Fidelity has launched a new research portal of third-party registered alternative investment strategies. The research is now available via Wealthscape, Fidelity’s platform for advisors.
The research covers private credit, private real assets and private equity funds, enabling advisors to evaluate and compare alternative investment strategies.
“A year or two ago we had to look at the landscape and figure out what to cover,” said Darby Nielson, chief investment officer within the Fidelity Institutional group. “These intermittent liquidity vehicles are increasing access to alts. That’s why we are excited and why we’re doing this now. Advisors are becoming more interested in adding them. So now is a great time to bring this out to the marketplace.”
Fidelity cited recent surveys it conducted on advisors’ allocation to alternative investments, which found that investment manager research and due diligence are key hindrances to advisors’ adoption of alts products. According to its surveys, more than half of advisors cite due diligence of underlying strategies and managers as barriers when investing in intermittent liquidity (53%) and illiquid (55%) alts.
It’s just the latest move into the alts space for Fidelity. In November, it launched 14 collective investment trust investment vehicles that include 5% exposure to direct real estate and have the option to include other alts assets. Last year it also launched the Fidelity Multi-Strategy Credit Fund, a closed-end interval fund, as well as its first business development company, Fidelity Private Credit Fund. In 2022, it launched the Fidelity Hedged Equity Fund (FEQHX), Fidelity Macro Opportunities Fund (FAQAX) and Fidelity Risk Parity Fund (FAPSX), three liquid alts mutual funds available for individual investors and advisors.
In all, Fidelity has more than $70 billion in alternative investment assets under administration, and its platform includes integrations with third-party alts platforms CAIS and iCapital.