. The team's approximately 25 investment professionals operate across offices in London, New York, Singapore and Sydney. About Ares Management Corporation Ares Management Corporation (NYSE: ARES) is a leading global alternative investment manager offering clients complementary primary and secondary investment solutions across the credit, real estate, private equity and infrastructure asset classes. We seek to provide flexible capital to support businesses and create value for our stakeholders and within our communities. By collaborating across our investment groups, we aim to generate consistent and attractive investment returns throughout market cycles. As of March 31, 2025, Ares Management Corporation's global platform had approximately $546 billion of assets under management with operations across North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. For more information, please visit View source version on Contacts Media Jacob Silber | Brennan O'Toolemedia@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Globe and Mail
22-07-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
XA Investments Reports Record $227 billion in Managed Assets in its Second Quarter 2025 Market Update
CHICAGO, July 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- XA Investments LLC ('XAI'), an alternative investment management and consulting firm, announced today that its Non-Listed Closed-End Funds Second Quarter 2025 Market Update shows accelerated growth in the market, a surge in fund launches, and a shift toward greater investor accessibility. 'The non-listed CEF market continues to show record growth with 17% or 50 funds in the market reaching over $1 billion in assets under management and seven of those funds hitting the $1 billion milestone this quarter' stated Kimberly Flynn, the president of XAI. 'As more assets continue to flow into the interval / tender offer fund market, we believe the market's trajectory will remain positive, with significant opportunities for expansion throughout the rest of the year,' she added. The market update is a comprehensive research report detailing current market trends and industry highlights. The non-listed closed-end fund (CEF) market includes all interval and tender offer funds. The report highlights the removal of accredited investor suitability restrictions, divergence of positioning in the market, dominance of interval funds with a daily NAV and no suitability restrictions, increased performance coverage, and coverage of Specialty Structures. The non-listed CEF market reached a new peak with 288 interval and tender offer funds with a total of $196 billion in net assets and $227 billion in total managed assets, inclusive of leverage, as of June 30, 2025. The market includes 144 interval funds which comprise 59% of the total managed assets at $132.8 billion and 144 tender offer funds which comprise the other 41% with $93.9 billion in total managed assets. This is a significant change from previous quarters, as the number of interval funds has caught up to the total number of tender funds. In Q2 2025, 23 new funds entered the market, representing an increase of 13 funds compared to the 10 funds launched in Q2 2024. Market-wide net assets increased $15 billion in Q2 2025 from the prior quarter. In total, there are 150 unique fund sponsors in the interval and tender offer fund space, with 54 fund sponsors that have two or more interval and/or tender offer funds currently in the market. Additionally, there are 22 funds currently in the Securities and Exchange Commission registration process from fund sponsors looking to launch another fund. Displaying the growth of new funds in the market, the market share of the top 20 funds continues to decrease, falling to 59% in Q2 2025 from 60% in Q1 2025 and 65% in Q4 2024. Among the new funds launched in Q2 2025, there were nine new interval fund sponsors, including Corient, Coatue, and Select Equity Group. XAI also noted the emergence of Specialty Structures within the market. These funds are continuously offered, evergreen, semi-liquid private funds designed for accredited investors and qualified purchasers. They are exempt from the Investment Company Act of 1940 but still governed by federal securities laws. These evergreen funds provide access to alternative strategies while offering limited liquidity and reduced reporting obligations for the manager compared to registered funds. The current landscape of 13 Specialty Structures funds is dominated by large private equity firms including Blackstone, KKR, and Apollo. While Specialty Structures and interval / tender offer funds have some similarities, the fund structures differ in how they handle liquidity, investor eligibility, reporting obligations, and tax treatment. 'Understanding Specialty Structures helps managers better align product design with strategy and audience, which is increasingly critical in a growing and competitive market' Flynn said. In this quarterly report, XAI covers the Q1 2025 net flows which are lagged by reporting cycles. In Q1 2025 funds had positive net flows, totaling over $13 billion, with 67% of funds reporting positive net flows. The majority of net flows in Q1 2025 went into daily NAV funds without suitability restrictions, attracting 58% of marketwide net flows. Two-thirds or 67% of net flows went into funds with no suitability restrictions, while 12% went into funds limited to accredited investors, and 21% went into funds limited to qualified clients. In aggregate, the top 20 largest interval/tender offer funds accounted for 50% of total net flows including many of the market leaders such as the Cliffwater Corporate Lending Fund, Partners Group Private Equity (Master Fund), LLC, and ACAP Strategic Fund. 'The non-listed CEF market continues to grow with a total of 51 funds in the SEC registration process at the end of the first quarter,' Flynn noted. 'While the SEC backlog decreased by seven funds from the end of Q1 2025 to the end of Q2 2025, we believe there will still be significant growth in the market this year. So far in 2025, there have been 46 new SEC filings, compared to 27 new filings from this point in 2024, representing a 70% increase in registrations' she added. Newly launched non-listed CEFs spent around six months in the SEC registration process, with the fund's asset class continuing to be the main driver of time spent in the SEC review process. Tax-Free Bond funds were the quickest to launch, at 150 days on average spent in registration. At 53%, the majority of interval and tender offer funds do not have any suitability restrictions for investors imposed at the fund level — 27% of funds are available to accredited investors and 20% are only available to qualified clients. The amount of funds offered with no suitability restrictions is also predicted to increase with recent changes in a SEC Staff position. Following this change in position, many interval and tender offer funds have filed prospectus supplements removing accredited investor requirements. According to Flynn, 'We expect more funds to reduce their suitability requirements in the near future and for many new funds to forgo accredited investor requirements.' Alternative funds without suitability restrictions also prove to be more accessible and have gathered more assets at $130.5 billion in managed assets or 57% of market-wide assets. For more information on the interval fund market and to read our full quarterly report on non-listed CEFs, please visit the CEF Market research page linked here and click 'Subscribe' for access to XA Investments' online research portal and pricing information. In addition, please contact info@ or 888-903-3358 with questions. About XA Investments XA Investments LLC ('XAI') is a Chicago-based firm founded by XMS Capital Partners in 2016. XAI serves as the investment adviser for two listed closed-end funds and an interval closed-end fund, respectively the XAI Octagon Floating Rate & Alternative Income Trust, the XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund, and the Octagon XAI CLO Income Fund. In addition to investment advisory services, the firm also provides investment fund structuring and consulting services focused on registered closed-end funds to meet institutional client needs. XAI offers custom product build and consulting services, including product development and market research, marketing and fund management. XAI believes that the investing public can benefit from new vehicles to access a broad range of alternative investment strategies and managers. For more information, please visit Note: Net flows are reported in Form NPORT-P ('NPORTs'), which are filed quarterly with the SEC. NPORT filings are typically lagged 60 days from the end of the reporting period. The net flows data in this report is as of 3/31/2025 and represents the latest publicly available data. Sources: XA Investments; SEC Filings. Notes: All information as of 6/30/2025 unless otherwise noted. Total managed assets is inclusive of leverage. The non-listed CEF market is subject to lags in reporting and limited data availability. Data such as asset levels, net flows, and performance are delayed up to 90 days after quarter-end and are not available for all funds. All data in the report is the most current available. Please contact our team if you have any questions about the non-listed CEF marketplace.
