Asset Management
EXCLUSIVE: Bitcoin Key For Diversified Portfolios – TOBAM
Christophe Roehri, deputy CEO at TOBAM, a Paris-based asset manager, discusses with WealthBriefing the advantages for investors of holding bitcoin in their portfolio.
Despite crypto market volatility, Christophe Roehri at TOBAM thinks that investors
should have 1 or 2 per cent of their portfolios invested in areas
such as bitcoin.
Speaking exclusively in London to WealthBriefing, Roehri
said TOBAM’s philosophy is for investors to have a very
diversified portfolio to collect the risk premium of an asset
class.
And on bitcoin, Roehri explained how to approach it.
“The real rationale for this is to realise that whenever a small
part of an investor’s portfolio is allocated to bitcoin – below 2
per cent – it will reduce the volatility of the portfolio, making
it less risky, even when bitcoin is highly volatile,” he said.
“This is because the pattern of returns is so different from
bonds and equities.”
Roehri said bitcoin is different from other cryptocurrencies due
to its limited supply, with a maximum of 21 million bitcoins
available. “It’s an asset with a limited supply and it is the
perfect candidate to be the next store of value as it is simple
and very robust,” he stressed.
Such comments come at a time when recent heavy falls in bitcoin
and other cryptocurrencies have added to debate on whether they
can give “ballast” to a portfolio or are a mistake. For example,
at Nickel
Digital Asset Management, the firm told
this publication in February 2021 that holding bitcoin in a
portfolio can protect the downside, although if portfolio
holdings rise above a certain percentage, it can make investments
more volatile. Rapid falls to cryptos such as bitcoin and
“stablecoins” earlier in 2022 have rattled nerves, however. In
May, for example, PGIM, the $1.4 trillion investment arm of
US-listed Prudential Financial, said cryptocurrencies were a
“poor choice” for long-term investors and made portfolios
riskier.
There is clearly a debate in progress. TOBAM’s Roehri has a
particular view of how to diversify assets.
“We invented a way to measure the diversification ratio, known as
TOBAM’s Maximum Diversification® approach, which has been adopted
by industry,” he explained.
The approach is supported by patented research and a mathematical
definition of diversification, providing clients with diversified
core exposure in both the equity and fixed income markets.
In 2017 the firm also launched an open-ended fund which
invested in bitcoin.
Explaining the main advantages of it, Roehri explained that it is
easy to use, efficient, secure and TOBAM integrates a
sustainability dimension in the fund by offsetting the carbon
footprint of bitcoin.
Regulation
Looking at the case for industry regulation for cryptos, he said
very diverging directions are being seen now. “A lot of people
have scenarios that would mark the end of bitcoin, like China,
which banned it,” he added. But he believes it’s too late for
governments to stop what’s happening with bitcoin. “There will be
regulation but bitcoin is too advanced to go away,” he stressed.
Some emerging markets already use bitcoin as a medium of exchange. Last September, El Salvador caused ripples by making bitcoin legal tender, for example.
In the US, Roehri thinks the regulator will make it possible for
investment companies to use bitcoin, with guidelines to accompany
the evolution of it rather than to stop it.
He said that the UK and Switzerland are also starting to show a
positive approach to crypto, whilst it is still unclear what
direction the EU regulation will take. He believes that a
framework regulation will help the adoption of crypto but that
worldwide regulation is not realistic.
See
here an earlier article on this topic.