Episode summary
Monthly Alts Pulse Ep. 17: IEQ's Eric Harrison and iCapital's Steve Houston on innovative approaches
Alt Goes Mainstream
· · Hosts: Michael Sidgmore · Guests: Eric Harrison, Steve Houston
Summary
The conversation centered on how wealth managers can move beyond simple access to alternatives and build a more deliberate private-markets practice around portfolio construction, liquidity management, and tax efficiency. Steve Houston argued that the industry has shifted from “nibbling on the side” to offering high-net-worth and even mass-affluent clients bona fide allocations, helped by better products, lower costs, and stronger infrastructure. He said the key is understanding a client’s liquidity profile, not just risk profile, and matching that to private-market exposure.
Eric Harrison described how IEQ built its approach around scale, research depth, and a willingness to be a larger investor rather than just an investor. He said the firm moved toward a 50/50 on-NAV framework, created a 45-person alts research function, and made fund diligence a responsibility across the organization. Harrison also said tax strategy, not tax prep, is becoming a major source of value for sophisticated clients and should be treated as part of the total portfolio conversation.
Both guests emphasized that technology matters, but mostly as infrastructure: data aggregation, reconciliation, reporting, and communication tools that let advisors understand the whole portfolio. They also pointed to evergreen structures, compounding, and better storytelling around long-dated funds as ways to improve client education and engagement.
Key takeaways
- Steve Houston said the industry is shifting toward true private-markets allocations for wealth clients as products improve, fees fall, and the public-to-private journey accelerates.
- Eric Harrison said IEQ’s edge comes from scale and process, including a 45-person alts research team and firmwide participation in fund diligence.
- Harrison argued that client conversations should focus on tax strategy, not just tax prep, because net-of-fees and net-of-taxes returns are what matter.
- Houston said dynamic liquidity management is the most important system for serving clients who may be 50% to 60% illiquid.
- The guests said better data infrastructure is critical because private markets product development has outpaced reporting, reconciliation, and portfolio visibility.
- Harrison said evergreen funds can improve compounding because money stays invested instead of sitting in cash during drawdown periods.
Notable quotes
“the whole thesis of the early days was around portfolio diversification, building better portfolios, creating better outcomes and so forth”
“we really should be 50/50 on NAV, which is 70% uncommitted”
“tax strategy is important. Every single client's frustrated by tax prep”
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. Today we're here from I Capitalap Connect in Arizona and joined by managing director and co-head of I Capital Solutions, Steve Houston and IQ Capital founding partner managing director Eric Harrison.
Great to be here. Yeah, thanks for having pleasure to have you guys. would love to start with you both have had experiences in private banks.
Yes. What were the learnings from that that you've since applied post that as you've now built an independent firm, fastest growing firm in history and as you've built the largest platform in I Capital to help serve the wealth channel. Yeah, I was with Maril Lynch for 10 years and and ran the wealth business over at Barclays Bank um for about six years.
the those organizations, you know, back in the day um were very cutting edge in terms of the products that they were introducing to their financial adviserss and the client base. Interestingly, they still are in many ways, especially the wires. They're doing a lot of interesting things with directs and co-invest and so forth, taking advantage of opportunities that are presented to them.
But the whole thesis of the early days was around portfolio diversification, building better portfolios, creating better outcomes and so forth. And you know early on we were um you know the firms that were introducing introducing Blackstone to the wealth management you know sector and you know it was great timing. It was very fortuitous I think for everybody and it's really you know um translated well ultimately to to client portfolios.
Now for independent adviserss though it's even more interesting right because they're much more fluid and nimble the things that they can do the tools that they can use to expand the business and so forth.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- private markets
- wealth management
- portfolio allocation
- liquidity management
- tax strategy
Companies and tickers mentioned
- IEQ Capital
- iCapital
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.
