Private assets, the illiquid assets, are fundamentally beneficial to institutional investors with consistent and growing cash-flow needs. Indeed, it is their very illiquidity that provides this characteristic and allows the entire portfolio to grow while supporting spending programs. Russell Investments believes a competently managed exposure to illiquid assets will generate higher returns than comparable liquid assets in many market environments.

In this study, we simulated groups of 5,000 multi-asset with private asset portfolios and compared the information we inferred from those simulations to listed assets and to multi-asset listed only portfolios. We explore private assets added value to multi-asset portfolios, by evaluating:

• Private assets during periods of market disruption
• Stabilizing returns in a downturn and delivering cash in a pinch