Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, we have two guests who have built alts behemoths: the CEOs of iCapital, Lawrence Calcano, and SIMON, Jason Broder. 

iCapital and Simon recently completed a landmark transaction in the alts space, with the joining together of two of the largest digital platforms that enable advisors and individuals to invest into private markets through iCapital’s acquisition of SIMON. 

iCapital has built the leading platform to drive efficiency and alternative investing for the asset and wealth management industries. They had grown to over $138B in platform assets before acquiring SIMON, which focuses on helping financial advisors understand and manage structured investments, annuities, and other risk managed products. SIMON adds a track record of $48B of issuances in 2021 to iCapital’s platform.

Lawrence and Jason both come from Goldman Sachs roots before building their building their respective businesses.

Lawrence spent 17 years at Goldman and was a Partner, where he was Co-Head of the Global Technology Banking Group in the Investment Banking Division. He was a perennial winner of the Forbes Midas List award for the most influential people in venture capital in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006.

Jason also spent almost 17 years at Goldman, where he was a Managing Director and Head of Private Investor Products Group in the Americas, which focused on the creation and distribution of structured investments to Goldman’s private wealth management management clients and third party distributors.

Lawrence and Jason are both experts on product distribution of alts to the wealth community so it was a treat to have them on to discuss the anatomy of this landmark SIMON acquisition and how this revolutionizes distribution of alts products.

We had a fascinating conversation. We discussed:

• Why this acquisition is so important for the alts space.
• The importance of building a one-stop shop alts investment platform for financial advisors.
• How important it is to comprehensively serve financial advisors.
• Why the platform who figures out distribution will be the winner in the alts space.
• How data and analytics will play a key role in educating advisors.
• How alts will no longer be alts, but will be mainstream, as investors think about the reconstruction of the 60/40 portfolio.

Thanks Lawrence and Jason for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. It was a pleasure to have you share your views on the continued development of the alts space.