Conway Investment Solutions, a St. Louis firm that connects financial advisors with curated alternative investments, has partnered with technology firm Opto Investments to offer registered investment advisors access to private market investing through vintage funds.
Opto helps financial intermediaries build and distribute customized private strategies. It’s based in New York.
Through the partnership, advisors can use Opto’s technology platform and menu of custom funds to access the new vintage fund strategies, which have lower minimums and a streamlined digital subscription process, the firms said. The process is designed to eliminate the hassles commonly associated with investing in the private markets.
“Opto’s end-to-end technology streamlines tasks like managing capital calls, tax documentation, and reporting,” said Tom Margulis, co-founder and managing principal at Conway, in an email. “These tech-driven efficiencies will enable our mutual clients to significantly elevate their investment offerings by simplifying workflows and operations, saving time, and creating better client experiences.”
By partnering up, the two will provide a platform where advisors can create their own private market vintage funds using an extensive menu of investment options tailored to their clients’ needs and objectives, according to the firm.
A vintage fund invests in different private equity funds within a single calendar year. The vintage portion of the fund refers to the year the first investment is made. That initial year is important because it indicates the potential returns for the overall fund.
“As diversification away from public markets becomes increasingly critical to enhance client portfolios, it has created a great opportunity for Conway and Opto to come together and offer a more comprehensive private markets program for advisors,” Margulis said.
The two firms came together through a mutual client, Andersen Tax, and saw the potential to help each other.
“It was formed around the client need to basically bring a comprehensive offering across the alternatives universe,” said Ryan VanGorder, chief executive officer at Opto, in an interview. “It was really a partnership that was molded around the ability to bring that comprehensive approach to an alternative investments platform and the needs of clients.”
The partnership has already yielded a new private markets vintage fund strategy for Andersen Tax, which will be available to Andersen’s wealthy, ultra-wealthy and family office clients.
“The vintage funds are designed to evolve over time to include a curated selection of value-add investment opportunities that will complement Andersen’s existing equity and fixed-income portfolios,” Margulis said.
The firms expect to add additional strategies going forward, though nothing is imminent yet.
“We look forward to offering more joint clients the opportunity to diversify their clients’ portfolios with access to actively managed private markets vintage funds,” Margulis said.