Meet Ted Yarbrough, Yieldstreet’s new Chief Investment Officer
Yieldstreet recently named Ted Yarbrough, a seasoned executive with nearly 30 years of experience at Citigroup and its predecessor companies, its new Chief Investment Officer.
At Yieldstreet, Ted will lead investment strategy across real estate, private equity, private credit, structured products, legal finance, art finance, managed funds, and more. Ted will also spearhead the delivery of timely insights and education to Yieldstreet’s community of more than 420K members.
We sat down with Ted to get his take on the current market environment, timely opportunities for investors, and more.
What are your perspectives on the public market volatility we are experiencing?
It’s no secret there is a lot of uncertainty weighing on the market right now — inflation and the Fed’s responsive tightening, the debt ceiling debate, concerns about regional banks, and even the El Niño weather pattern. But public market volatility is really becoming more the norm than the exception, given the interconnectivity of the global economy, commoditization of news and data, and high concentrations of investment dollars in institutional hands. The market will continue to be very sensitive to economic and sociopolitical events, and prone to overreaction.
What opportunities do you see in today’s market for investors?
Given the significant increase in yields since the Fed tightening cycle and with the pressure in the banking sector, I see great opportunity in the private credit markets, where investors can achieve very attractive risk-adjusted yields, supported by strong cash flow coverage, deal structure, and collateral.
After working with institutional investors for the majority of your career, what lessons from that space would be helpful for individual investors?
I always fall back on Warren Buffett’s advice to only invest in things you understand. There have been plenty of examples of institutional investors following the crowd into the hot new area without doing the work, and obviously individual investors can fall into that trap as well.
Your career has largely been in alternative and structured assets. What drew you to that area of finance?
The beginning of my career in the early ’90s coincided with the advent of the structured finance market, which allowed investors to have direct exposure to assets such as real estate, credit card receivables, and auto loans, but in a structured and credit-enhanced format. This technology significantly expanded the investment opportunities in the fixed income market and allowed financial institutions to achieve more efficiency and diversification in their funding sources. The tools and the structures from the early ’90s have continued to evolve and are now utilized to finance assets as diverse as stadiums, art, wind farms, and music royalties. I was extremely fortunate to have been involved in this space from the early stages of my career.
What's Yieldstreet?
Yieldstreet provides access to alternative investments previously reserved only for institutions and the ultra-wealthy. Our mission is to help millions of people generate $3 billion of income outside the traditional public markets by 2025. We are committed to making financial products more inclusive by creating a modern investment portfolio.
2 Represents an net annualized return, using an internal rate of return (IRR) methodology, with respect to the matured investments shown in your Portfolio experience, utilizing the effective dates and amounts of subscriptions and distributions to and from the investments, net of management fees and all other expenses charged to the investments.[read more]