Are you a high net worth individual investor?
Are you feeling left out of the institutional yield chase?
Do you wish you could access the same esoteric, illiquid credits as pension funds and endowments?
If so, we may just have an investment opportunity for you.
Interval funds offer you, the high net worth individual, the full institutional investing experience. Not only do you get the high management fees and carried interest associated with traditional private equity investments, but as an added bonus you will invest through a seemingly liquid, mutual-fund like structure that is in fact subject to the vagaries of market conditions and the fund sponsor’s judgement.
That’s basically the pitch for interval funds. Interval funds are part of a larger growth trend for private credit and direct lending funds. Remember all the risky loans banks used to make prior to the financial crisis? Well, banks don’t make those loans anymore. They have regulation to thank for that. The risky loans didn’t go away, though. They just moved from bank balance sheets to private credit vehicles–unregulated hedge fund and private equity-like structures.
Up until recently private credit has remained out of reach of most individual investors. Interval funds are now being marketed as a way for a wider array of individuals to access private credit and even private equity. The idea is that a sponsor with expertise in these areas (like Carlyle) can sub-advise on a strategy that can be sold through a large asset manager with established retail distribution channels (like Oppenheimer Funds).
As you might guess I have several issues with interval funds. Here are the main ones:
- You have know way of knowing whether the sponsor actually cares about performance or is just dropping mediocre deals into the structure to gather assets in a high fee product. I struggle to believe these sponsors are saving their choice deals for interval funds when they have longtime relationships with large, institutional investors to look after.
- Illiquid things are being held in what is being marketed as an open-ended structure. This works right up until it doesn’t. In the event of a severe market dislocation these funds will suspend their repurchase programs and investors will be stuck.
- In my view, you’re not being compensated particularly well for the risks you’re taking. Don’t take my word for it. Read the financials. Maybe you think 500-ish bps of spread is fair compensation for this kind of risk. Fair enough. But consider that JNK will give you nearly 400 bps of spread over 10-year Treasuries these days.
Here’s what the portfolio valuation disclosure for the Carlyle/Oppenheimer vehicle I’ve been linking to above looks like:
This would be pretty typical for a private fund playing in credit such as a credit hedge fund. I have a mental rule of thumb for these things which goes like this: in a dislocated market, assume the fund will turn completely illiquid. Do not invest unless you’re prepared to live with the consequences.
The sales pitch for interval funds is straightforward. It’s yield!
There’s a pejorative term in the business for investors who chase yield without regard to risk. We call them yield pigs. And yield pigs almost always end up getting slaughtered.