Spotlight on Mark Perry, Managing Director & Head of Alternatives Manager Research, Wilshire
Global Thought Leader Spotlight
Mark Perry, Managing Director & Head of Alternatives Manager Research, Wilshire
“In my role as the Head of Alternatives Manager Research, at Wilshire I have the pleasure of working with a team of 39 professionals, spanning four offices, on three continents that spend each day identifying and delivering investment solutions across the alternatives spectrum. While we are broad in terms of our coverage – primary, secondaries and co-investments; equity, credit and real assets; US, Europe and Asia; liquid and illiquid – we are focused by our belief that the most compelling risk-adjusted returns are found at the intersection of market inefficiency and manager differentiation. Thus, our key area of focus is on specialised managers with the skill to navigate risk and deliver return in their respective target markets and across macroeconomic cycles.
“In an era of increasing market efficiency – both in the public and the private markets – and heightened volatility, the utility of innovative private markets strategies within diversified investment portfolios is increasingly profound. This statement applies not only to the management of risk within portfolios, but also the pursuit of outperformance.
“While yield and current income continue to be in high demand, yield has been and continues to be increasingly risky to obtain. Though investors with the liquidity flexibility to pivot to the private markets have benefited from attractive risk-adjusted return in the core direct lending market historically, competitive pressures in that market have simultaneously deteriorated both return and risk in the current environment.
“There is an evolution toward specialisation occurring in the private credit market today – like that which occurred in the private equity market 15 years ago – where specialist managers have emerged to provide capital to areas of the market where competition is scarce and, in doing so, are creating compelling investment opportunities to yield-oriented investors.
“Alternative yield strategies, born from the concept of uncorrelated return, delivered as expected through the stress test of the COVID crisis and are poised to generate attractive risk-adjusted yield going forward.
“Given the current late-cycle dynamics and the elevated risk inherent to the liquid and illiquid credit markets alike, alternative yield strategies are a compelling source of return and an important tool for risk management.
“Risk management in a core private credit portfolio is often difficult given the homogeneity of that market. Investors can diversify risk across geographies, vintage years, position in the capital structure, and to some extent market size segments (small-cap, mid-cap, large-cap), but the result is still a relatively tight-band of returns. By building a diversified portfolio of best-in-class private credit managers using the alternative yield strategies, investors are offered exposure to the outsized risk-adjusted returns generated within these inefficient markets while benefiting from the steady cash yield and diversification benefits of income streams with low or no correlation to business, credit, or market cycles. Furthermore, the unique inter-fund correlation attributes of these strategies may minimise total portfolio volatility (risk) and, in doing so, create a stable cash flow stream that is attractive both in terms of the yield it produces and the diversification benefits it affords.”
Mark will be presenting on alternative yield strategies and why they are a compelling source of return and an important tool for risk management in the current, late-cycle environment at Global Investment Institute’s upcoming Fixed Income & Defensive Assets Investment Forum, taking place on Thursday, 8 September 2022 at the Westin, Melbourne CBD, Victoria.
To register your interest in attending, click here or for more information email zlatan.kapetanovic@globalii.com.au.
Mark Perry, Managing Director & Head of Alternatives Manager Research, Wilshire
Mark is a Managing Director at Wilshire who serves on Wilshire’s Private Markets business and investment committee. He is responsible for sourcing, due diligence, and monitoring investments across private market sectors within the US and Canada.
Prior to joining Wilshire, Mark was a Vice President at Centinela Capital Partners.
He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Master of Business Administration in Finance from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Mark joined Wilshire in 2012.
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