The Transition from Public to Private Markets with Chris Nero
Chris Nero, Founder and CEO of Bridgeport Financial Technology, brings 34 years of industry expertise to the show, where we discuss the financial markets evolution and the transition from public to private markets and the challenges and nuances of this shift.
We cover key aspects such as the importance of education in bridging the gap between public and private markets, the growth of accredited high net worth and ultra high net worth investors in private markets, and the role of additive–not disruptive–technology in facilitating this transition. We talk about trends such as the popularity of private credit and the emergence of feeder structures to provide access to exclusive funds. We also highlight the significance of digitization and single source of truth and what that means for the industry in the long term. In our conversation, chris emphasizes the importance of understanding the entire life cycle of private markets and private market investments and how it works as being critical in building a digital infrastructure that creates a seamless and transparent experience for advisors and clients alike.
RECORDED OCTOBER 27, 2023
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Fat Pitch Ep 13 - AUDIO
Thu, Nov 09, 2023 10:51AM • 33:05
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
markets, private, advisor, client, hedge funds, work, move, fund, investor, clint, chris, infrastructure, white papers, create, liquidity, additive, years, business, feeder, terms
SPEAKERS
Paul Barausky, Chris Nero, Clint Sorenson
Paul Barausky 00:02
Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the fat pitch podcast. I'm your host Paul Baurasky, Chief Distribution Officer for Sealy Investment Securities. And as always, I'm joined by my co host, Clint Sorenson, from wealth shield. Clint, how are we doing today?
Clint Sorenson 00:18
Doing great, Paul. Great to be back. It's been too long.
Paul Barausky 00:21
It's been a hiatus, I can tell by your enthusiasm, you really missed me. And unfortunately, that hiatus was my fault. And we're joined by a dear friend today and then full confession, we're actually with him up in Park City, Utah right now. You've been a gracious host, Chris Nero. Thanks for joining us on our podcast today.
Chris Nero 00:40
Happy to be here. And thanks for having me.
Paul Barausky 00:42
You betcha. Well, we won't darken his door for too much longer, Clint. But you've known Chris for a long time; you introduced the two of us, Chris, what can you tell our audience about yourself? What's your origin story? Why don’t we go there?
Chris Nero 00:56
Yes. Thank you. So gosh, I’m about 34 years in the business, right? Can you tell I'm using a filter, but I don't think it's working that well. But 34 years in the business, really started on the public side of the business. Early days–I always have to be careful what I tell people I started with the SEC era was with the SEC. So they may interpret that differently. But so first four or five years of my career was with the SEC, left there, went to work for a couple asset managers, Scudder Stevens & Clark, which later became part of Deutsche Bank, ironically, and then left there went to work for an asset management holding company. And so learned a ton about asset manager valuation, product distribution. You know, I went to work with a group of guys that left Putnam Investments–a guy by the name of Norton Greenberg, who ran the Voyager fund. So really listed, company owned, 55 institutional asset managers, so great experience there. And then I think got tired of the cold in Boston. So an opportunity came up late 90s, to move to the West Coast and work for a hedge fund; it didn't sound like a bad deal, moved to San Diego. And, you know, did that for a while.
And so, really interesting, I think one of the things I learned was, you know, coming from a structured and public markets background and moving into hedge funds, you know, such a big difference just in terms of structure regulation, and at that time, you may recall, late 90s, was when a lot of pensions and endowments were just starting to get comfortable, right? In private markets, it's really more hedge funds and private equity that time, but, frankly, so from my position and my background, you know, really saw the major differences and really tried to help those groups and accommodate them as they moved from public to private markets. And so I guess I sort of found myself in that in that gap between public and private markets at that time, right, which is where we are today, and we'll talk about but so there a couple years, started working with some endowments who really wanted much more visibility into private markets. And so I started doing that at our hedge fund for them, and then saw this opportunity, if I'm doing this for them with our fund, I can do this for them across a lot of funds.
So I left there, I started a company called hedge works. In 2000. I ran that business for about eight years, we grew that business globally. And then I sold that business to Deutsche Bank in 2008. And, you know, my timing was not planned, but it was impeccable. This was January of 2008. I sold and, you know, I always tell people, maybe a year later, the person that sponsored the deal, Deutsche Bank patted me on the knee, and he said, you know, you picked a really good time to sell us your business. It was sort of an uncomfortable spot, right? But this was when, you know, I think between 2008 and 2009, you had the made off crisis, bear went under Lehman went under, you know, we had credit crisis going on. So everything that could be thrown at us was thrown at us. So it was a really interesting time. But we learned a lot, we were still able to grow the business about 300%. We really moved from, you know, doing analytics and third party pricing to custody lending against hedge funds. And so we're really able to grow that business and move things along despite the market conditions we're in.
So anyway, Paul, this is the long version, I guess,
Paul Barausky
We like the long version. We like this.
Chris Nero: You like we like you like the long version? So 2011 I left you know, having traveled globally for a number of years, I really had to go back home and spend some time with my family, had three young kids and a great wife. So I did that for about seven years, did a lot of board work. I was on the board of a few Franklin Templeton funds. I was on the board of an ETF company. And my wife and I and a few other families helped to start a private school in San Diego. So was on that board for 12 years. So you know that was you You know, seven years of sort of gearing down and sitting on the sidelines a bit. And then, you know, 2018, again, found ourselves in the middle of this, what I would call Public to Private Market transition, and saw an opportunity there. And that's when we started Bridgeport. So you know, we’ll talk more about what we're doing there. But that's it. Yeah.
Paul Barausky 05:19
Let's talk about that. Clint, you and I really got to be friends with a shared passion for the private marketplace. And we both loathe, and Chris, you've talked to us before, I think we all loathe the term alternative. What's remarkable about you building Bridgeport is, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't it all start for you on education?
Chris Nero 05:40
I think if we look at where we are today, right, and I think we all saw this coming with the platforms that starting emerging, you know, as if you take a step back and look at any fiduciary, but specifically advisors, right? I think that advisors started, you know, really transitioning toward private markets sometime between 2000 and 2010. Right. But as they've done that, you know, education is a big part of bridging that gap, right? And I think part of that, there's really two parts to that. One is, you know, Paul, if I'm going to ask you, as my client to invest in a private credit fund, I need to know what private credit is, right? Before I can explain it to you. So that's one part of the education piece. The second part is really helping the client to understand, you know, what private markets is all about, what types of private market investments is suitable for them. So education has always been a part of it. And I think as we continue to see, you know, advisors and clients and all fiduciaries really moved from public to private markets, education among a number of other things are really going to be an important part of bridging that gap.
Paul Barausky 06:45
Do either of you have a feeling for how much of a movement has been made of accredited high-net worth, ultra high-net worth investors from public to private? Do either of you have any data on how far we've come since that move started?
Chris Nero 06:58
There is a good amount of data. There's two white papers in particular to come out in the last year. McKinsey put one out early in 2023, Bain Capital just put one out in July of ‘23. And the numbers move around. But I think if you look at what they'll refer to as the accredited retail market, you'll see data that that market is massive; it sits somewhere between 45 and $70 trillion of you know, accredited, high net worth investors that are sort of sitting on the sidelines. And so the data looks like that, typically, those investors sit between one and 3%. Many are at zero, frankly. And so you know, what those white papers talk about is, you know, that is the next boom in private markets, right? You know, if you look at endowments, endowments, sort of sit in that 60 to 80% place. And so even if you move that needle from one to 5%, it's massive. Right? And so I think, particularly in the case of McKinsey, I think they refer to it as the next growth frontier for GPs, right? That's really the direction they want to be moving in. And I think that there's a lot that has to come with that, in particular being talked specifically about infrastructure, right? There's a ton of infrastructure needed on the private market side. And that's really what we're doing.
Paul Barausky 08:15
Yeah, and that's really what Bridgeport is at the core of your mission. Well, I would ask both of you with your history. And Clint, you may have some real thoughts around this. I remember being an equity guy in New York City in the late 90s. And you talked, you know, we talked about the fun business, it's when I heard you mentioned Putnam, Voyager, I was thinking, golly, you're bringing back olden times for me. But when I would see these alternative products, the early versions or private products for retail investors, there was an adage like, Hey, this is the gum stuck on the end of the institutional guys shoe that they're passing on. Do you both believe there's been an improvement in the structure and what's available for the retail investor? Clint, I'll ask you because you work with so many folks like that?
Clint Sorenson 09:00
Yeah, I mean, access has really opened up, right? So if you think about it back in the early days, it was kind of like that you had really this bifurcation, you had, you know, the type of products that were available for retail, which may have been the gum on the institutional shoe. And then you have the type that was really available for institutions, and I think that that gap is closing. And I think you're seeing a tremendous amount of product availability for retail investors now that are, you know, on par with the institutional type product, there may be some differences, but they're pretty much on par. And I'd also comment on Chris's earlier, mentioned about the two white papers. I remember seeing a study from UBS, their Family Office survey. It was pretty crazy because I liked the idea of this accredited investors being the next one to move being the big wave coming. But when you think about family offices and the QPs, the qualified purchaser types, they've been allocating to private markets, and I remember I think it was a 2021 Family Office survey is all from UBS, but they asked what percentage of your accounts are in mutual funds, and that percentage was zero.Tthey asked what percentage was in ETFs, it was like less than 1%. And these were all families with $25 million or more. And so they were already allocating to private markets in a big way. And then in their public market strategies that are more like individual security. So I think people are waking up to building diversification into a portfolio. And I think that's pretty awesome. And hopefully, Chris, your product, right, the infrastructure will help them do that even better.
Chris Nero
Absolutely.
Paul Barausky 10:30
Yeah. Chris, Bridgeport is your latest venture, you just can't stay retired. That's the thing of it – only so much tennis boating a guy can do in a year. Can you describe what Bridgeport is at its core?
Chris Nero 10:44
I think it's if you look today, I mean, we've spoken a lot over the last year or two, you know, if you look at the traditional 60-40 model, that really sort of blew up in the last two years. And so, you know, I think the question remains, where do we land? Is it 50%, equities, 25, fixed income, 25% private markets? I think we all have a view on where that's gonna go. But we know the needle is going to move. And so if you look at that gap, as an investor who's used to, you know, traditional markets or a traditional public market environment, there's a lot of things that need to change, right? First and foremost, is education that we talked about. Advisors need to be educated, clients need to be educated. Number one, the second piece is infrastructure, right? I mean, just take a simple example, Paul, if I'm an investor or an advisor, I can go to Schwab, I can go to Fidelity, I can open a custody account, I can manage my client assets, right? I could go in, I could buy five ETFs. For my client, it's very simple. I set up a profile, I click Buy on five ETFs, I go to that account, every day I see my value, I see what I own on an aggregate level in terms of diversification, right? Very simple process. Now I go and I want to buy my clients five hedge funds. Think about how that works, I've got to go to five different sponsors, I've got to fill out a 60, 70 page subscription agreement. Every month, I've got to go to five different web portals, I've got to find my capital statement, they come in all different times, their valuation frequency is all different. And then I have to go to each of those access points, I've got to get tax reporting,I’ve got to get statement information. And now take a step back, it's very difficult for me as a client or as an advisor to see what I own right? What do I own in the aggregate, number one. Number two, what is my liquidity profile look like? Right? Because that's a big dynamic that changes when you move from public to private markets. And so a lot of what we're doing is we're saying, Okay, if you take that public market experience, how do we get that on the private side, right? Because that is so critical. Because even, let's say, Paul, you're my client, and I say, Okay, I'm gonna take 20% of your portfolio, I'm gonna move it from public markets to private. You look at your statement, and you see, okay, my advisor made a $500,000 investment in this hedge fund, where's my money, because it's not on your Schwab statement anymore, it was wired directly to the sponsor, it's probably not held in a custody account. So, you know, now, there's complexities around reporting. Now, there's complexities around how I deal with you as my client You know, those are critical things in terms of how the infrastructure needs to evolve, really, for us to go from this, you know, call it 0% to even 5%, or even 0% to 2%. And so, in the public markets, we have DTC, we have central repository for clearing and transactions. We don't have that in the private markets. And so really, what we're about is creating an infrastructure that really bridges that or accommodates that transition from public to private markets. And it sounds fancy, and it sounds nice. It's not simple. It really takes the whole industry to be on board with that and move it. So you know, I will say this: today, we're really seeing that movement happening. We're still in the early stages of it happening, but we are seeing it, versus five years ago, you look at all of the constituents in the marketplace, you look at custodians, administrators, sponsors, really wasn't happening. And so I think the good news is it is starting to evolve now.
Clint Sorenson 14:21
So you're really taking the friction out of the process or attempting to take the friction out of the process for everyone that's involved within private markets investing, whether it's the stakeholder, the adviser, the actual in client, whether it's, you know, other stakeholders, like administrators, or legal teams or auditors, you're really providing that digital infrastructure to create and I'm gonna borrow your term because you haven't said it yet. But that single source of truth for each private market product, and so could you elaborate a little bit more on this whole concept of digitization and single source of truth and what that can mean for the industry long term?
Chris Nero 14:59
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple pieces to that. I think, you know, first and foremost, you have to take a step back. And you have to understand the life cycle of investing in any kind of private market investment, right? And for us, when we talk about private markets, it's hedge funds, it's private equity, it's venture capitalists, direct private SECO investments, right? Those are all part of the private markets. They're all securities issued under Regulation D typically. So there's no infrastructure requirements, right? But as an advisor, or a client, think about the life cycle, right? The first piece of the lifecycle is access, I need access to private market investments, where do I find them? I can't just go online, right? They have general solicitation exceptions, typically, I can't just go, you know, look for them. So access is first and foremost.
The next piece is really diligence. You know, there's not a lot of public information available. So typically, you have to go to a third party, you want them to examine that. And you need to find somebody that really understands that strategy, right? For a typical wealth advisor, they can't just go and look at a private credit fund, right? They might be able to look at the data, they can look at the performance, but they really don't understand the ins and outs of that business. And so, you know, diligence is the next step. So you get access, you get diligence. And then simple things. You have an onboarding process. If I'm an advisor, and I want to put you and Clint in a fund. How do I do that? I can't FedEx you a 60-page subscription agreement anymore, it doesn't work, right? And so I really need to digitize you as an investor and create a digital profile. And really, if you look, we go back to the Schwab or Fidelity example, they've been doing that forever. You go on to a website, you set up your profile, you set up your qualifications, you set up your experience, you set up your risk tolerance, right?
Once that's done, now, you move into onboarding, you actually procure those transactions, right? And now as you sort of go through this lifecycle, the next piece is reporting, right? How do you now report and aggregate all that data that you're pushing out to potentially 10, 20, 30 sponsors, that's the next piece.
And then the final piece is really integration, right? With what we do, we want to digitize, we want to make the investor experience better. But there's a number of challenges that come along with that. One is, when you go to these advisors, we always talk about disruptive technology, the way we look at this technology, it needs to be additive, not really disruptive. We're disrupting a marketplace; we're disrupting private markets in terms of, you know, providing access, but advisors don't like disruption; clients don't like disruption. So we really focus on being additive, right? So we go to an advisor, we say, Look, we want to help you incorporate private markets, but we don't want you to rewire your whole system, we really want to be additive. So how do we take what you're doing today, allow you to incorporate private market investments into that, but make the process simple and additive where you don't have to rewire everything. And so I think, really understanding that full lifecycle is so critical, and, you know, the challenge we have today, still, I think, and you know, the runway has gotten a lot shorter. But you know, it is a long educational runway. I think that we are going to see probably over the next decade, a huge transition to private markets. But it's a process. It's a long educational runway, but it is happening and it needs to happen. And I think that's why so many of these, you know, sort of white shoe consultants have come out and written all these white papers, because everybody sees it coming, nobody knows exactly how to do it, but it has to start, you know, and that's really what we're doing.
Paul Barausky 18:31
Yeah, and I think there's probably–speaking of white papers, one that's been circulating around Midtown Manhattan starting about three years ago, because the biggest private equity shops and the biggest international bankers didn't want to provide offerings or product for just the accredited masses, and now it seems that they're all coming out with them looking to capture those dollars. But I agree with you, it's got to be seamless. And the other part is the ongoing monitoring of those investment positions. It's one thing to learn about it to get the knowledge to set it up. It's another thing, this isn't a mutual fund that you can sell next week, or even next year, often somebody's involved with something for four or five, six, maybe even a decade, a long period of time. And so managing and monitoring that along with your other positions for both the adviser and the investor is critical. So I imagine that's a key piece if this business is going to continue to expand and grow and provide opportunities for investors across the gamut.
Chris Nero 19:33
Absolutely. And that is the biggest piece. I think people confuse digitization, sometimes they think that's just simply taking a process that’s been paper based and moving into digital form. And that is a part of that process. But I think you have to look a level deeper. And these are sort of the essential components when you look–like if you look today and you own three hedge funds, okay. And you want to understand, Okay, what's my liquidity when can I get out of that hedge fund? What does my lock up look like? You know, when those are paper based that is very difficult to do. And again, take that to an advisor level, if they have 200 clients in 40 different private market investments, how do they track all those things–they're all paper based. So item one is digitizing that. But when you digitize it, that's when the magic happens, because now everything is data based or data centralized. And so perfect example, if you take the term sheet of a typical hedge fund, which normally you would have to go and thumb through about 100 pages to find those terms. You take a digital term sheet, you have everything from management fees to lock up to redemption frequency. As soon as you have those all in a database, and now you have that say across 10 different funds, now those all can be centralized. Now you can create algorithms to run off that data. So for example, if I owned 10 paper-based hedge funds, I have no idea what my liquidity looks like. If those have all been digitized, I can look at my portfolio now. Our platform can track and say, Okay, you invested in this fund on this date, this particular fund has a one year lockup, you've been in for 255 days, you have a quarterly notice period; it will tell you exactly when you can liquidate or redeem from that fund. And now it takes that and it stretches it across 10 funds, 20 funds, 30 funds, and you have a full picture of what you own, and you have a full picture of what your liquidity looks like across your portfolio. And that is absolutely critical because as these advisors move into private markets, liquidity is a huge part of that, right? We know that private markets, you look at real estate, you look at private credit, you look at venture, look at hedge funds–they're all over the place in terms of holding periods that can be a year, two years, five years, seven years, 10 years, right? It's not a 60-40 portfolio where you can be out in, you know, inside of two or three business days. So those digital elements are absolutely critical. And that's a lot of what we're doing. And those are essential for this transition. And that's the infrastructure I think that we focus on. And again, that's where all of these components can be hugely additive to advisors and their clients, really forgiving them that visibility.
Paul Barausky 22:14
That's very cool. I have a question for both of you. Because you really seem to have your fingers on the pulse of it. Are there any trends, overall trends, maybe in types of structures that you're seeing more of for individuals? Are there particular asset classes right now that you're kind of hitting your purview more than not? Usually, Clint would tell me if it's really popular, that's probably when it's the most expensive, but either of you, ust any kind of trends in the market, besides, you know what we've talked about?
Clint Sorenson 22:43
Unless you shoot first, Chris?
Chris Nero 22:44
Yeah, I was gonna say I’ll let Clint talk more about the strategies. I mean, I think we all know right now, right? If you look across private markets, private credit is probably the hottest thing at the moment of insurance. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. But I think just in terms of getting access to the strategies, I think the big thing that we're seeing is what we call feeder structures, right? You know, another challenge, we talked about some of the challenges as investors transition to private markets, liquidity is an issue, but access is challenging, you know. We're working with a fund right now–they have a $25 million investor minimum. So as an advisor, you know, I have two issues. One is probably 75% of my clients or more do not have $25 million in liquidity that they can put in this particular fund, number one. Number two, even if they did, I can't put 100% of their assets in that fund. And so when we create feeder structure, it’s really what we're doing, you know, we call it, you know, advisor syndication, it's going to allow that advisor to go across their client base, and say, Okay, I don't have one client that could do 25 million. But if I go across 50, 60,70, 100 of my clients through a feeder structure, I can aggregate them, we can create an SPV, and we can go in as one investor. And so now my clients get access to a fund that’s often very difficult to get into, and then get in at $500,000. And so when I create their portfolio, let's say they have 5 million in liquidity. Now that particular investment is 10% of their assets, not 100, or, you know, not accessible at all. So those feeder structures are really, really important. And they are an important part of this bridge I talk about from going from 60-40 to private markets. So definitely, your structures are hugely, yeah.
Paul Barausky 24:30
That's great information.
Clint Sorenson 24:33
Yeah, I mean, I just love that for wealth management. If you think about it, like a well an RA, right? The ability to have a series of feeders that can aggregate not only your best ideas and best thinking in a particular asset class, like I might, if I'm a firm, I might have firm feeder for private equity, for private credit for, you know, long short hedge funds, for managed futures or CTAs, for private real estate. And I think that's really a great example of being able to, you know, create a process that is reducing the friction for the end client. Because now I can bundle clients together, put them in my best thinking and strategy, put that strategy together in a way that simplifies, right, bundled tax reporting, everything, all the reporting features, and give them an experience that's a lot better than them having to chase down a bunch of different products and have to meet minimums. And so I love that for wealth managers, Chris, to that point is them being able to create feeders and I know you guys can do that, right, you can help an RA create a feeder, right? Leveraging your infrastructure, leveraging your platform, and they can create these type of things for their firms, or for their clients rather, at the firm level. And I think that's a growing trend, Paul, and I think that's going to be a big push going forward.
Paul Barausky 25:47
Well, the nice part is you can filter to what you think are best ideas. And then you can aggregate dollars more buying power to, in an ideal world, perhaps strike a better institutional pricing on an offering. So in an ideal world, and then like you said, I mean, I don't know about you, I think my last K1 this year came in on October 13th. And so it's the annual, I hate you, no I hate you more. That also simplifies that to some degree. And then Chris, you mentioned something, I mean, there are single purchase funds, there's called capital structures, there's drawdown. I would imagine Bridgeport or things like it, you're also really keeping an eye on not just on liquidity, but capital commitments, which I don't care how much money somebody has, sometimes having to write checks or sweet money surprises all of us. So that's critical to manage your balances right now.
Chris Nero 26:44
It absolutely is. Yeah. And I was gonna say, you know, again, that falls into advisor and client education. You know, I think it's great when you can go to a client and say, Look, you know, we can get you access to this great venture capital fund, and, you know, we'll put a half a million or a million dollars into this. But, you know, for most clients, and frankly, for many advisors, they just don't understand how that works with a venture capital structure or private equity structure, what we call it committed structure. You know, you may commit a million dollars, but there's a process, you know, you commit that money, but you know, over the course of a few years, you're gonna get these capital calls. And so I commit a million dollars, I can, you know, three months later, the advisor comes back to me and says, I need $150,000 in two weeks. Okay. So, you know, that is a process advisors need to be mindful of, you need to make sure that client has the liquidity to accommodate that you need to make sure the client understands that. You know, and again, managing the logistics around all of those things is tough. And so, again, I go back to what we call the lifecycle, right? Understanding the entire lifecycle of private markets and private market investments and how it works is critical. And, you know, from our standpoint, as a technology provider, you really have to provide technology from the front to the back. Because if you just provide one piece of that lifecycle, you go back to the same issue, you're not being additive to the advisor, you're giving them one tool when they need six. And so, you know, filling that entire lifecycle is absolutely critical to really helping them make that transition. Because again, as an advisor, I want to do things that I believe are additive to my client; I don't want them to disrupt my relationship with that client. I don't want them to disrupt the process I typically have with that client. And I certainly don't want to bother my client with these things, right? I want to bring something new to them and I don’t want to create more work for them. And so you know, there's so many components to this technology and this transition from public to private markets. And I think, you know, we're really focused on that as, you know, really giving people a front to back, additive experience. And it sounds nice, but it is a challenge. You know, there's a lot of components to it, but you know it’s happening.
Paul Barausky 28:54
Well, Clint, you got a final comment or question for our good friend, Chris, here where we wrap up this episode?
Clint Sorenson 29:01
No, Chris, it’s called the Fat Pitch Podcast. So would you agree that the fat pitch is the transition from public to private markets would be my last and final question for you.
Chris Nero 29:09
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's no question about it. I mean, and again, you look at just the environment we're in. You know, there's a number of things that we've looked at, and we've talked about Clint, you just look at public markets, right? For example, you know, 10 years ago, you had somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, over 8000 public companies, right? I mean, you look at that today, it's down to what, two or 3000, right? And so, you know, a lot of what's happening now, you know, what used to be post-IPO growth is now pre-IPO growth. And so you look at companies like SpaceX, right? I mean, still a private company, where all of that, you know, asymmetric growth is happening is really in the private markets now. And so as an advisor, you know, I take a step back and say, Okay, how am I going to get my client access to that growth, which is much harder to attain now out in public markets. Paul, we spoke earlier about this, you know, we used to refer to private market investments as alternative investments, right? And I think that's the key that has changed. They are essential. And I think if you go back, we can find white papers from Franklin Templeton, Apollo, JP Morgan, there's so many white papers that have come out, right? And it's really about this shift from alternatives to essential. And I think that's a big part of it, and so, you know, that's really why we're so focused on the technology to support that.
Paul Barausky 30:30
I think I'm gonna steal your line as a tagline from alternative to essential. You just came up with some gold there for a guy who thinks about marketing and distribution.
Chris Nero 30:40
Yeah, I think I've read it 12 times. So yeah, don't quote me on it.
Paul Barausky 30:45
It’s that Providence Friar education. And you made one other comment, before we sign off. You used another term that was simple, but elegant, and it was two words, and it escapes me, but something about integration, maybe?
Chris Nero 30:59
Yeah, I mean, there's really two pieces to it. When we look at what we do, we are agnostic. And we help advisors augment and integrate. And that's really the way we look at it. If you look at the platforms they have today, our job is really to be able to augment what they have and do it in a seamless way. And I go back to that same word, has to be additive. And we have to help them integrate, you know, and we have to do that seamlessly. You know, if you look at the average wealth advisor, they don't have a big IT staff, they don't have developers. And so when you go in, you really have to work with them, and you have to do it in a way that is so seamless. And purely it’s just about augmenting what they have to provide a service to their clients. And it's as simple as that, and they don't want to do any heavy lifting. And they frankly don't have the bandwidth or the capacity to do it. And so, you know, we're building an infrastructure, it takes time, it costs a lot of money. They don't have to do that; we work with them, they license that technology from us, and they are up and running inside of 30 days. And so, you know, that's the beauty of technology, you know, in terms of where we are today, you know. It's software, it’s a service, it's a great environment. And so I think, you know, if you look at the transition as it's going on right now from public to private markets, the good news is, technology has come such a long way. And so I think that, you know, what advisors will see over the course of next decade, I believe, is that transition is going to be a lot easier.
Paul Barausky 32:23
Fantastic. So as we wrap up, if people want to find you or find Bridgeport, is there any social media, website? Where can they go and look, whether they're advisors, or good old investors fascinated to learn more about the alternative universe–or private universe?
Chris Nero 32:40
That's right. Yeah, just go to Bridgeportft–for Fintech– dot com. And there we are, you'll find us.
Paul Barausky 32:49
Fantastic. Well, on behalf of my co-host Clint and our wonderful guest Chris, thanks, everybody for tuning in, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Fat Pitch. Take care.
Chris Nero 32:58
Sounds great. Take care.