Young Professionals: Isabelle Schleicher (ING)
This special was originally written in Dutch. This is an English translation.
The world in which investors operate has become more complex and unpredictable in a short period of time. Geopolitical tensions, technological developments and structural transitions are increasingly setting the agenda. Financial Investigator asked young professional Isabelle Schleicher, Private Markets Associate at ING, how she experiences these developments in her daily work.
By Daan Nijssen
Which international development currently has the greatest impact on your daily work, and how?
‘The international development that currently has the greatest impact on my work in fund selection for private markets is the introduction of ELTIF 2.0. This European regulation stimulates the inflow of capital into long-term investments and strengthens supervision and transparency within unlisted investment categories such as private equity, private credit and infrastructure. We are seeing a shift in the market, with private investors gaining access to a broader investment universe, which offers new opportunities for portfolio diversification and decorrelation.
(Semi-)institutional parties have long allocated a substantial portion of their assets to private equity. In my research into asset allocation at family offices, I saw that these professional investors often employ a buy-and-hold strategy and a cross-generational horizon, investing on average up to a third of their portfolio in private markets. I want to make this expertise and long-term vision accessible to individual investors as well.
We are seeing a shift in the market, with private investors gaining access to a broader investment universe.
To achieve this, it is essential to further develop the unique factors of private markets and integrate them structurally into portfolio construction, paying attention to differences in structure and liquidity. Further steps are needed in the areas of benchmarking, data provision, portfolio screening and return calculation. Evergreen funds, with their continuous nature and tradability (within limits), already bring us an important step closer to this.
My ultimate goal is to work from a “total portfolio view”, and to construct a portfolio based on in-depth discussions between advisor and client that precisely matches the position you want to occupy on the risk-return spectrum, with an appropriate investment horizon. A balanced interplay between public and private will make this possible.’
Read the original special in Financial Investigator magazine