Episode summary
Monthly Alts Pulse Ep 10: With Lawrence Calcano, iCapital and Robert Picard, Hightower Advisors
Alt Goes Mainstream
· · Hosts: Michael Sidgmore · Guests: Lawrence Calcano, Robert Picard
Summary
The conversation centered on how private markets are moving from an institutional-only product to something wealth platforms can offer more broadly, while still keeping the process usable for advisers and clients. Robert Picard said Hightower’s 140 advisor businesses and about $150 billion in wealth assets show why private markets must fit different client needs, from 60/40 portfolios to teams already allocating north of 50%.
Lawrence Calcano argued that the main unlock is operational: advisers need education, suitable products, easy client onboarding, and simple post-trade servicing. He said technology has to make private markets feel as seamless as public markets, with straight-through processing and better coordination across custodians, transfer agents, administrators, and reporting systems.
On the investing side, Picard called the current moment transformational, highlighting private credit, infrastructure, AI, robotics, and data centers as areas where he sees strong opportunity. He said vintage 2024 and 2025 could be among the best in years. Both speakers also warned that access alone is not enough; suitability, education, and avoiding FOMO matter if the asset class is going to scale responsibly.
Key takeaways
- Picard said Hightower serves 140 advisor businesses with about $150 billion in assets and is trying to broaden private-market participation across that community.
- Calcano argued that advisers will adopt alts faster only if the workflow becomes easy, intuitive, and supported by technology from education through reporting.
- Picard said a major bottleneck is the custodial and post-trade ecosystem, not just the investment decision itself.
- Calcano said private markets are becoming more customized, with advisers wanting model portfolios and client-specific solutions rather than one-size-fits-all access.
- Picard sees private credit, infrastructure, AI, robotics, and data centers as major opportunities and expects 2024 and 2025 vintages to be especially strong.
- Both speakers stressed that suitability and education matter because access without understanding can create FOMO-driven mistakes.
Notable quotes
“The average billionaire and the average university endowment currently allocate typically more than 50% 50% to private markets”
“We typically will say look at we're not saying get rid of your public equity and public fixed income”
“The next wave of advisors and their clients have a different set of needs, right”
“we've been working um I'd like to think at the forefront of uh the wealth management community creating a straight through processing solution, what we refer to as STP”
“I believe is going to be some of the best vintages we've seen in years, probably since the global financial crisis”
How the episode opens
Welcome back to the monthly alts pulse. I'm Michael Sigmore, co-founder and partner of Broad Haven Ventures and founder of the Alco Mainstream podcast. In addition to being joined by I Capital Chairman and CEO, Lawrence Galcano.
Today we have High Towers managing director and head of private market solutions, Robert Bard. Thank you. Thank you for both being here.
Good to be here again, Michael. Good to be here. excited to talk about alts.
How do you think about building an alternatives platform at High Totower? And thank you for having me. High Tower uh right now is a community of 140 uh separate advisor businesses and uh we manage about $150 billion of wealth management assets.
Uh and I of course work on the private market solutions team and we provide solutions to those teams. Now first of all just let's put this perspective in context. The average billionaire and the average university endowment currently allocate typically more than 50% 50% to private markets.
On the other hand, the individual investor is less than 5%. So we're really taking advantage of the leveling of the playing field and we want individual investors to have access to some of those same solutions that the average billionaire has. Invitation is the best form of flattery.
Uh and I think it's important to have that. Now, we also have to take into account the fact that there's been a significant sea change. The three of us have benefited from a 30-year bull run.
And basically in 2022, that was a year where both public equity and public fixed income lost 20% and 10% respectively. And what we've now seen in part thanks to I Capital, we've been able to establish data going back one year, three year, five years, 10 years, and 30 years, which demonstrate that having similar allocations to private markets, whether it be 20% or 30%, you have much better risk adjusted returns.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- private markets platform infrastructure
- straight-through-processing alts lifecycle
- advisor desktop access for alts
- wealth platform adoption and experience
- capital flows unlock
Companies and tickers mentioned
- CG
- STT
- iCapital
- Hightower Advisors
- The Carlyle Group
- Rock Creek
- Optima Fund Management
- RBC Capital Markets
- State Street
- InfraHedge
- First Republic Wealth Management
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Alt Goes Mainstream, this episode and its artwork belong to Michael Sidgmore. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
