Retirement Solutions | Apollo Updates
June 14, 2024
Veronique Fournier on Bloomberg TV
This interview originally aired on Bloomberg TV on June 12, 2024.
Head of EMEA Global Wealth Management Solutions Veronique Fournier joined Bloomberg TV to discuss growing demand from European wealth investors for semi-liquid private market strategies, including private fixed income products.
She spoke to the potential diversification benefits, as well as the potential for excess return that private market investments can offer in exchange for foregoing some liquidity, noting that we are seeing private clients increasingly shift their fixed income allocations into private credit, with a focus on managers who have demonstrated tracks record of navigating market cycles and prioritize downside protection.
As investor appetite for income and private credit exposure grows, BDCs remain a powerful tool—but higher-for-longer rates, credit concerns, and shifting portfolio dynamics are making manager selection more critical than ever.
For decades, conventional wisdom has held that private markets are too illiquid, risky and inflexible for defined contribution (DC) retirement plans. But many of these objections no longer hold water especially those focused on liquidity. Thanks to recent innovations in structure, strategy and oversight, the tools to manage liquidity within DC plans have evolved dramatically.
America is facing a widely recognized retirement crisis. Although retirement solutions providers have made important—and consistent—strides towards mitigating risks for retirees (from portfolio diversification to investment biases to longevity risk), key concerns remain.
