The costs of luxury
Investments sold as exclusive luxury products bring more than just financial costs. In all areas of your life, luxury also brings with it the burden of complexity.
It’s counterintuitive, because luxury is sold to us as a way to reward ourselves. Whether it’s an expensive Bordeaux or a high-end German car, the claim is that it makes your life more enjoyable. And, frankly, it’s hard to argue with that. But these luxuries don’t come without a cost—not just the obvious financial cost, but also the cost of more complexity introduced into your life.
I’ll use the car as an example. You’ll certainly benefit from the enhanced power, handling, braking ability, and technology while you’re driving the car (and while it’s under warranty). But with more features come more things that will potentially break or malfunction. You’ll spend more time at the dealership service department. You’ll worry more about what the next big repair might be. You’ll enjoy the luxury, and you may justifiably believe it is worth the money you paid for it, but it will add complexity to your life.
Similarly, if you’re a wine lover, your appreciation of grape varieties, vintages, and terroir has added depth and enjoyment to your life. But it’s also added complexity—you will no longer be happy with a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck or the house wine served at your next banquet.
Still, in these areas, while luxury adds complexity, it can also serve to improve your enjoyment of life. What I have a hard time understanding is when people invite complexity into their lives with little to no added benefit. For me, what I own in my investment portfolio has absolutely no bearing on my happiness.
Prestige investments are sold as luxury products. If your advisor is branding themselves as a “family office” or touts “exclusive access” to star managers or brand-name funds, you are probably being sold a luxury product. This is all fine, as long as the performance created by these investments supports the higher prices you’ll undoubtedly be paying. Spoiler alert… it usually does not.
Worse, these investments carry their own complexities. Before you heed the call of a highly diversified, “institutional quality” portfolio—of private equity or of hedge funds, along with everything that comes with these asset classes—understand what costs (both financial and mental) come with it, and ask yourself whether it’s worth it.
To start, we’ve just seen that more complex strategies often come with higher fees and more complex fee structures (all the better to ensure you don’t know exactly how much it’s costing you), including performance fees. Performance fees are often sold as “aligning” the money manager’s interest with your own, but, frankly, I don’t need to claim 20 percent of my client’s profits as my own in order to align my interests with theirs. (And if I do, I think that says something about me.) To paraphrase the great Jack Bogle, the unique thing about investing, unlike most things in life, is that you get what you don’t pay for.
Research also becomes more difficult as complexity increases, and if you don’t do it yourself, you have to hire someone to do it for you. Blindly handing money over to anyone, no matter how highly recommended they come, is a recipe for disaster. I hate to invoke the ghost of Bernie Madoff, but there are several stories of individuals who didn’t give him any money because they couldn’t figure out how he generated his returns, or who was turned off by the lack of controls in place to safeguard assets. Due diligence is a necessary step that can save you from losing everything. Get ready to wade through endless offering memorandums and legal agreements they hope you’ll never read.
Risk control and cash flow management can likewise become more difficult. For example, private equity funds don’t require you to pay your entire commitment up front, but rather are funded over several years, as the manager identifies investment targets. In the meantime, you need to find a parking spot for the cash, and sacrifice longer-term returns for the benefit of remaining liquid and ready for “capital calls.” Managing cash flows (both in and out) from this type of investment can be quite time consuming and occasionally challenging.
And don’t forget the illiquidity that could lock you into unfavorable terms for years, and potentially prevent you from accessing your cash when you might need it.
I once knew someone who, by my rough estimate, had over twenty direct investments in private companies, about ten real estate rentals, and investments in about ten other limited partnerships, all in addition to a traditional investment portfolio. Oh, and on the side she was running a division of a multinational corporation.
These investments were hard to manage. Some had hung around on her books for decades, zombie companies barely hanging on. A couple were embroiled in various legal battles between founders, investors, and management. All together, they must have involved a collective several thousand pages of legal documents—shareholder and partnership agreements, rental contracts, and so on.
And after all was said and done, on average, she made the most money in a very simple portfolio of publicly traded stocks. Her lowest cost, lowest risk, and lowest maintenance investment was also her best performer. This same portfolio gave her the most control over her own fate (not being tied to a single firm), the most liquidity, and the most freedom. Oh, and the least headaches.
It’s not sexy, nor does it feel exclusive. You won’t be able to brag about it at your next cocktail party, and you’re not going to travel to exotic locales for extravagant shareholder meetings. But it works.
I’m not saying you need to avoid alternative investments entirely, but I am saying that it’s more work than you think. Legal paperwork, extra due diligence, and tax complexities are all part of the game. And if you’re not doing it yourself (you won’t want to—trust me), you’re going to be paying someone else to do it for you. On top of all that, there’s no guarantee of earning higher returns. And even if you do, less of those returns will make their way to your pocket because of all the extra costs.
In a way, what I’m talking about is investment minimalism.
Complexity doesn’t just cost money—it costs mindshare. It costs freedom. Expunge it from your investment portfolio, and see how much better you feel.
It will free space in your mind to focus on the things that really matter to you.
Imagine if your investment portfolio was actually one less thing you had to worry about.