Building a Better Portfolio: Balancing Performance and Liquidity - Executive Summary
View new research: "Harnessing the Potential of Private Assets: A Framework for Institutional Portfolio Construction," PGIM IAS, June 2021. Available here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3877588
4 Pages Posted: 11 Nov 2020 Last revised: 14 Sep 2021
Date Written: April 1, 2020
Abstract
Investors have been increasing their allocations to private assets seeking higher returns and better portfolio diversification. However, as this allocation increases, the liquidity characteristics of their portfolios change. To address this issue we create a framework that links bottom-up private asset investing with top-down asset allocation. Private asset cash flows are consistently modeled together with public asset returns and risk that, in turn, drive portfolio construction. This helps investors analyze how allocations to illiquid private assets, in combination with their commitment strategy, may affect their portfolio’s ability to respond to various liquidity demands. By measuring the potential tradeoff between asset allocations, total portfolio performance and the frequency of certain liquidity events with different severities, this framework can help investors quantify the interaction between their portfolio structure and performance, and formalize their decision making around portfolio liquidity choices.
Keywords: PGIM, PGIM IAS, PGIM Institutional Advisory & Solutions, PGIM Institutional Advisory & Solutions (IAS), portfolio construction, portfolio allocation, private assets, liquidity risk, asset allocation, commitment strategy, public market equivalent, Takahashi and Alexander, pacing strategy, PME
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