With sales of interval funds hitting new highs during a boom time for alternative investments, two powerhouse firms, Capital Group and KKR, have teamed up to create funds that add a new wrinkle to an old product. They are boosting the amount that clients can sell their shares back to the company of the illiquid product from 5% per quarter, the industry standard, to 10%.
Two recently launched funds, Capital Group KKR Core Plus+ and Capital Group KKR Multi-Sector+, both have the extra added liquidity, according to their company websites. Both are out-of-the-box brand new; the former, which invests in public fixed income and private credit, had just $205.4 million in assets near at the end of August. The latter, which invests across public and private credit markets, has $280.4 million in assets.
The Capital Group KKR Core Plus+ fund had an NAV of $10.24 per share on September 29, and the Capital Group KKR Multi Sector+ fund’s NAV was $10.30.
Financial advisors sell alternative investments like interval funds, along with non-traded business development companies and real estate investment trusts, to clients who are hungry for yield and open to diversifying their portfolios away from stocks and bonds. Shares are usually priced around $10 when the funds launch.
Interval funds have limited liquidity and – until now – typically bought back up to 5% of clients’ shares per quarter. It’s too early to tell if the new 10% buyback will become an industry standard; if a fund adds liquidity by investing in cash or easy to sell Treasury Bonds, it could put a damper on returns.
“The two Capital Group and KKR funds mix public credit and private credit, with about a 60 to 40% split,” said Bryan Armour, director of ETFs and passive strategies research for Morningstar, during a recent episode of the InvestmentNews Podcast.
“With 60% in the public markets, that gives the fund a more liquid profile to begin with, and it will be able to pay out 10% pretty easily,” Armour says. “That does seem like an easy bridge for retail investors moving into private markets for the first time, right?”
Non-accredited investors – or those with less than $1 million to invest – can buy the new funds, and they have minimums of $1,000.
“Private market investments can enhance returns and add diversification within a portfolio yet have historically been out of reach for everyday investors given accreditation requirements and higher investment minimums,” said Holly Framsted, head of product group, Capital Group, in an email.
The private credit market has exploded in the past 15 years, as banks had restrictions on lending after the 2008 credit crisis. Some see plenty of dangers in a potential private credit market meltdown, particularly if interest rates spike. Others believe private credit is simply a new sector to invest in, much like junk or high-yield bonds were in the 1980s, although the meltdown in junk bonds ended the go-go times of that decade.
“Advisors are plowing client money into interval credit funds and BDCs, but if interest rates go up, all those businesses that took on the debt will face higher payments,” said one senior industry executive, who spoke privately about the matter to InvestmentNews. “How many of those companies will be able to cover those interest payments, and what will the likelihood of default be?”
Sales of alternative investments have exploded over the past few years, leaving some observers wondering whether financial advisors truly understand the products they are selling and if clients realize the risk they are buying.
According to investment bank Robert A. Stanger & Co. Inc., fundraising – meaning sales – of alternative Investments will reach $200 billion by the end of the year, compared to close to $138 billion in sales of alternative investments last year and $84 billion in 2023.
Interval funds are no exception to the alternative investment fiesta that advisors and money managers are now celebrating; advisors sold $8.6 billion of the product in 2020, and sales have more than tripled in half a decade, reaching $30.1 billion last year, according to Stanger.
Per fund tracker Morningstar, alternative funds are more expensive than US stock mutual funds, including open-ended funds and ETFs, although fees on alternative funds have been coming down since 2019, according to Morningstar research published last year.
As measured by an asset-weighted average, alternative funds on average currently charge a fee of 1.03%, while US equity funds charge 0.6%.
One industry executive said the new 10% per quarter in the revamped Interval funds would most likely cause advisors to take a wait-and-see approach to the product.
“Financial advisors may be cautious,” said John Cox, CEO of Cox Capital Partners, which invests in non-traded alternatives in the secondary market via a proprietary fund. “They may be careful and see how the funds perform though a couple of cycles.”
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