Alternative Investment Series 2025

This educational series is designed for those seeking to gain a broader understanding of alternative investment strategies. A sound understanding of alternative investments (AI) is fundamental for all serious finance and investment professionals. This course examines the characteristics, benefits, and risks of the various AI strategies including private equity, hedge funds, and derivatives.

Professionals from prominent local investment firms will lead this series so attendees will obtain unique perspectives on the current market. Instructors will also share their insights on asset allocation and risk management.

As a course participant, you will have access to the corresponding course recording. If you sign up as a series registrant, you will have access to all 10 course recordings. Access to course recordings expire after 60 days. 

Tuesday, April 8	Introduction to Alternative Investments
	Speaker: Mike Chen, CFA, CAIA - Vice President, Sr. Investment Strategist, First Foundation Advisors
	The class will provide an introduction to the various asset classes which makeup the alternative investments universe. This class will cover asset classes such as private equity, private credit, hedge funds, real estate, and more. Topics will also include high level portfolio construction discussions, risk management, and additional due diligence needed to review these unique asset classes.
Tuesday, April 15	Venture Capital
	Speaker: Victor Gutwein - Founder & Managing Partner, M25
	The class will provide an overview of venture capital, which is a subset of private equity, and how it has evolved over time. The class will cover the venture capital process, from funding to exit or listing; the different stages of investing, from startup to late-stage; the various parties involved; and different types of funds that invest in the space.
Tuesday, April 22	Hedge Funds
	Speakers: Shan Hasnat, CAIA - Senior Vice President, Research and Due Diligence, iCapital Network, Inc; Patrick Callahan, CFA - Vice President, Fund Management & Research, iCapital Network, Inc.
	The class will go over the history of hedge funds, including their changing popularity and definition. The class will cover the regulatory structures, fee structures, underlying investments and various strategies used by hedge funds. The class will also cover due diligence considerations, such as manager selection, leverage, risk-adjusted returns, benchmarking, liquidity, suitability, and transparency.
Tuesday, April 29	Real Estate and REITs
	Speaker: Christopher Hartung - Co-Founder, Terra Firma Asset Management
	The class will provide an overview of the importance of the real estate asset class within an investment portfolio and the key drivers of commercial real estate performance. It will also provide an introduction to listed real estate alternatives, assess return performance and offer an assessment of the current health of the real estate markets.
Tuesday, May 6	Bitcoin And Digital Assets
	Speaker: Nik Bhatia, CFA, CMT - Adjunct Professor, University of Southern California Marshall School of Business
	This class will provide an overview of the relatively new asset class of digital assets. The class will cover a brief history of bitcoin and an explanation of how its blockchain functions. The material on blockchain will in part cover bitcoin mining and its relationship with energy economics. It will also cover the introduction of alternative cryptocurrencies. Additionally, the class will provide explanations for associated technologies, such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Tuesday, May 13	Private Credit
	Speaker: Joe Elsabee - Managing Director, CION Investments
	The class will go over the history of private credit (also called private debt), the various types of private credit, how the category has performed over business cycles, the use of non-investment grade debt, how private credit differs from publicly traded or widely syndicated debt, and the current environment for the asset class. The class will also cover due diligence concepts, such as credit risk, interest rate risk, default and recovery rates, covenants, and liquidation preference.
Tuesday, May 20	Private Equity
	Speakers: Scott Burger, CPA - Partner, KPMG; Vincent Calcagno, CPA - Executive Managing Director, E78 Partners
	This course will discuss the background, overview, and detailed characteristics of the private equity and debt industry. Participants will obtain a unique perspective on the benefits, types of structures utilized, valuation considerations, current environment, and thoughts on the future of the private investment markets. Highlights include discussions regarding trends in asset allocations, capital raising, investing & monetization.
Tuesday, May 27	Risk Management
	Speaker: Ramesh Pandey, PhD, FRM - Head of Credit Risk, Pacific Life
	The risk management class provides an understanding or risk and return for alternative investments. Risk can be “Soft” or “Quantitative.” The class will cover some hard mathematical aspects in the softest possible way and hope to lead participants to a state where these hard concepts will not be intimidating. The class intent is to leave participants with a deep understanding of hedge fund risk permia and an ability to understand risk and risk reports.
Tuesday, June 3	Commodity, Managed Futures, and Forward Contracts
	Speaker: Gerald Prior, III - COO, Senior Portfolio Manager, & Managing Partner, Mount Lucas
	This class will discuss the history and structure of futures markets as well as the risk premium that is available to investors. The first part of the class will focus on how liquid commodity exposure is implemented by managers, and whether long only commodities is a prudent approach for portfolio diversification. The second half of the class will explain the landscape of CTAs—also known as trend following strategies, or Managed Futures—how an index that measures investor risk premium is constructed, the historical benefits of trend following during broad market stress events, and an analysis of manager approach and dispersion inside the asset class.
Tuesday, June 10	Asset Allocation, Portfolio Management
	Speaker: Karyn Williams, PhD - Founder and Managing Principal, Hightree Advisors & Regional Investment Manager (North America), Zürich
	Every investment dollar serves a purpose. Its purpose could be to support grantmaking, an annual operating budget, insurance claims, pension payouts, retirement, or any number of future commitments. This course briefly describes the institutional investor marketplace and how investors translate the purpose of their assets ultimately the allocation to and the selection of specific alternative investments. Topics include the investment lifecycle, governing frameworks, the manager lifecycle, and a macroeconomic risk factor approach to asset and manager allocation and risk management.

*Instructors and dates are subject to change. All changes will be marked in red.

Eligible for 15 CE Credits for CFA Charterholders; Course offered as a 10-class series: (10 consecutive Tuesdays).
 

Class Handouts and Zoom Meeting Links will be provided via email every week on Tuesday by noon. There are no exams!