Pension Fight: Private Equity Aims for Defined Contribution Market

In late 2014, Partners Group plunged into the defined-contribution-pension market by announcing the first product to offer traditional private equity exposure within a target-date fund. But it took until the end of last year for the Baar-Zug, Switzerland–based private equity firm to win its first commitment, a $50 million allocation from a private pension fund in the U.S. Midwest.

Partners expects to launch similar products in the U.K. and Australia during the first quarter of this year, once regulators approve them. “We’re playing the long game,” says Robert Collins, a managing director at the $47 billion firm’s New York office who oversees its U.S. defined contribution business. “This is the future of pension funds, and we want to be there.”

享受传统界定福利成功后pensions，私募股权公司面临着痛苦的痛苦，因为他们寻求满足界定的贡献市场。替代投资如对冲基金而且实际资产容易折叠到这些较新的计划中，由液体替代产品中的Boomlet蹦蹦筛。但对于私募股权，换班是难以的。

Still, Partners and its peers see big opportunities in the rapidly growing defined contribution market. Between 2000 and the third quarter of last year, U.S. defined contribution assets more than doubled, climbing from $3 trillion to $6.5 trillion, according to Washington-based trade association theInvestment Company Institute。IRA计划的资产计划在同一时期几乎增加三倍，从2.6万亿美元到大约7.3万亿美元。相比之下，私人定义的福利养老金谦虚地增长，从2万亿美元到2.8万亿美元。政府界定的福利计划认为，其资产从3万亿美元增加到5万亿美元。

私募股权行业周围围绕着定义的福利养老金制度长大，因为分配者对这些计划的分配人需要这项投资所需的十到20岁的地平线。但在新定义的贡献世界中，个人投资者和计划赞助商希望产品能够在一个突发事件上进出突发事件，而没有行业的余地 - 传统普通伙伴的良好秩序。

合作伙伴团队通过仅对现有战略进行轻微的更改，开发了其产品。“我们已经在每月估值中运行了一个常绿的基金结构，”董事柯林斯召回。“所以我们建立了我们的知识，在没有牺牲某些类型的投资的情况下搬到日常估值结构。”

The firm’s defined contribution fund relies on an integrated strategy that combines allocations to traditional private equity investments, secondaries, listed private equity, listed infrastructure and cash. Unlike in a typical private equity fund, this mix offers daily liquidity, making it more suitable for defined contribution plans. “The vast majority of the portfolio is the real thing in terms of traditional private equity exposure,” Collins notes.

克莱尔集团等一般伙伴，KKR＆Co。and limited partners like Pantheon Ventures are looking at vehicles that target another side of the defined contribution marketplace: registered investment advisers. Last October, London-based Pantheon and AMG Funds announced the ’33 Act registration of the AMG Pantheon Fund, a retail private equity vehicle with a 0.7 percent management fee. AMG Funds is the U.S. retail arm of Affiliated Managers Group, a $619 billion global asset manager; Pantheon Ventures (US) is majority owned by AMG. By allocating directly to the multimanager fund, investors can gain access to a variety of general partners across vintage years, strategies and geographies.

“新的贡献市场围绕新基金结构令人兴奋，”旧金山的合作伙伴苏珊龙麦克德鲁斯（Susan Long Mcandrew）表示为320亿美元的万神殿。It’s been difficult for plan sponsors and advisers who have experience investing in private equity to find opportunities for retail investors, McAndrews notes: “I think you’re going to see a lot of different options come to market as people figure out what works for them, either through new business lines or custom solutions.”

即使在新产品中的计划赞助商中的所有兴趣，它将是一个艰难的公司，为公司教育零售投资者了解私募股权在投资组合中的意义。“在康涅狄格州诺瓦尔顿罗克森投资顾问定义贡献研究的合伙人Jeri Savage说：”在增加界定计划的替代方案时，有一个学习曲线。“各个投资者经常不知道股票和债券之间的差异，因此在那里有一个大的教育差距，”野蛮人“增加了4250亿美元的建议。

这种差距已经导致litigation spurred by the perceived risk of alternatives, as well as by the private equity industry’s high fees. Last October a former employee of Intel Corp. brought a lawsuit against the U.S. technology giant’s plan sponsor for including investments in hedge funds and private equity as part of its defined-contribution-plan portfolio. In his complaint, Christopher Sulyma claims that Intel’s plan sponsors violated their fiduciary duty by allocating to alternatives, which he says are too risky and expensive.

That case and two others have investment consultants and plan sponsors holding off on recommending what a new private equity product should look like. “A lot of people are waiting to see how lawsuits like the one brought in October shake out,” says Ross Bremen, partner and defined contribution strategist at NEPC, a Boston-based pension investment consulting firm whose defined contribution group has $147 billion in assets under advisement.

这些案件认为，审慎投资应该表现得像共同基金，并提供快速回报，不来梅观察。但是，这不是私募股权旨在提供的返回简介。“我认为人们在短时间内将信托谨慎与高回报相混淆，”不来梅警告。“谨慎和高回报没有直接相关。”

Bremen believes it may take a culture shift for investors in defined contribution plans to consider private equity and other products with long-term return profiles. Integrated strategies such as those bundled in the Partners Group and Pantheon Ventures funds allow for the daily liquidity that mutual fund investors are used to, but the upside for such offerings increases over time as the traditional private equity investments they contain pay off.

Rocaton的野蛮人强调，所有这些产品都基本上是初稿。根据万神殿的McAndrews，界定缴费计划的答案可能是在试验不同的风险回报方案中。“我认为这仍然需要一些时间来看看产品类型的看起来像什么，”她说。“我们认为最有可能的家是在目标日期基金内通过定制。”