• Conflicts of interest. This brings us to another unpleasant reality: Alts platforms frequently push specific introductions to alts managers, or promote certain products and strategies because there is some form of compensation involved between the platform and alts managers on it.
Nobody really uses old school verbiage such as “shelf space” and “revenue sharing.” But just because the vocabulary has changed, doesn’t mean the concept has disappeared.
• Deficient mobile experience. This might sound like a minor issue relative to the prior two problems, but this is a rather significant item within the context of how – and where – we work today. The pandemic of the past two years and the move to remote work have massively accelerated our use of mobile personal devices in lieu of laptops and other personal computers.
But you wouldn’t realize this when you take a side-by-side view of the mobile apps versus website experiences offered by the majority of alts platforms. These days, an impaired mobile experience can negatively impact research, diligence and decision-making.
Inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical risk and volatile markets are justifiably raising the stakes for financial professionals while stoking interest in alternative asset managers and alts platforms.
But as an industry, we need to recognize that much work needs to happen with respect to reshaping and reforming the alts space to make sure it is up to the task of serving professionals with stewardship of long-term assets in this new chapter of greater uncertainty.
The easy feasts with passive market returns are over for the foreseeable future.
But that only underscores the urgency for our industry to work on what can be done to ensure bountiful harvests going forward—even if it means addressing systemic shortcomings that were overlooked in years past.
Mark Salameh is chief executive officer of AltsAxis.