WHY COHEN & STEERS

Unrivalled experience in liquid real assets from a team that is time-tested over multiple market cycles

Analysis

Proprietary investment process that includes extensive research leveraging a team of over 55 investment professionals that covers real estate, infrastructure, commodities and natural resource equities

Experienced analysts and traders in the key markets, including New York, London and Hong Kong, offer local knowledge and real-time decision-making

WHY REAL ASSETS

Outperformance during inflationary periods

Positive inflation sensitivity may protect against the potentially damaging effects of accelerating inflation on a portfolio concentrated in stocks and bonds

Diversification potential

Distinct performance drivers generally result in differentiated behaviors from equities and fixed income

Historically strong returns with less volatility

Real assets may improve risk-adjusted portfolio returns without sacrificing the potential for equity-like returns over a full market cycle

The Cohen & Steers Real Assets Multi-Strategy seeks to achieve attractive long-term total returns and maximize real returns during inflationary environments. The strategy invests in a diversified portfolio of real assets, defined as investments in real estate companies, commodity futures, natural resource companies, global infrastructure companies, instruments linked to gold and other precious metals, and other permitted investments.

The strategy seeks to generate alpha from both top-down tactical asset allocation and bottom-up sector and security selection. We expect the top-down tactical allocation to contribute 20-25% to the excess returns over a full market cycle, with the remaining 75-80% coming from bottom-up active management at the individual sleeve level.

FEATURED INSIGHT

Real assets: The strategic allocation for inflation defense

Allocating to listed real assets may help investors better manage inflation risks—while also enhancing diversification potential and risk-adjusted returns.

January 2022 | 1 min

WHY INVEST WITH US

Delivering value to our clients

Cohen & Steers has been at the forefront of real assets investing for more than 35 years. Our dedication, combined with our drive for excellence, has led us to build a foundation that is designed to provide consistent outperformance relative to our peers.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

An experienced team

Jon Cheigh

Chief Investment Officer and Head of Global Real Estate

27 years of experience

Vince Childers, CFA

Head of Real Assets Multi-Strategy

23 years of experience

Jeffrey Palma

Head of Multi-Asset Solutions

27 years of experience

Ben Ross

Head of Commodities

29 years of experience

Nick Koutsoftas

Portfolio Manager, Commodities

28 years of experience

Benjamin Morton

Head of Global Infrastructure

25 years of experience

+1 managing analyst and the dedicated investment teams of the underlying components

PORTFOLIO SPECIALIST GROUP

Supporting our investment team and clients

Michelle Butler

Senior Portfolio Specialist

27 years of experience

Investments in real assets have the potential to diversify many of the long-term risks associated with a traditional stock and bond allocation. Real assets offer an exceptionally large investment universe made up of diverse subsectors across many different industry groups. However, this complexity calls for a framework that approaches the various categories of real assets as a unique, but coherent, asset class.

Our research-based framework emphasizes three key criteria that should be met to build a long-term, strategic allocation to real assets:

Diversification

Potential for meaningful diversification benefits, helping to reduce portfolio volatility and improve risk-adjusted return potential

Return potential

Historical ability to deliver attractive full-cycle returns that can potentially improve risk-adjusted portfolio returns without sacrificing growth potential

Inflation sensitivity

High positive inflation sensitivity to help protect against potentially damaging effects of accelerating inflation on a stock/bond portfolio

We believe that a real assets multi-strategy approach should outperform broad equities and bonds over inflationary periods. We also believe that active management is essential and that both top-down tactical allocation and bottom-up sector and security selection can play powerful roles in a real assets portfolio. However, we believe that implementation must be as part of a disciplined risk-management process. Properly managed, we believe real assets can serve as an ideal complement to a portfolio of stocks and bonds.

APPROACH

Our investment process

The strategy utilizes an integrated investment approach, combining top-down tactical asset allocation with bottom-up sector and security selection.

Model analysis
Our top-down capital allocation process utilizes a proprietary quantitative model designed to uncover opportunities in the core asset classes and provide recommendations for optimal asset allocation.

Real Assets

Asset allocation
The strategy utilizes Cohen & Steers' Asset Allocation Strategy Group (ASG) to help determine the optimal mix of assets and conduct optimization analysis to determine asset allocation ranges and targets.

Model adjustment
Debate and discussion among ASG members, along with input from the individual portfolio management teams, provide critical inputs that allow for model adjustments to incorporate house views.

Security selection
The largest component of the strategy’s risk/return budget is bottom-up security selection. This step is done at the individual asset class level and is managed by the portfolio management teams for each of the four core underlying sleeve strategies.

Three tax-smart income alternatives

March 2023 | 20 mins

Strategies with inherent tax efficiencies may help investors diversify sources of income and potentially keep more of what they earn.

Market developments at Credit Suisse 

Market developments at Credit Suisse 

March 2023 | 6 mins

The government-backed deal for UBS to acquire Credit Suisse will trigger a complete write-down of the nominal value of all Credit Suisse additional tier 1 bonds. We believe Credit Suisse is most likely to be an isolated incident, while we have been reducing our portfolios’ exposure to Credit Suisse significantly over the past several months.

Client brief: Addressing developments at regional banks

Addressing developments at regional banks

March 2023 | 8 mins

The U.S. government's actions to minimize risk across the banking industry following the events of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank have strong potential to prevent further bank runs and subsequent bank failures. But scrutiny of some regional banks will persist. 

Citywire Selector: Fed insider-turned-bond boss backs central banks to beat inflation

March 2023 | 1 min

Head of Fixed Income and Preferred Securities Bill Scapell spoke with Citywire Selector about Cohen & Steers’ preferred securities strategy and his fixed income outlook as central banks battle inflation.

The preferred securities asset allocation advantage

The preferred securities asset allocation advantage

February 2023 | 12 mins

Preferreds offer long-term return potential superior to investment-grade and comparable to high-yield bonds, with diversification and quality advantages.

Institutional Investor: Competition Is Fierce for Private Infrastructure Deals. Here’s An Alternative

February 2023 | 1 min

Portfolio Manager Tyler Rosenlicht spoke with Institutional Investor for a feature story on our recent infrastructure thought leadership and why listed infrastructure can be an attractive alternative or complement to private infrastructure in a portfolio.

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We’d be happy to answer questions about our investment solutions or any corporate-related inquiries.