Stephen Nesbitt reflects on the foundational investment philosophy of Wilshire Associates during his 20-year consulting career there.
Opinion
Nesbitt: Only about a dozen hedge funds really matter today
“And I don't know, there are, at least in my opinion, maybe a dozen hedge funds that really matter today.”
Insight
Nesbitt: Unfunded primary commitments will cause PE interval funds to fail
“If you use the typical institutional playbook, you can't, okay? If you're doing primaries, you got these big unfunded commitments, that implementation approach will not work. You're going to get yourself in trouble. But first of all, you've changed strategy on…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Oct 2029
Nesbitt: Private debt will maintain a 3% to 5% illiquidity premium
“I can go back to the eighties and tell you that everybody thought the private equity premium would go away. And it's really been pretty consistent at three to five percent. I expect the same on the private debt side.”
Insight
Nesbitt: Over-diversifying into too many asset classes provides no performance benefit
“One of my gripes is sometimes people over-diversify. They're not sure, so they end up with Godly number of asset classes, which really doesn't do anything from a performance point of view.”
Insight
Nesbitt: Private debt returns depend on beta because alpha is limited
“Most asset classes, there's upside optionality, fixed income, and private debt as well. It's downside optionality, and so there's diversification, and there are a lot of good managers, and so we focus a lot more on beta than we do on alpha, which is limited in…”
Opinion
Nesbitt: Institutional consulting is an undifferentiated, zero-growth industry
“The consulting business, in a sense, from a business perspective, has gotten very concentrated and virtually zero growth, where you probably have five, maybe 10, but not much more than that, really sharing the pie amongst themselves. Sometimes it seems to be a…”