Prediction Not checkable as stated
Spitz: The Asset Management Industry Will Trifurcate Into Three Business Models
“I think, or maybe what's, what's the word for three, three Trifurcates? I think you have big time scale players, particularly in the low cost beta sorts of products. I think you have some, a small number of active boutiques that you know, do what they do very …”
Insight
Spitz: Investors lacking top-tier fund access should avoid venture capital
“Particularly acute in, for example, venture capital, where, you know, if you're not in the right funds, probably don't want to do venture capital investing.”
Opinion
Spitz: Identifying manager skill in advance is doubtful given competition
“I'm a little skeptical about how much of that is really around and whether it's so much competition that you can really identify it and capture it in advance, but there's some there.”
Opinion
Spitz: Private Equity Is the Ultimate Form of Capitalism
“Dave Swenson has said, and I agree with him, that the ultimate form of capitalism is private equity, and I really agree with that, because, you know, you have a long time horizon, you're not beholden to quarterly numbers, and you can do the right thing, and th…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2028
Bill Spitz Predicts 60/40 Portfolios Will Yield Mid-Single-Digit Returns Post-2018
“And where we end up is sort of a ten-year expected return on equities of Five-ish, let's call it five and some change, a little more for international stocks. Bonds are sort of three-ish. So I think looking ahead, the simple sixty-forty portfolio is going to g…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Spitz: Private Equity Will Deliver a 300-400 BPS Premium, Not 15% Returns
“And we're not going to see if we have five percent return on stocks, we're not going to have 15% returns on private equity. But historically you've gotten a three or 400 basis point premium, and maybe we'll get that kind of premium again, and that's real money…”
Insight
Bill Spitz: Historical Track Records Have Virtually No Predictive Value
“Well, first of all, I'd say my favorite way not to do it is by looking at track records and long believed that track records have virtually no predictive ability.”
Insight
Spitz: Asset Management Firm Acquisitions Are Almost an Automatic Exit Signal
“When firms sell, that's not an automatic red light, but it's close to it, because people who are hungry, who are Excited about being in the game, and they've recently made a stack of money, and now they're going to cruise.”
Opinion
Spitz: Big macro hedge funds have delivered underwhelming returns for years
“Well, and regardless of what you think, for example, of the macro managers, most of them have not gotten it right for a number of years now, so I'm not entirely convinced that that provides a lot of value added. Yes, you need to be aware of what's going on in …”
Opinion
Spitz: International stocks are significantly more attractive than U.S. equities
“One thing I would say is, at least from the valuation work that we do, we think the international stocks are a good bit more attractive than U.S. Stocks, so you can obviously do that on a relatively low cost basis as well.”
Opinion
Spitz in Jan 2018: Volatility Is the Only Cheap Market Asset
“I don't see any overwhelmingly cheap assets today other than volatility, and I think volatility is cheap, but I have no sense whatsoever as to when it may turn”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bill Spitz: The Illiquidity Premium in Private Equity Has Disappeared Recently
“Some people give up liquidity, and we all talk about an illiquidity premium in private equity and real It hasn't particularly shown itself recently, but you would think it would over time.”
Assertion Contradicted
Spitz: International Equity Managers Outperform Benchmarks More Often Than U.S. Peers
“Although when you look at the data today, there's still a much higher percentage of international equity managers that out Perform the benchmark than U.S. Domestic managers.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Spitz: Institutional Equity Managers Generally Ignore Tax Implications
“Particularly on the equity side, one of the things we do is pay attention to tax efficiency, and whether the, you know, a lot of managers, primarily those who deal with institutional portfolios, don't think about taxes, so we do try to find managers who will t…”
Insight
Spitz: Firing top managers during cyclical underperformance usually fails
“I think the point is that the best people in this business underperform for significant periods, and if you pull the trigger in those periods, it's probably not going to work.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Spitz: Endowments Will Struggle to Hit Required 6-8% Return Targets
“So if I'm an endowment fund, and to sustain the spending rate, got to earn seven, eight percent, six, seven, eight percent kind of return, I think that's going to be a pretty significant challenge, you know, looking ahead.”
Insight
Spitz: Esoteric Niche Strategies Lack Capacity for Large Endowments
“We're looking at all sorts of niche kinds of investments, but the problem is if you're a big endowment, a lot of these categories probably can't take a lot of capital.”
Prediction Held up
Spitz: Management fees in non-traditional categories will continue coming down
“I also think that fees will continue to come down in some of the non-traditional categories, but nevertheless,”
Opinion
Spitz: Asset Management Remains a High-Margin Business Despite Fee Compression
“You look at the asset management business, even with the fee compression, it's still a very high margin business.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bill Spitz: Vanderbilt's First Distressed Debt Fund Returned a 40%+ IRR
“I think that that initial fund we did in the bankrupt bond space earned a forty-plus IRR, so that gave me a little bit of credibility.”
Assertion Partly supported
Spitz: Vanderbilt Endowment Held VC and International Equities in 1985
“So when I got there in 1985, you know, we had a couple percent in venture capital. We had some real estate exposure, traditional stocks and bonds. We had a large international exposure, which wasn't all that common at that point. So we were actually, you know,…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Spitz: Most Mid-1980s Endowments Kept Conservative, Simple Portfolios
“In general, I think endowment portfolios were still relatively conservative and relatively simple in their structure. Now, Harvard had obviously evolved. Yale was beginning to evolve. Notre Dame and Duke and some others were starting down that path, but it was…”
Assertion Supported
Bill Spitz Was the Top U.S. Male Amateur Ballroom Dancer in 2015
“In 2015, I was the top Student in the country. Top male amateur ball dancer in the country.”
