Alternative Investment Analyst Review™
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Alternative Investment Analyst Review ™ What a CAIA Member Should Know “Risk, Return and Cash Flow Characteristics of Private Equity Investments in Infrastructure” Florian Bitsch, Research Assistant at the Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies (CEFS) Axel Buchner, Postdoctoral researcher at Technische Universität München Christoph Kaserer, Professor at Technische Universität München Investment Strategies “Investing in Distressed Debt” Sameer Jain, UBS; Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology CAIA Member Contribution “The Wisdom of the Right Crowd: Service Provider Choice and Hedge Fund Performance” James B. Crystal, CAIA, Managing Director Director of Hedge Funds and Opportunistic Investments at Rockefeller Financial Research Review “What We Like about Closed End Funds that Trade at a Discount” Ben Branch, Professor of Finance and Liping Qiu, PhD Student in Finance, University of Massachusetts Amherst Quantitative Analysis “Attribution Analysis of Bull/Bear Alphas and Betas” Andreas Steiner, Andreas Steiner Consulting GmbH CAIA Association Developments “Rising Stars of Public Funds” Keith Black, CAIA, Associate Director of Curriculum at the CAIA Association “Congratulations New CAIA Charter Holders” Class of March 2012 Roster Q2 2012, Volume 1, Issue 2 Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association® CAIA Association Ten Years of Education and Commitment Alternative Investment Analyst Review Editors’ Letter 2002 - 2012 Over the past few years, investors have encountered significant turmoil in global financial markets. The current sources of tension in the financial markets include stresses originating in Europe, high unemployment, depressed real estate prices, and budgetary challenges at all levels of government in Europe and the United States. Many investors argue that this is an ideal time to turn one’s attention to alternative investments. Alternative investments CAIA Knowledge have traditionally provided opportunities for investors to diversify their portfolios, along with the potential for Series positive returns in challenging times, such as the current environment. In this issue of the Alternative Investment Textbooks First Edition Analyst Review, we offer a series of articles that provide insights into a wide variety of alternative investments, 5,000th 1,000th Tenth including infrastructure investment, distressed debt, closed-end funds, and hedge funds. First Chapter: Member Member Member ‘05 ‘08 Hong Kong Fifteenth “Risk, Return, and Cash Flow Characteristics of Private Equity Investments in Infrastructure,” by Florian Bitsch, Axel Class ‘10 Chapter: Buchner and Christoph Kaserer, examines a number of commonly held beliefs about infrastructure investment. Korea ‘02 Ranked ‘12 The authors find that infrastructure deals exhibit higher performance than non-infrastructure deals. However, they First Fastest First Tenth uncover evidence that the higher returns may be accompanied by higher market risk. Founded Chapters: ‘07 Growing Leadership Switzerland Financial ‘09 Award Anniversary The second paper in this issue, “Investing in Distressed Debt,” by Sameer Jain, provides a comprehensive look ‘03 London Charter New York by NYSSA at distressed debt investing. While recent market conditions have been challenging for many firms, they have Canada ‘11 created opportunities for investors in distressed debt. Jain’s paper outlines the fundamentals of distressed debt Singapore investing from an alternative investments perspective including the risks, sources of returns and market dynamics. “The Wisdom of the Right Crowd: Service Provider Choice and Hedge Fund Performance,” by Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) member James B. Crystal, examines an under-analyzed area in the extant hedge fund literature: the impact of the qualitative characteristics of a hedge fund on its performance. Crystal considers the impact of key service providers (e.g., prime brokers, auditors, administrators, and legal counsel) on hedge fund performance. The author’s analysis indicates a relationship between the use of the most popular key service providers and outperformance over five- and ten-year horizons. This issue’s research review section focuses on closed-end funds. In Ben Branch and Liping Qiu’s article, ”What We Like about Closed-End Funds that Trade at a Discount,” the authors provide an overview of research on closed- ® end funds, and suggest that investors may be able to generate enhanced returns by investing in diversified portfolios of deeply discounted closed-end funds. Branch and Qiu argue that investors should form portfolios of 10 fundamentally attractive funds that are trading at substantial discounts to their net asset values (NAV). Excess TENTH ANNIVERSARY 2012 returns may be realized if (a) some of the funds experience a reduction in their discounts, (b) they self-tender, (c) they provide large distributions, or (d) they convert to open-end status. A list of further readings on closed-end The CAIA Charter demonstrates the funds is provided after the article. highest level of credibility and com- mitment to the alternative investment One of the distinguishing characteristics of many alternative investments is their asymmetric exposure to industry. Join the exclusive network traditional market factors. In “Attribution Analysis of Bull/Bear Alphas and Betas,” Andreas Steiner develops a of professionals who have earned model of asymmetric alpha/beta, and builds a framework to analyze the impact of alpha/beta asymmetry on a the global standard in AI education. traditional single-index (symmetric alpha and beta) model. Furthermore, Steiner illustrates that the asymmetrical model can be used to discover “false” alphas as well as to manage tail risk. CAIA.org 413 253 7373 Finally, Keith Black speaks with four CAIA members who were recently awarded the title of “Rising Stars of Public Funds” by Institutional Investor: Derek Drummond of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), Samuel INDEX Gallo of the University System of Maryland Foundation, Bryan Hedrick of Fort Worth Employees’ Retirement Fund and Chris Schelling of Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS). Our goal with the Alternative Investment Analyst Review is to provide a combination of original research papers and reviews of extant research in a format that is both educational and more accessible than many of the existing academic journals. The AIAR can only be effective if it provides subject matter that is of interest to CAIA What a CAIA Member Should Know members. As a CAIA member, your feedback and your submissions are critical to AIAR’s mission. As always, we “Risk, Return, and Cash Flow Characteristics of Private Equity encourage you to submit your feedback, and articles to us at [email protected]. Investments in Infrastructure”. 6 Florence Lombard By Florian Bitsch, Axel Buchner, Christoph Kaserer CEO, CAIA Association Hossein Kazemi ABSTRACT: This article analyzes the risk, return, and cash flow characteristics AIAR STAFF Ed Szado of infrastructure investments by using a unique dataset of deals done by Editors of Alternative Investment Analyst Review private-equity-like investment funds. The authors show that infrastructure Hossein Kazemi deals exhibit performance that is higher than that of non-infrastructure Edward Szado deals, despite lower default frequencies. However, the authors do not Editors find that infrastructure deals offer more stable cash flows. The article offers Ian Cappelletti some evidence in favor of the hypothesis that higher infrastructure returns Marketing Coordinator could be driven by higher market risk. In fact, these investments appear to be highly levered, with returns that are positively correlated to public Jason Vachula equity markets, but uncorrelated to GDP growth. The results also indicate Creative and Design that returns could be influenced by the regulatory framework as well as by defective privatization mechanisms. By contrast, returns are neither linked to inflation nor subject to the “money chasing deals” phenomenon. Investment Strategies “Investing in Distressed Debt”. 32 By Sameer Jain ABSTRACT: Over the past 20 years, distressed debt investing has become increasingly popular. The distressed debt market has increased in size, and private equity firms and hedge funds have become key players. There are around 170 U.S.-based, and 20-30 Europe-based, credit managers who invest in distressed debt. They manage $120-$150 billion of private capital (hedge funds and private equity, which–often overlap). Investors who have the ability to assume extended periods of investment illiquidity may consider active approaches to credit risk investing. This article provides a broad framework for understanding credit investing from an alternative investments perspective. The author highlights a variety of strategies across private equity and hedge fund formats, illustrating investing considerations, risks, drivers, sources of returns, and market dynamics. CAIA Member Contribution Quantitative Analysis “The Wisdom of the Right Crowd: Service Provider Choice and Hedge “Attribution Analysis of Bull/Bear Alphas and Betas”.. 74 Fund Performance”. 52 By Andreas Steiner By James B. Crystal, CAIA ABSTRACT: Asymmetries in risk and return characteristics come in various forms: assets ABSTRACT: An analysis of funds reporting five- and ten-year track records to performance with highly non-linear payoff profiles, correlations that increase in times of market databases demonstrates a relationship between reported use of