US financial leaders see private assets coming to more investor portfolios

By Suzanne McGee May 5 (Reuters) - Individual investors are likely to see a growing array of financial products containing private credit heading their way in the coming months and years, financial executives said at the Milken Institute’s annual global conference on Monday. While only a handful of exchange-traded funds and other products aimed at investors who are not high-net-worth buyers have been approved or launched so far, senior figures from banks, asset management firms and private equity firms said this roster likely will grow. “I think that traditional asset managers will be our largest clients in the future,” said Marc Rowan, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management (APO.N) , during a conference panel. “The new form of active management, I think, is not going to be the buying and selling of stocks. It’s going to be the addition of private assets” to portfolios that until now have been made up of publicly traded securities. Apollo partnered with State Street Global Advisors to roll out the SPDR SSGA Public & Private Credit ETF (PRIV.P) in February. So far, the ETF has attracted meager inflows, analysts say, and has only $54.7 million in assets, according to data from VettaFi. State Street could not immediately be reached for comment. “It is going to be difficult to build a structure liquid enough to satisfy SEC rules while offering meaningful exposure to private credit,” said Bryan Armour, ETF analyst at Morningstar, who noted that the 10% of that State Street fund that is allocated to private credit also carries a higher fee. That is not stopping asset managers from trying. Last week, Capital Group and KKR (KKR.N) won SEC approval to issue two new “interval funds” – closed-end products that offer holders only limited liquidity – that will own both publicly traded and private debt securities. In mid-April, Vanguard said it will partner with Blackstone Inc (BX.N) to roll out similar products. Vanguard declined any additional comment. “I expect there to be a flurry of activity, in the next year, of different firms getting together” as traditional asset managers team up with private credit investors, Citigroup (C.N) CEO Jane Fraser told another Milken Institute panel. But the allure of opening a largely untapped corner of the financial market to financial advisers and their retail clients may collide with the realities of how difficult it is to structure a private credit investment vehicle for this audience. “It’s really important to understand: illiquid is illiquid,” said Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton, at the Milken event. “A liquid private credit investment product is a contradiction in terms,” said Michael Venuto, founder of Tidal Financial Group, which helps asset managers roll out new ETFs.