Investment Approach
Our combination of global reach and local presence, as well as deep industry expertise across private markets, enables us to successfully engage with industry leaders and entrepreneurs in all key markets. With our long-term investment approach, we create value in our investments on behalf of our clients through expansion and operational improvements.
Our investment approach encompasses private equity, private real estate, private debt and private infrastructure investments and focuses on investing in quality assets with growth and development potential. We proactively source these investment opportunities in different markets through our large local teams and extensive network of entrepreneurs, industry experts and private markets managers.
To benchmark our global investment opportunity set, we identify those areas of private markets with the greatest investment potential in the prevailing market environment and define the sectors, regions and strategies likely to offer higher value relative to other segments.
This top-down view on the most attractive investment opportunities in private markets globally, combined with our bottom-up ability to identify and develop the most promising investments within local markets, has resulted in strong outperformance over two decades.
Relative value investing
Changing market conditions, as well as transformative and regional trends, can significantly affect the attractiveness of different sectors and industries. We therefore conduct regular analysis to identify and further define those sectors, regions and industry strategies likely to offer higher value relative to other segments at that time.
While the relative value approach offers the potential to identify the most attractive returns from a top-down perspective, it requires a comprehensive array of skills and can only successfully be implemented from the bottom-up by a large, globally integrated team with a broad industry network, strong deal flow and experience over many economic cycles.
Investment selection
Since inception, our team has established an extensive network of entrepreneurs, industry experts and private market managers across the globe that gives us access to a multitude of investment opportunities.
Our investment professionals screen several thousand investment opportunities every year. Our rigorous investment selection process means that we only invest in a small fraction of this overall deal flow, enabling our investors to benefit from the highest quality investments with the best value creation potential.
Value creation
Our key target is to realize the full development potential of the companies, real estate and infrastructure assets we invest in on behalf of our clients. Active value creation is a core element of this aim.
Within the private markets industry, we operate one of the largest Industry Value Creation (IVC) teams globally. The team devises and implements operational value creation initiatives throughout the lifetime of an investment, aiming to create lasting positive impact.
Operational value creation initiatives vary, but typically focus on achieving certain strategic objectives such as expansion through an organic or acquisition-based growth strategy, improving operational effectiveness through a number of focused operational projects or through capital management. All strategic initiatives are guided by our high corporate responsibility standards.
Our team of industry experts is fully integrated into the investment process and specialized in the following sectors: healthcare, consumer, media & telecom, IT, industrials, financial services, infrastructure, and real estate.
Portfolio management
Global private markets investment management requires an in-depth understanding of private markets. While our investment committees make investment recommendations and decisions, our Portfolio & Risk Management team is responsible for constructing and adjusting our diversified private markets portfolios over time so that they meet investors' portfolio requirements and generate attractive returns.
The considerations that go into constructing private markets portfolios include:
- Portfolio strategy: we build private markets portfolios tailored to the specific target returns of our clients by combining complementary private markets investment strategies. Our bespoke approach to portfolio construction allows clients to benefit from market corrections and provides diversification, while at the same time maintaining optimal levels of private markets exposure through investment level steering.
- Portfolio implementation: we gradually ramp-up and re-invest our clients' portfolios based on a predefined implementation plan devised in accordance with their investment horizons. We invest on behalf of our clients based on our relative value investment approach, which identifies the most attractive investment opportunities in the prevailing market conditions.
- Portfolio servicing: we offer our clients a full range of market-leading portfolio services including portfolio planning, treasury management, customized reporting, regular valuation procedures, accounting that accommodates local requirements, and complete administrative services.
- Liquidity management: we have been managing liquidity in private markets portfolios across various structures (limited partnerships, separate accounts as well as semi-liquid and open-ended funds) for almost two decades and are able to effectively manage our clients' different liquidity needs and plan capital requirements for various investment programs.
- Risk management: we apply rigorous quantitative and qualitative risk management processes, which have contributed to an outstanding track record and high levels of client satisfaction. We are able to integrate our risk management process into clients' risk management systems.