New “alternative” investments are emerging. They are structured away from the typical limited partnership or limited liability company into the more open ended mutual fund structures, Investment Company Act of 1940 closed end funds, and separately managed accounts.

This is the beginning of a much-needed change in this segment of the investment industry and will appropriately lead to more distinction between these types of investment strategies. However, the continuing practice of grouping such investment strategies into a single bucket called “alternatives” is inappropriate. The practice has allowed for the development of unnecessary portfolio buckets for asset allocation purposes and unknowingly leads to poor asset allocation decisions and should be stopped. The labeling of “alternatives” as a separate asset class should be eliminated. Here’s why.

Over the last 15 years the financial services industry has evolved the concept of “alternative” investments to describe an investment as something other than a stock or bond. This practice was meant to differentiate assets for simplicity purposes and was not intended to distinguish the investment merits of such investments for the investing community.

Unfortunately, the investing public developed a perception of “alternative” investments as a homogeneous group of investment options. This is clearly not the case. In fact, the evolution of “alternative” investments as a separate asset class has created incorrect expectations on the part of the investing public. Often,
alternative investments are similar only in terms of their uniqueness.

Take Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet’s company) as an example. Many people and institutions own shares in this great company traded publicly on the NYSE. Yet, this company, as with many others, manages their business in similar ways as “alternative” investment managers, but the industry doesn’t classify BRK as an “alternative”. We only know it as a great company that generates consistent ROIC for investors by investing and operating in a collection of businesses as well as through the use of derivatives across the company to help manage the risk in their overall portfolio.

Berkshire Hathaway From 10-Q Sept 30-2012 (shown in millions)

As the 10Q information shows, Warren Buffet has masterfully shown over the last 50 years the ability to find value in companies, determine the optimal part of the capital structure to own, and implement a risk management process to help deliver consistent and efficient return on invested capital. The following chart illustrates the long-term value of three broad investment strategies with an equal weight portfolio. The “alternative” investment group shown in the illustration includes the hedge fund manager universe (represented by the HFRI Hedge Fund index) and the Commodity Trading Advisors and Global Macro Traders universe (represented by the HFN CTA index), and the equity markets (represented by the S&P 500 index).



The bottom line for investors is to look at “alternatives” the same way they look at any investment; stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, and all others. That is, as an investment you make when you wish to own a collection of investments that have attractive return and risk characteristics that work well together for the investor.

The typical investments identified as “alternatives” are hedge funds and private equity funds with the managers of these funds focused on sourcing and diligencing attractive investment opportunities in companies and then investing some place (or multiple places) within the capital structure of the business to isolate the investment opportunity they seek. The main difference in the investment profile of such an investment manager is the variety of methods or security types used to effectuate the position they desire. This does not make it an “alternative” – all it does is make it look a little different than owning only the stock or bond of that particular company.

In conclusion, “alternatives” are not a separate asset class, but a collection of investment funds and professionals who are granted a broader toolset to use when investing their client’s capital.

As a result, it is important for financial advisors and their clients to focus on three key factors:

1. Portfolio Diversification – Investors should focus on strategy diversification and not security over-diversification (di-worsification); diversification is not achieved by allocating to hundreds of stocks, or multiple managers expressing the same type of investment or investing a small amount to an “alternatives” bucket.

2. Risk Assessment -- Investors should work to identify, embrace, and combine the risk factors that they find attractive and believe will collectively provide the performance they desire from their portfolios.

3. Return on Invested Capital -- Every investment an investor makes will have some type of risk associated with it, and therefore investors must be comfortable that the return characteristics are fundamentally attractive.

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Benchmarks and Indices: The valuation information shown for the various indices is available from public sources. AM Global Wealth Management makes no representation as to its accuracy. Comparisons between a composite and an index or benchmark are unreliable as performance indicators and should
not be considered indicative of the actual performance to be achieved in a particular account.

• HFN CTA Index: Macro strategy managers trade a broad range of strategies in which the investment process is predicated on movements in underlying economic variables and the impact these have on equity, fixed income, hard currency and commodity markets. The HFN CTA/Managed Futures Index tracks performance of 627 fund products with a primary strategy that involves trading a variety of natural resource, energy, financial or other types of commodities primarily through derivative markets. Additionally, HFN tracks asset flow information on the sector on a monthly basis.

• S&P 500: The S&P 500 consists of 500 widely held common stocks, consisting of four broad sectors (industrials, utilities, financial and transportation). It is a market-value weighted index (stock price times shares outstanding), with each stock affecting the index in proportion to its market value. This index is a total return index with dividends reinvested.

• HFRI Fund Weighted Index: HFR utilizes an objective, rules-based methodology that includes over 2000 hedge funds across four main strategies, each with multiple sub-strategies. The index seeks to combine and weight these strategies to provide a representation of the composition of the global hedge fund universe.

• EQ Portfolio – A portfolio comprised of the three strategies however with the same weights (33.33%) proportionately distributed among each strategy in the portfolio through time.

• Value Added Monthly Index (VAMI) - Value Added Monthly Index (VAMI) is the industry standard for evaluating the performance of investment managers. It indicates the value a manager has added to an investment via a cumulative index and because it excludes non-trading expenses such as tax, it can
be used to compare investment managers. VAMI shows how an initial $1,000 investment has grown over time.

 

Andrew Mehalko is president of AM Global Wealth Management LLC in West Palm Beach, Fla.  He was chief investment officer of the investment committee and operating committee member for GenSpring Family Offices for 12 years prior to founding AM Global Wealth Management. GenSpring grew from $450 million of assets under advisement to more than $20 billion, becoming the country's largest independent multi-family office.