Introduction

The creation of the target date fund (TDF) sought to make available a professionally managed solution for individuals saving for retirement through their employer’s defined contribution (DC)/ 401(k) plan. In the U.S., DC assets represent 61% of total retirement assets¹并且预计该百分比将继续上升。但是，尽管对投资期权和参与者行为有所改善，但平均而言，DC计划继续看到滞后所定义的福利（DB）计划。看看最近的两个研究，这个赤字很清楚：

• 公司的DB plans outperformed DC plans by an average of 70 bps, net of fees, per year between 1990 and 2012.²
  
• 截至2016年的10年，DB计划与直流计划的年化净返回相比，年化净收率为5.9％ - 净回报差约为50 BPS。^3.

One possible reason for that gap is that DC plans do not currently have access to the same “toolkit” of investments that is available to DB plans. This is evident when looking at allocations to private markets. Access to those markets for DC plan participants is the focus of this special report.

黑石believes that, as long-term investors, DC plan participants who are invested in target date funds should have access to both public and private markets. However, access may not be the only obstacle for DC plan participants wishing to invest in private markets. The structure of the 401(k) market, which demands daily liquidity, also could create challenges. How to level the playing field so DC plan participants have the opportunity to benefit from the growth of private markets is the subject of this lively conversation with BlackRock’sNick Nefouse, Head of Retirement Solutions and Global Head of LifePath®;和Pam Chan，首席投资官和替代解决方案的全球负责人。

Traditionally, DC plans haven’t been able to access private markets in the same way that DB plans have. What are the main potential benefits to a DC plan from investment in private markets?

Nick Nefouse：虽然私人市场的增长速度明显速度明显，但是拥有高达45年的投资地平线的年轻直流计划参与者没有机会接触私人市场以及在那段时间范围内的利益相关潜力。对于较老的投资者来说，私人市场可能仍然可以回报增强，但它们更有可能寻求减轻风险的方法。例如，在这种低息率环境中，投资组合可以受益于暴露于不同类型的资产，例如基础设施管道，或者甚至可能是绿色能源 - 投资，其主要对投资组合的主要贡献是多样化而不是回报增强。简而言之，在投资者处于生命周期，私人市场投资可以在目标日期基金中添加到工具箱。

Pam Chan:私人市场继续以加速的速度增长，因此随着时间的推移，他们可能会涉及DC计划参与者的错过返回生成机会，并提供多样化福利。退休储蓄是关于为长途运输而退款。私人市场旨在成为多年的持有，并允许长期的价值创作，而不是达到液体市场的日常波动。换句话说，私人市场可以匹配退休储蓄的时间较长时间，同时表现出相对恢复力，获得了更加静音的标志性波动性，从情绪中更大的绝缘层，避免强迫销售。

在跨私人市场资产课程的时间内，返回溢价在200到500个基点之间，以便在多年内复杂的非常有意义的差异。^4.客户展望私人市场的原因之一是因为今天的固定收入与他们的绝对回报目标相比。尤其值得注意的最后一点：今天公共和私人市场估值之间的传播有意义。当我们看到一直在私人市场亚博赞助欧冠投入的机构投资者显着增加他们的拨款时，它在私人市场投资可以在DC投资组合中发挥的可能重要作用。

您提到私人市场可以在投资组合中扮演私人市场，这是一个很好的SEGUE成本为DC投资组合增加私人市场投资。挑战是什么？

Nefouse:The DC portfolio’s costs would go up, no two ways about it. But there are some levers we can use to help keep them reasonable. First, scale matters in alternatives. Working with a firm with the size and scope of BlackRock can offer advantages in terms of access, opportunity sourcing, and institutional-scale cost advantages. Private market issuers are aware of the potential scale and relative stability of DC plan investments, which could have a bearing on the issuers’ offered cost.

第二，更重要的是，对投资者潜在的净净利润。在目标日期基金中包括私人市场替代方案的福利可能是回报加强或多样化和风险缓解 - 或也许两者都是如此。我们必须仔细看待后续福利，如果返回的风险或大幅增加没有大幅度降低，可能没有任何价值主张，我们可能只是增加不必要的复杂性。

陈：You go into private markets seeking return enhancement and risk diversification through asset-specific outperformance and deal-level attributes. You’re not buying an index. The investor is paying for the human effort and edge in sourcing, underwriting, and managing the asset through to disposition or repayment, as the case may be – each private market deal needs to be manufactured and actively managed. To that end, private market investments need to make sense on a net return basis.

私人市场替代品在自然界中是异质的。在DC计划中设想了哪些类型的替代资产？

Nefouse:我认为使用私营市场而不是私募股权是正确的。我们正在寻找访问私人市场，这可能是信誉，房地产，基础设施，私募股权 - 市场深入多样化。我们已经通过终身资产分配镜头分析了私人市场替代品，并作为年轻投资者的拇指规则，我们正在寻找将超越公共股票的增长资产。在生活中，正如我们之前提到的那样，它变得更多的风险缓解故事。自3月以来，这次谈话更有趣的是，在美国国债以外的美国公共市场中寻找风险减轻资产，这是一个令人困难的谈话。

But let’s give this some context. It’s not just “Let’s bolt on some private equity for a 22-year- old.” We have to understand how the risk and return profile and the cross-asset correlations of the whole portfolio are adjusted for the unique circumstances of including private market exposures in a diversified pool of otherwise public market assets.

陈：潜水一个更深发展资产标准t of what Nick was just describing for the younger investors, I would broadly describe it from a cash-flow profile perspective. It’s about where investors are seeking to get meaningful capital appreciation. In private market investments, an investor seeks upside on exit, whether in the context of equity in a private company, a real estate property, or an infrastructure project. There are also a number of other ways to mix the growth element with some income. For example, within opportunistic credit, some of the total return is designed to come from income, but there could also be an equity component attached to the structure of the transaction providing some potential equity upside to the investment.

Also, to underscore one of the elements of the whole portfolio approach Nick described: once you put it in the ground, it is in for a multi-year period. But at some point, that money will hopefully come back, and if it does, the investor can figure out where to put those incremental cash flows. Private markets are less dynamic than the public markets because investors can’t change their investment overnight, but an investment plan shouldn’t be static. One element on the private market side that less people talk about is the ability to evolve the portfolio over time as distributions come back. The investor just has to be very intentional and deliberate about it.

repr的结构性问题是什么ent challenges to having private market investments in target date funds?

Nefouse:有两个不同的领域，最担心我。首先，私营资产的投资性质，其吸引资金并充分投资，潜在地及时落后于投资和/或导致资本投资早年的负面回报。其次，目标日期基金水平的流动性需要。在绘图返回概况上，它真的是关于教育，直流计划和参与者意识到可能需要时间来看待与私营资产相关的回报福利。在流动性问题上，401（k）计划的投资通常会提供日常流动性，这与私人市场的替代品完全造成不匹配，这些替代品可能根本不是液体或可能需要折扣销售。虽然这一资产负债不匹配不能完全解决，但最终将成为一种情况，部分包括在目标日期基金中优化液体和非水资源资产的优化。这可能是最敏锐的挑战 - 在一段持续的流出时期，目标日期基金不能越来越多，因为公共证券出售以资金赎回。我们认为，由于资产经理和私人市场发行人的一些创造力和创新，这些都将证明是可解决的问题。

陈：如果我们能够“将”j曲线时期“公式化”，那可能沿途。公平地区是关于寻找介绍私营市场资产的一些属性的液体资产，我们将随着时间的推移而添加到投资组合。这可能是市场因素曝光或收入概况的函数，等等。带式化的关键是确保它保留资本。在J-Cureve的早期，资本呼叫将是笨拙的，投资者不想成为一个地方没有足够流动性的地方资助资本呼叫。如果设计良好，公平可能比持有现金更好，这是今天很多人所做的。我们正在谈论部分地填补差距，并非一路填补 - 因为，如果您可以完全填充它，则在第一次实例中不需要私人市场。

Nick, how would sum up the challenges of including alternatives in DC plans? And how can working with the right alternatives manager help DC plans overcome those challenges?

Nefouse:Structure, access, cost, and education. We just covered many of the structural challenges, and they are significant barriers that will require innovation on all sides to overcome. Regarding access, one way to look at it is that the top managers tend to stay the top managers over time, and access to those managers is the objective. Private asset transactions may be privately negotiated and not widely available, so sourcing capacity with managers that see good deal flow and can set terms is important. On the third point, cost: a really good manager with a track record of delivering good returns isn’t offering you a discount. There is a cost premium, as Pam spoke about earlier, and that premium is generally pretty stable for top managers, who often get paid base fees but also a performance fee based on the return of the assets. Fee complexity is a challenge for DC plans, which need to allocate costs across all participants in a predictable, regular way. Finally, education. Education is really about explaining the nuance to plan sponsors – the difference between public markets and private markets so they can in turn educate participants.

Blackrock可以通过在整个公司上合作，帮助计划所有这些元素的赞助商。在退休业务方面，我们是生命周期投资的专家，并在替代商业方面，我们拥有一个行业领先的平台，具有所需的专业知识和私人市场的知识深度。我们认为多样化和规模在这里重要 - 这不仅仅是对目标日期基金的私募股权分配。我们会鼓励赞助商思考私营市场和公共市场的整个投资组合方法。

陈：投资者with BlackRock can benefit from the breadth of the investment strategies that we have, liquid to illiquid. Even the largest institutional investors sometimes struggle moving across the private market space because it can be complex and cumbersome. You need a team that has specialist expertise in each of the private market verticals, and that has the expertise to underwrite and seek alpha. We have those experts across the board. And let’s face it – a firm that only invests in private equity is always going to want to sell you private equity no matter how high the valuation multiples. With our whole portfolio view, we can greatly expand the toolkit for investors to express what that private market premium is for them.

In the end, it feels as if a lot of this just comes down to everyone with a 401(k) account having a fair shot at optimizing their preparedness for retirement.

Nefouse:I love covering 401(k) plans. I get to look right at the people in those plans and understand the purpose of what I do every day. And there’s no reason I should have to explain to them why they don’t have access to these investments if people who benefit from DB plans do. It’s democratization, but we need to do it in a way where the experts build the products because of the nuances we’ve touched on here. We have to get the access part right for sure, but also need to innovate to get access to the right things at the right times in an investment lifecycle.

陈：您需要在地面上的靴子来源这些交易。这就是像我们这样的缩放平台发挥作用的地方。我无法强调这一点 - 找到正确的交易和结构，正确的方式仍然由人提供动力。这是血液，汗水和泪水到达那里。拿起这一点，这不像投资指数或公共市场。这就是为什么访问困难，关系很重要，历史上的私人市场主要喂入机构投资者空间。亚博赞助欧冠和资本会有更多的资本，对吗？因此，大型投资者变得更大，并且它们从尾风中受益，因为生成了返回。和DC计划参与者随着时间的推移缺乏访问化合物。当我们考虑平等的时候，这是一个反思的东西，以及如何适当地参与私人市场可能有助于关闭一些当前的平等差距。

Learn more about how including private markets in DC plans could benefit future retirees。

---

¹Global Pension Assets Study 2020, Thinking Ahead Institute Research, Willis Towers Watson

²Alicia H.Munnell，Jean-Pierre Aubry和Caroline V. Crawford，“投资回报：界定的福利与界定计划，”波士顿学院退休研究中心“2015年12月”（2015年12月）

^3.Sandy Halim and Maaike van Bragt, “Defined Contribution Plans Have Come a Long Way!” CEM Benchmarking Inc. (February 2018).

^4.这是基于从2009年到2019年的汤森路透社的数据分析。它是通过4个资产课程，买断，私人信贷，房地产和基础设施进行的。溢价是通过MSCI世界的收购，Barclays全球私人信用，FTSE EPRA / NAREIT全球房地产指数，以及DJ Brookfield全球基础设施的全球指标。

Disclosures

This material is provided for educational purposes only and should not be construed as research. The information presented is not a complete analysis of the global retirement landscape. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change at any time due to changes in the market, the economic or regulatory environment or for other reasons. The material does not constitute investment, legal, tax or other advice and is not to be relied on in making an investment or other decision.

Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal.Asset allocation models and diversification do not promise any level of performance or guarantee against loss of principal. Investment in TDFs is subject to the risks of the underlying funds. The target date is the approximate date when investors plan to start withdrawing their money. The blend of investments in each portfolio is determined by an asset allocation process that seeks to maximize assets based on an investor’s investment time horizon and tolerance for risk. Typically, the strategic asset mix in each portfolio systematically rebalances at varying intervals and becomes more conservative (with less equity exposure) over time as investors move closer to the target date. The principal value of a fund is not guaranteed at any time, including at and after the target date.

随着后续条件各不相同，所表达的意见可能会发生变化。本材料中包含的信息和意见来自Blackrock，Inc。和/或其子公司（一起，“Blackrock”）的专有和非专有来源是可靠的。没有表示此信息准确或完整。无法保证所做的任何预测将通过。依赖本材料中的信息是读者的唯一自行决定。

第三方文章或内容中表达的意见并不一定反映黑石竞争的观点。Blackrock没有任何第三方陈述的完整性或准确性的代表性。

可以再现本材料的任何部分，存储在任何检索系统中或以任何形式或任何形式传输，无需先前书面同意的任何形式，电子，机械，录像或其他方式传输。本出版物不旨在用于在此类分配或使用的任何司法管辖区或国家/地区的任何人或实体的分配，或者在当地法律或监管中违反。

仅供制度和金融专业人士使用

©2020 BlackRock，Inc。保留所有权利。黑石和救生圈是BlackRock，Inc。的商标，所有其他商标是各自所有者的商标。