Skyline Wealth Management Explains: Alternative Investments

Skyline Wealth Management Explains: Alternative Investments

Alternative investments are a class of investment that has been gaining momentum over recent years. They can come with their own host of benefits—often including higher returns than publicly-traded funds can offer.

What are alternative investments?

Alternative investments are financial assets that do not fall into any of the conventional investment types below:

  • Stocks
  • Bonds
  • Cash assets

Examples of alternative investments include:

  • Private equity
  • Real estate
  • Hedge funds
  • Managed futures
  • Commodities
  • Fine art and collectibles
  • Derivatives

An article on Forbes.com offers a complementary explanation of alternative investments, defining them as “investments that fall outside traditional categories, such as stocks, bonds and currency — and are often physical assets.”

Why do people invest in alternative investments?

Most commonly, investors will seek out alternative investment asset classes to help diversify their investable assets. These types of investments can help investors seek true portfolio diversification by holding various types of investments across varying markets.

If the alternative investment is also a private investment an investor may also use it as a buffer from potentially volatile movement in the public markets.

While alternative investments are not often used to replace an entire investment portfolio, they can be very valuable as a portfolio enhancer.

What alternative investments does Skyline Wealth Management offer?

Skyline Wealth Management offers four alternative investment products, all grounded in real assets (also known as hard assets). Each product is also a private investment, meaning it doesn’t trade in the public market space.

  • Skyline Apartment REIT – professionally-managed apartment properties in secondary and tertiary Canadian markets
  • Skyline Commercial REIT – professionally-managed light industrial properties along major Canadian transportation corridors, with a focus on logistics and warehousing
  • Skyline Retail REIT – professionally-managed retail properties in secondary and tertiary Canadian markets, with a focus on ‘everyday essential’ brands
  • Skyline Clean Energy Fund – professionally-maintained clean energy producing assets across Ontario

The Skyline1 team has been working in the alternative investment space for 20+ years, and currently owns and manages over $5 billion in alternative investment assets2.

We’d love to show you how our experience and insight into real estate and clean energy investment may be a suitable fit for your investment portfolio. Get in touch with us any time.

[1] Skyline, or the Skyline Group of Companies, is an umbrella term used to generally refer to all associated entities
[2] As at Q2 2020.