Show V/O:
This is Alternative Allocations by Franklin Templeton, a monthly podcast where we share practical, relatable advice and discuss new investment ideas with leaders in the field. Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss an episode. Here is your host, Tony Davidow.
Tony:
Welcome to a special episode of the Alternative Allocations podcast series. I'm thrilled to be joined today by my producer, Julia Giordano, as we commemorate two years of the Alternative Allocations podcast. Pretty amazing, Julia.
Julia:
It's pretty exciting. I can't believe it's been two years.
Tony:
And it's been a lot of fun, and I feel like we've covered a lot of ground. I know one of the things you and I wanted to do is maybe talk a little bit. What did we learn from the first couple of years? What are kind of the high-level observations?
And then I think what we'll do to make it a little bit more exciting is we'll share the top 10 episodes in reverse order, but let's just start with what were the observations?
Julia:
So it's exciting. As you said, we launched a little over two years ago, and we really started from the ground up. To date, as we record, we've had over 18,000 downloads of the episodes, which averages to about 1,000 a month, which is pretty incredible.
We consistently rank in the top 25% of all podcasts, and that's based on the number of IAB downloads in the first seven days of an episode release, which is a typical way you kind of look at ratings and how we perform.
Tony:
Those are our Nielsen ratings.
Julia:
Yes, exactly.
Tony:
And so far, we're doing good.
Julia:
We are, we are. And our reach, most of what we do, our promotion, is through social media as you're well aware. So we reach about 100,000 a month through our social media posts, which has been great.
And we have a growing audience. You and I also like to look at the data each month and see that we do have new listeners downloading older episodes, which is exciting to see. And I think some of the things we've also learned over the years is you have a lot of contacts.
We've invited guests on our own, but we've also had a lot of unsolicited offers to be a guest, which has really helped, I think, grow our network and grow our ability to have new content. What surprised you about the podcasts?
Tony:
It has been fun. And I'll joke about something that you always give me a hard time about. It seems like a lot of the guests are my friends. And I think it's a byproduct of I've been doing this for a long time and I've been talking to a lot of people in the industry. It has been great. But I think there are a couple things that really surprised me in a positive way.
One is, you know, to pick up on one of the points that you made, is as our audience has grown, we have a lot of those new members go back and listen to the old episodes. So as we get into our top 10 lists, that will become apparent that a lot of people who are newer to it decide to go back and listen to episodes one, two, three and four, which I think is fantastic. It's also interesting to note that even though we are primarily U.S. focused, we have a big and growing global audience.
Julia:
That is true.
Tony:
And I love seeing people from all over the globe really, you know, engaging with us and really listening to the episodes. And maybe the one thing that is really probably a litmus test that we're reaching the right audience is the amount of people that reach out to you and I about participating. It's funny, I speak at a lot of industry conferences and it's amazing how many people come up to me and say “I listen to the podcast.” Even some of our competitors. I definitely feel like it has been everything that we wanted it to be and more so.
But I think maybe going through the top 10 list would be fun because it will give people a sense of the types of topics we've covered, and it really does reflect kind of the diversity of the podcasts that we produce. So maybe it would be worth, before we get into that, just sharing with the audience, how did we come up with the top 10 list?
Julia:
Sure, yeah, I think what we tried to do, because as you said, we've had two years worth of episodes, some have been out there longer. We did look at the downloads over time. We also looked at the number of downloads in that first seven days.
And we tried to weight the episodes since there are some that are newer. But we did it basically as best as we could with the data that we have. So why don't you kick us off with which episode came in at number 10?
Tony:
Number 10, which was ironically episode one.
Julia:
Yes.
Tony:
And Julia, as you and I were thinking about kicking off the Alternative Allocations podcast, to me there was no choice. It was really pretty obvious to me who the first episode should be. And that, of course, was John Bowman, the CEO of CAIA. John was also the one who actually provided the forward to my book.
So, I think John, who represents in such a magnificent way the growth and the evolution of the alternative investment business, was really the natural first episode. And he spoke about the evolution of the business, where we are, where we're going, some of the challenges, and some of the opportunities. And I think it's interesting, John's episode aired many, many moons ago.
But yet every month when you send out that report and we look at the downloads, people are going back and listening to that episode. So to me, that's exciting that people still want to understand where we've been and where we're going. And I think John was our perfect number one episode, which happened to rank top ten for our two-year period.
Who was number nine?
Julia:
Number nine, which I think actually is quite interesting, considering today's environment, was episode 21. And that was the one that we had with Jonathan Epstein from DCALTA, the Defined Contribution Alternatives Association. And so what I find interesting is that as of today's recording, last week, President Trump, he signed that executive order that paves the way for retirement savers to invest in private markets.
When this episode first aired in March of this year, Jonathan did note that he thought the regulatory environment was expected to evolve in a more favorable direction, and he seems to be right. So I think some of the key takeaways that he talked about is he really shared a lot about the progress made, educating stakeholders, addressing challenges such as liquidity and valuation. He talked about DCALTA’s mission.
He really explained that their group was really working to try to increase access to alternative investments in these defined contribution plans and help promote diversification and fairness. I just think it's a really interesting topic. I think it's something that obviously has resonated with our listeners and truly is something that we'll continue to talk about, I think, over time.
Tony:
That was one of my favorite episodes. I thought it was terrific to have Jonathan and all the great work that he's done. We did talk about retirement in multiple episodes, even going back to our episode 3 with Jenny Johnson and talked about it.
But I thought that was very timely, and I thought Jonathan and the work that DCALTA’s done has really been incredible. And I suspect that's an area we will revisit several times in the future.
Number 8 was Taylor Robinson talking about the rise of the secondary market.
Taylor Robinson was, in fact, a guest of our podcast twice. The first episode, though, I thought was very timely because it was somewhat early with the evolution of the secondary market. I think a lot of people were starting to pay attention to it.
It scored very well as Taylor and I really talked about what is the secondary market, why is it growing, how does it evolve from kind of a niche strategy to a vital cog in the overall PE ecosystem. We talked about where he was seeing opportunities in the market there and not specific portfolio holdings, but just from more of a macro perspective. And how we thought that current market environment was very conducive for the growth of the secondaries, which again ended up being very fortuitous as we started to see a lot more adoption of secondaries being the way that a lot of advisors are getting their initial exposure to the private equity ecosystem.
So it was a great episode. It was great to have him come back later as we talked about some of the growth and some of the evolution that we had seen. But I think that first episode really captured people's imagination of what that market could become.
And again, I thought it was quite fortuitous the way that it played out.
Julia:
I think it was great having him come back a second time because a lot has changed in the two years. It was nice to have him come back and have a fresher perspective.
Tony:
Episode 7.
Julia:
So episode 7 or what ranked as number seven was episode 17. And this was where we had Scott Welch, who was the CIO of Certuity. He came on and he talked with you about the role of alternatives and client portfolios.
He also talked about a lot about the popularity of evergreen products and the importance of due diligence in selecting these types of investments, which I think both of those are topics that we've covered a lot over a time because they're really important and I think that's something a lot of people have questions about. What's the difference between an evergreen product and a drawdown?
And how important that due diligence aspect is in picking that correct manager or that manager that makes sense to you. So, I thought he was a great guest. I know that one of the key things he did talk about was focusing on the four P's, which I really liked, was the people, philosophy, process, and performance when you're evaluating these alternative investments. He really just talked about that importance of operational due diligence. So, and you guys obviously had a great conversation having known him for a while and I know you want to say something, I can see it.
Tony:
Scott is one of my closest friends and I felt like Scott and I have been having similar discussions for the last 20 years.
Julia:
Yes, it sounded like it was another conversation that you could have had, you know, at a conference at a restaurant or bar.
Tony:
I think what I really liked about Scott's perspective, of course, Scott being a CIO of a multifamily office, I think he brought a lot of credibility. But something that, again, you mentioned, we've talked about a lot about the evolution of drawdown and evergreen funds. But what I liked about what he talked about and another of our guests, Kate Huntington also talked about the combination of evergreen and drawdown funds in building better portfolios.
So I thought from his vantage point, it was very interesting the way that he saw the world and the way that he uses both strategy and structure to solve for his client needs.
Julia:
He was a good episode. I really enjoyed listening to that. So hopefully a lot of these will trigger people to come back to them, I think.
So who came in at number 6?
Tony:
So number six was the number three episode. And Julia, our CEO, somebody we're always proud to listen to, Jenny Johnson. And Jenny talked about the democratization of alternate investments. And I think the one thing that always strikes me about Jenny is the way that she's very down to earth, easy to ask. You know, sometimes CEOs are very guarded. And she was very open and honest about where we've been as an industry, how it's evolved over time. It was actually the first time we talked about the opportunities in the retirement market for private markets. And we teased a little bit about where we thought the industry was going to go. But I really loved how Jenny was just an open book about things.
And one of the things I often cite as I'm traveling around the country and advisors ask me the difference between public and private, I recall asking Jenny specifically about that and how she talked about the difference of being a CEO of a public company, where you're constantly answering to shareholders versus a private enterprise. And I thought from her seat, that was a very unique perspective to add.
But that was one of our favorite episodes.
Julia:
Yeah, she was a great guest. And it was early on. I think it really kind of helped us get into our groove. But she was really willing to be open with us.
I thought it was a really good conversation. It was nice way to kind of kick off things as we were in our early stages.
Tony:
So number 3 episode came in number 6. So again, diversity, early episodes and later episodes. Who was number 5?
Julia:
So number 5 was episode 15 that we had with Nick Veronis from iCapital. And I thought this was a great one to have because it was a really good discussion where you two got into the evolution of alts. I think our title was From Institutions to Main Street.
And it was great for you to both kind of get into that conversation about the evolution of alternative investments and how they're increasingly being brought into the wealth management channel. You both talked about historical challenges, recent advancements, about how they're becoming more accessible. I think another key thing that we've talked about across the episodes, but this was an important one, was that really critical role of education for advisors.
And I think the other thing that you talked about was the future prospects for increased adoption, the product innovation, which is really helping that. So, this was, I think, a key one where we got across a little bit more just about the history of it and what's changed and evolved over time. I think he was a great guest to have.
And I know it was, again, someone else that you've known for a while. But it was interesting to hear from the perspective from a fintech provider and from someone that we had partnered with and many asset managers do.
Tony:
We've also had representatives from CAIS on as well. And I think one of the interesting things is so many of the advisors who listen to our podcast are familiar with the iCapital and the CAIS and the vital role they play in kind of connecting all the players here. But I thought Nick certainly added a long-term perspective being at the forefront of the evolution and solving for a lot of the challenges advisors face. And yes, I've known Nick for a very long time. And his passion certainly came through in that episode.
Julia:
He definitely had a lot of knowledge and history. And it was great to hear him share that. So what came in as number 4?
Tony:
Number 4 was episode 8, Challenges and Opportunities in Real Estate with Jeb Belford. And again, somebody that we had on multiple times. And this was the first episode that we had him on. And I thought what was great is he acknowledged some of the challenges in real estate. That was a period of time when real estate was under a lot of stress. We had rising rates. We had a lot of concern about the office sector. And he addressed head on the challenges in the office sector. But I think what really ended up playing out quite well is he also talked about these big macro themes and how he saw long-term opportunities, if you could be more selective in allocating to attractive sectors and opportunities, areas like industrials, multifamily and life sciences and avoid that long-term problematic area, offices.
But I think the reason it scored so well is I think he brought a lot of credibility. He was just honest with some of the challenges and trying to take the longer term lens and looking about where the opportunities were. We had him back recently. And I think his seven-day download was perhaps our highest.
But I think it's indicative of the credibility that he provided by addressing the challenges when they were occurring.
Julia:
Yeah, I agree. I think it's that. And I do think real estate is obviously a hot topic and people are kind of keyed in listening to how much has changed over time. But his key macro themes have resonated. And for when he first outlined them, they're still true. I mean, his firm, Clarion Partners, really does focus on that. The demographics, technology, de-globalization, looking at the housing shortage, climate change. They're looking at a lot of different themes across the board and seeing how that affects what they look at in the real estate industry and how they make their investment decisions. I thought he had a lot of really interesting things to say to bring some light to that asset class.
Tony:
I've been using those macro themes as well because I think it's an easier way of framing that whole discussion rather than treating everything with the same brush to really understand that real estate represents a diverse set of opportunities, some of which will look attractive and some of which will have secular headwinds like the office sector for quite some time. So, appreciate having him on. I was led to have him back in a much more favorable environment. But I think sometimes you get that credibility when things aren't so rosy.
Julia:
Agreed. So, number 3 on our list was episode 19, which actually did feature Jeb as well. But this was a special feature that we did when we did the private markets outlook from this January and something that we intend to do, I think, in years coming forward as doing this again in January.
I think it's a great episode for us to do. Not only is it something that we're able to cover several asset classes, but Tony gets to have several guests with him. So, with this one, we had Taylor Robinson from Lexington covering secondaries.
Rick Schaupp actually joined. I apologize not Jeb in this one. He was in a different one we did. But Rick Schaupp from Clarion Partners covered the private real estate equity. And then Rich Byrne from Benefit Street Partners covered that real estate debt angle.
But I think it was a really good conversation with the four of you because you were able to really look at a vast overview and leveraging these experts in their respective asset classes and talking about some of the key things that you were seeing for the coming year.
You know, a couple of those that you hit on. And I'm sure you might want to touch on a few others. But a couple of things that came up was the private markets liquidity needs and just understanding that there's different ways that can be addressed, whether it's through structures that are being produced or whether it's through secondaries. That there's different real estate opportunities.
And as we just talked about, despite office sector being something that people might initially think about, there are other things that you can look at in real estate. And then specifically if you're looking at the not just equity side of it, but that there's opportunities in real estate debt. And that multifamily real estate is sort of across the board an opportunity in that real estate environment. And then again, I think for all the asset classes, the idea of manager selection being really important was something that came up and that you all discussed and why that was important in the various asset classes.
Tony:
And Julia, I'll give you credit for that one because we had always written a long-form document which memorialized our forward-looking views on where we saw the best opportunities. And we also did a webinar. And I think it was really your idea to say, well, why don't we offer that since we have a rich and growing audience here? Why don't we offer that in the podcast series? And it really resonated. It was a terrific format to deliver that. It reached a broad audience. And then, of course, we had more materials if people wanted to do a deep dive and download the full outlook. But I look forward to doing that for years to come.
Julia:
Yeah, I think it would be great. So what came in as number 2?
Tony:
The interesting thing about number two, it was, again, one of those early episodes. And I think when you and I listened to it, we immediately said, this is absolutely going to resonate with our audience. So episode 7, Evaluating and Allocating to Alternatives with Jackie Klaber of Rockefeller.
It was clearly one of the best episodes because of the way that Jackie just described this complex world that we all live in in an easy-to-understand format. A lot of her positioning aligned with the way that we think about it, which is, how can we simplify it, not only for the advisor, but ultimately for the end user. And it's something you and I spent a lot of time talking about and everything that we produce, we're trying to recognize that it's not just educating the advisor about how to use this. They in turn have to have that second order discussion with the individual investor.
And I thought Jackie did a great job in kind of approaching it in a really methodical way of breaking things down into a simplest form. What are the investments designed to do? What role do they play in client portfolios? How do we describe it to clients? And the one thing she emphasized over and over again, which I think is so important was just being transparent, being as open and honest as we can, so individual investors understand what they're getting into in advance rather than afterwards. But I think when that episode aired or when we were recording it, I think you and I just turned to one another and said, this one is going to have some legs.
Julia:
Yeah, I think part of what I always remember from that episode was her discussion of where there's appropriate times to use a drawdown fund or an evergreen fund and not that it's one or the other, but you could use both, depending on the client, depending on the situation. I thought it was a really, really good discussion about that because I think there's a lot of questions that arise. You know, they see more of the increasing evergreen funds coming to play, does that mean I don't use drawdowns? No, not necessarily, you can use both. And so I think it was just a really good, it was a really good discussion from her and kind of from her experience of how their firm leverages both.
Tony:
Yeah, she was terrific. So that was number 2. Drum roll, please.
The number one episode, after two years, Julia, the number one episode was…
Julia:
The number one episode was episode 14 and that was Opportunities in Commercial Real Estate Debt with our guest, Richard Byrne, from Benefit Street Partners. And that was actually from, almost a year ago, it was from September of ‘24. This was an episode that I think as we talked about in real estate being a discussion that, you know, people have a lot of questions about, I think this one resonated because it was specifically speaking to those opportunities in commercial real estate debt.
I think a lot of people consider the equity opportunities and are questioning some of those, which I think as we've talked about, there's plenty of opportunities there. It's just, you have to think about, as we talked about the themes and where you can kind of look for those. But then there were also these opportunities in debt.
So, he really talked about how there's the current market disruption and it's caused by these higher interest rates, the resulting dislocation in the real estate market. And he talked about why it's an attractive investment opportunity and really put it in the context of the current market environment. And I think it was definitely an interesting conversation, you know, he went into certain areas where he talked about the bank lending reduction and why that's led to some opportunities.
He talked about multifamily and how that was a really key area that's attractive because of that undersupply of the single-family housing. So I think overall, I think, you know, he's also a compelling guest. We've had him on twice. He's definitely an interesting person to talk to. And I think his perspective from this specific part of real estate was something that I think has resonated with people.
Tony:
And I think it was very timely. You know, we try to be somewhat evergreen as we talk about the opportunities, but I think that episode was particularly timing as you point out, there were concerns about the real estate sector overall. But here he's talking about the disruption creates opportunity, right?
Disruption in the real estate ecosystem provides an opportunity to be a lender of choice. Rich, of course, brings tremendous passion to everything that he does. Jujitsu champion as he is.
But I thought that episode really resonated because it was very timely. I think we're a little early talking about real estate debt. I think a lot of other folks have kind of followed up and started to pick up on the opportunity there, but it was very timely.
Rich definitely brought a lot of passion to the topic. And I suspect that that will be one that will continue to get replaced as people are revisiting, thinking about real estate debt as a complement to the real estate allocation and their portfolios.
Julia:
Yeah, I agree. So it was a great 10 episodes out of our almost 30, which is amazing.
Tony:
And there's so many honorable mentions that we could go through. So, we really did have a great set of guests, great topics, some of those topics amplified themes that we're talking about here, others introduced new things. I'm super excited about season 3, which we're already underway with season 3 with again, great guests, great topics.
The one thing Julia, you and I always do is we encourage people, let us know what types of episodes would you like to hear? What topics, what sort of themes are you focused on? But this really has grown, I think largely because we're getting so much good feedback from our audience, whether it's people who email you and I directly or feedback that I get when I'm out speaking at conferences and people grab me and say, well, you should talk about this.
But what are you looking forward to in season 3?
Julia:
I'm just excited to continue the conversations and see other folks that we can get onto this podcast. And I think also, as we've seen, some of the conversations have similar themes across the board, but they've evolved over time as alternative investments have become a little bit more into the wealth channel. And as we see more adoption of it with advisors.
So as we've said, one of these episodes touched on alternative investments in the retirement space. And we're seeing that growing just as we speak. So, who knows what's to come from that? But I think that'll be an interesting conversation to see where this, these asset classes grow and how they evolve and get more into this space. I mean, we're at low adoption rate across the board. We see it increasing. I think every guest has sort of projected that. So, I think it'll be interesting to see how it grows over time.
Tony:
That's a great point. You know, we're, what a 5-6% allocation across the board to alternatives broadly and maybe 3-4 in private markets? And I think Jenny Johnson was very open in her recent quarterly discussion where she was talking about as an industry, I think we all recognize the value of a 15, 20 or higher allocation to alternatives and private markets definitely play a vital role in that.
And it's not only good for the advisor. I think sometimes we need to focus on, it's really important for investors. So if we think about how exciting this industry is and how it really arms the advisor to have better discussions, I think at the end of the day, it helps clients achieve their goals, dreams, and aspirations. And that's really the motivation around a lot of the growth going on across the industry.
Julia:
Yeah, it's been great to see. I've had a lot of fun, excited for year three.
Tony:
I am as well. And again, we'll encourage all of our guests, let us know what you like, rate the episode. So our scorecard, as Julia mentioned in the beginning, is we're looking for comments, reactions, impressions.
That's our way of knowing whether it's resonating with you. Reach out to us, rate the episodes. Feel free to reach out to us directly and let us know topics you'd like to cover.
But season 3 is just around the corner.
Julia:
Yes, this is great. Thank you, everyone.
Show V/O:
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