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New FundFire Alts Article on Interval Fund Proration Features Kimberly Flynn

In his new article, “Alts Fund Redemption Prorating Far Higher in ’20 Than ’22: Cliffwater,” FundFire Alts editor Tom Stabile discusses Cliffwater’s recent study of non-traded REITs, BDCs and interval funds. The study analyzed the occurrence of proration events – when funds receive redemption requests exceeding the stated amount of share repurchases offered and have to return to investors less than what they requested – over the past three years.

While proration has been widely discussed recently, with the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) becoming a very public example of a fund experiencing prorated redemptions, the study found that proration was actually more prevalent in early 2020 during the Covid pandemic than in recent months. Further, it found that many of the funds that did experience proration during 2020 were ultimately able to meet redemption requests and resume regular, non-prorated quarterly repurchases.

Kimberly Flynn, XA Investments Managing Director of Alternative Investments, explains that “there are benefits to the pro-rata system.” Proration can be a problem for funds experiencing poor performance, but it can also protect investment returns. The assets held in interval funds are typically less liquid, long-term investments, and offering limited liquidity helps encourage investors to treat them as such.

Additionally, the recent proration examples may encourage fund managers to more clearly outline liquidity strategies in fund prospectuses, which often do not provide investors with a detailed description of what to expect during a proration event. “Managers may talk about their tools and liquidity planning – most funds have a credit facility and have tiering of securities by liquidity in their portfolio and discuss management of leverage and cash management,” Flynn said. “But trying to find that detail in writing is difficult.”

To read the full article, please click here.

To read XAI’s white paper on Interval Funds, please click here.

To request a copy of the XAI Investments Quarterly Market Update for CEFs and Non-Listed Funds, please click here.

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