Why can we, as a large plan sponsor, invest directly in emerging managers? What advantages does Progress bring to the process of investing in emerging firms?
Plan sponsors can invest directly in emerging managers, and some do. But others prefer not to — especially during the earliest stages of an emerging firm’s life — due to asset size restrictions, time constraints and the need to diversify the business and investment risks associated with investing in early-stage investment companies. Studies prove that “small is beautiful” when it comes to performance, and experience has shown that diversified is beautiful when it comes to harnessing the performance advantage of emerging managers in a risk-controlled manner. Progress provides an expert, one-stop source of emerging manager talent. We offer a diversified, risk-controlled portfolio of emerging managers, and we provide constant oversight based on years of exclusive focus on investing in emerging manager-of-manager portfolios. In fact, many Progress clients do ultimately invest directly when the emerging manager(s) “graduate” from a Progress portfolio relationship to a direct client relation
