We recently conducted an in-depth survey with 20+ high quality Australian independent financial planning practices to understand better their current and likely future use of alternative and private assets investments in their client portfolios.
Some highlight insights:
- These practices have significant exposure to HNW (investable assets > $5M) and UHNW (> $20M) investors with over 30% of total funds under advice (FUA) represented by these segments
- Most practices are already allocating their clients’ monies to alternatives, across a broad asset allocation range (up to 50% of portfolios in some instances) – FUA size, practice business model and client profile are strong predictive indicators
- 4 out of 5 of firms indicated they intended to increase their allocation to both alternatives and private assets over the next 3 years (or maintain where there were already significant allocations)
- Illiquidity and unfamiliarity were called out as the most likely obstacles to allocating these assets to client portfolios; Private equity and private credit/debt were the themes attracting the most interest.
Generally, while there are several practices that have fully embraced these opportunities, the survey indicates that a much broader segment of the market is recognising the public/private markets switch and is ready to take a longer look.
If you’d like to hear more about the findings from this survey, please contact us.
Thank you to those practices that participated.