One of the firms that has ridden the alternative investments access wave has added to its partnership with a nationwide US wealth management house.
US financial services and wealth management house Baird has expanded its
relationship with CAIS, a
platform for investments such as private equity, venture capital
and real estate.
Under the arrangement, Baird places all investment products,
processes, and data management onto a single platform.
CAIS is one of a handful of firms around the world, such as
iCapital (US) and Moonfare (Germany) that have developed
platforms which they say give faster and wider access to
alternative asset classes that have previously only been open to
the ultra-rich and large institutions such as pension funds. CAIS
has $430 billion in assets.
As regularly reported (see
here), private market investments are increasingly grabbing
wealth managers’ attention, fueled by ultra-low interest rates
after 2008 that crushed yields on listed stocks and bonds and
caused a structural shift toward firms staying private and
taking longer to list on public markets. This has created a
regular call for regulators and firms to make it easier for
affluent and high net worth investors to gain access to
private, alternative assets. (See an
article on CAIS regarding this
Less positively, some regulators are becoming concerned that
areas such as private credit potentially
pose systemic risks.
“The collaboration between our operations team and CAIS to bring
funds onto one centralized platform using CAIS’ modern technology
for advisors, makes them the ideal partner for us.” Nic
Reisenbichler, manager of investment products at Baird, said.
The collaboration puts CAIS’s offerings in the hands of Baird’s
roster of more than 1,300 advisors.
CAIS has been building its software-as-a-service technology. In
the six months following its official launch, CAIS Solutions has
been made available to independent financial advisors who
collectively oversee about $1 trillion in assets.