Democratizing Alternative Asset Investing
Access Alternative Investments, Inc. (“access”) is a FinTech company that has a primary goal of democratizing institutional-quality alternative investments. Democratization is the action of making something accessible to everyone. In the context of investing, it means making available to a broader universe of investors the opportunity to invest in categories of investments not previously available to them.
So, how does access democratize investing?
Let’s begin by examining what access does.
access offers investment opportunities to accredited investors (and, in the case of certain investment classes, all investors) in asset classes that are classified as alternative investments. Alternative investments are investments that are neither stocks nor bonds. The alternative investment assets offered (and anticipated to be offered by access) consist of hard (physical assets you can see) or soft (such as contractual cash flow claims) assets falling in a diverse range of industries, including:
- Transportation (aircraft, railcars, trucking, maritime and intermodal containers)
- Infrastructure (cell phone towers, toll roads, etc.)
- Royalties (pharma, sports team merchandise and music catalogues)
- Real estate
These assets (“Bespoke Assets”) will typically provide its investors with a current cash flow and a residual value at the end of a related lease. In addition, access will offer investors the opportunity to invest in loans secured by hard assets and/or income streams (“Bespoke Loans”), which will provide investors current income.
An important characteristic of the Bespoke Asset investments and the Bespoke Loan investments is that each of such investments are in respect of discrete and identified assets, not some general pool over which an investor has no control. With this type of investment, an investor can make
an informed decision on its investment. In addition, the vetting and curating processes employed by access (working with its best-in-class vertical partners), together with the due diligence and intense legal and financial structuring of our offerings, allows us to create investment opportunities for our investors that are of institutional quality.
The Bespoke Assets that access offers and will offer may be sold only to investors who are accredited investors, while the Bespoke Loans may be sold to any investor. According to various estimates, there are over 13.5 million households in the United States that are accredited investors – which is some 10.6% of all American households. These households’ control over $70 trillion of wealth.
There are three basic categories of investors in respect of accredited investor status: Individual, Finance Professional and Business Entity.
Individual
If the investor is an individual, in order to be an accredited investor, that investor must have:
- Net worth over $1 million, excluding primary residence (individually or with spouse or partner); or
- Income over $200,000 (individually) or $300,000 (with spouse or partner) in each of the prior two years, and reasonably expects the same for the current year.
Finance Professional
If the investor is a finance professional, in order to be an accredited investor, that investor must be one of the following:
- An investment professional in good standing holding the general securities representative license (Series 7), the investment adviser representative license (Series 65), or the private securities offerings representative license (Series 82)
- A directors, executive officer, or general partner (GP) of the company selling the securities (or of a GP of that company)
- Any “family client” of a “family office” that qualifies as an accredited investor
- For investments in a private fund, “knowledgeable employees” of the fund
Business Entity
If the investor is a business entity (such as a corporation, partnership or a limited liability company (LLC)), in order to be an accredited investor that investor must satisfy any number of specifications, the most common of which are (i) owning investments in excess of $5,000,000 or (ii) in the case of corporations, partnerships, LLCs, trusts, 501(c)(3) organizations, employee benefit plans, “family offices” and any “family client” of that office, having assets in excess of $5,000,000.
The alternative investments offered and to be offered by access – our institutional quality offerings of Bespoke Assets and Bespoke Loans that are discrete (non-pooled) investments — have not been previously offered (or have been offered only a very limited basis) for purchase by the individual investors, and their advisors, who utilize the access platform.
These alternative investments had previously been available only to institutional investors and certain very high net worth individuals and family offices, with minimum investment sizes beyond the prudent reach of many affluent investors. access, then, is proud to be a leader in the democratization of the alternative investment marketplace by making available to our broad investor base our Bespoke Asset and Bespoke Loan investment opportunities. This explains our tag line:
Institutional-quality alternative investments – not just for institutions
