T. Rowe Price is ramping up its efforts to tap into advisor demand for alternatives, according to Bill Cashel, the company’s head of alternatives for U.S. wealth.
“We’re doubling our sales team - on the alternatives we’re going to have 15 external-facing salespeople working with advisors by the end of the year,” he told InvestmentNews at Schwab IMPACT in Boston. “We have 13 right now.”
“We think that there’s an opportunity to really help advisors understand these new asset classes,” Cashel added.
The T. Rowe Price wealth alternatives chief explained that this is up significantly from 6 in March, when he joined T. Rowe Price from Privacore Capital, where he served principal and co-founder.
“We have been expanding – we have a dedicated team focused on RIAs and we have a dedicated team focused on broker dealers,” he added.
Cashel told InvestmentNews that T. Rowe Price has also launched a number of new products since his arrival. These include a multi-strategy credit interval fund “OFLEX” launched with the company’s Oak Hill Advisors subsidiary. T. Rowe Price already offered a private credit fund “OCREDIT” with Oak Hill Advisors.
In July the Boston-based manager and Goldman Sachs Asset Management launched the T. Rowe Price Goldman Sachs Private Market fund. “That is leveraging private markets capabilities from Goldman Sachs Asset Management and our strategies within T. Rowe Price on the private market side,” said Cashel.
Goldman agreed to acquire a stake of up to 3.5% in T.Rowe Price last year through a $1 billion investment.
Advisor demand for alternatives is certainly increasing. Research released earlier this year by iCapital found that 89% of advisors are planning to increase their allocations to alternatives over the next 12 months.
Wealth is front and center for T. Rowe Price. The company recently announced that it is adding 50 more staff to its U.S. wealth business, with the new hires sitting in its U.S. intermediaries unit.
“What AI tools am I using? They need to be clear on that,” said Brock Sutton of Capital Group.
“It is about supporting the advisor to be more effective with their client,” said Vanessa Touma of Invesco.
InvestmentNews traveled to Boston, Massachusetts, to cover Schwab's annual conference. All coverage can be found here.
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