Alan Forman, former Director of Real Estate at the Yale Investments Office, discusses Yale's allocation strategy between specialized and generalist real estate fund managers with Ted Seides.
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“I'd say the portfolio was probably 80 to 90% specialists, and we just thought being really good at one thing was the way to go, and a lot of the companies were vertically integrated, and they had an ability to add value and do it all themselves.”
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More from Alan Forman
Insight
Reference calls are less useful for real estate diligence than venture capital
“We found that the due diligence calls, which is very common, underwriting venture firms, wasn't as helpful in the real estate business. It's a less collegial business. On a venture deal, two venture firms can be on the board of a company, and they're working t…”
Alan FormanSep 25, 2023▶ 11:52Alan Forman – Yale Endowment Real Estate (EP.340)
Disclosure
Yale endowment rejected Steve Jobs' pitch for the first Apple Store
“They wanted to open up their first Apple store in our building, and we were very close to wrapping up a deal with someone else. We spoke to Steve Jobs, and he explained his vision for the business, which, to be honest, is exactly what turned out to be the case…”
Alan FormanSep 25, 2023▶ 27:29Alan Forman – Yale Endowment Real Estate (EP.340)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Yale economists advised the endowment to prioritize manager selection over theoretical portfolio modeling
“And it's funny, because we went to all these very impressive Yale professors and asked them, how do we create a portfolio? How do we Find the efficient frontier, all these economists like Ibbotson and Stephen Ross and people like that, and they just said, find…”
Alan FormanSep 25, 2023▶ 29:14Alan Forman – Yale Endowment Real Estate (EP.340)
Insight
Negotiating minor legal terms reveals a fund manager's true character
“When you're negotiating the small legal terms, you're getting a sense of what the partner is like, and how they think about things, what they care about, what they don't care about, how available they are, how hard are they working, how responsible.”
Alan FormanSep 25, 2023▶ 12:36Alan Forman – Yale Endowment Real Estate (EP.340)
Insight
The best way to decline fund managers is citing unchangeable structural constraints
“One thing I learned from David was there are certain things that managers can't respond to in a way that would change the outcome, and if you could come up with examples where there's nothing they can do about what their structure is, then you have an easy way…”
Alan FormanSep 25, 2023▶ 18:01Alan Forman – Yale Endowment Real Estate (EP.340)
Insight
LPs have a limited window to become a new manager's primary advisor
“When we back at an early stage manager, there's a window where you need to be the person that they call when they have an issue. And that window doesn't stay open forever. And you need to take advantage of that window so that when they're 20 years later, you'r…”
Alan FormanSep 25, 2023▶ 23:38Alan Forman – Yale Endowment Real Estate (EP.340)
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