Alternative Investments 101: Alternative Investments for Long-Term Success with Tim and Greg Lyons

Tim Lyons  00:37
Welcome to another episode of the Passive Income Brothers podcast. My name is Tim Lyons, and today I’m joined by my older brother Greg. How are you doing today buddy?

Tim Lyons  00:59
older, wiser, some would say not everyone, though. Tim is happy to be here. We have a little different show today; it’s just going to be you and I talking about what we invest in and then what we talk about all the time, and that is the alternative investment space.

Tim Lyons  01:18
So, Greg, we’ve gone down this journey together, which is awesome to have an accountability partner to be rowing in the same direction, not going it alone, because if you go alone, no matter what you do in life, like it’s harder, right? It’s just infinitely harder when you don’t have somebody who can give you feedback or, give you an idea or tell you it’s a horrible idea, or whatever the case may be. So, while we’ve done that, Greg, we’ve kind of jumped into the alternative investment space. And what exactly that means is not your everyday financial advisory, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, annuities, life insurance, I guess you could throw in there, those are kind of like that plain vanilla, what you think about when you sit down with a financial advisor like that’s, that’s how I kind of frame it as the mainstream type of investments, then there’s other things. It’s called alternative investments. And it’s where the hedge funds used to play exclusively, right? Bragging when we’re talking about things like natural resources, private debt, private equity, private credit, infrastructure, real estate, venture capital, all stuff that you don’t, you know, you can’t just go onto your phone onto your Robin Hood account or your Schwab account and pull up the latest valuation and stuff like that. So, it’s more of an illiquid type of product, and before 2012, you had to know somebody to get into one of these reg D, Regulation D, private placement offerings, or you have to have a significant net worth of say, I don’t know, one 510 100 million dollars to get into a hedge fund or something like that. So, but the reason why it’s so powerful for me, Greg, as a firefighter, er, nurse, right, like, kind of like a regular Joe, is that you know, something wasn’t working for me, right? It wasn’t working to kind of clip the coupons, Dave Ramsey, or David Bach, right, like the latte factor. If you save an ISA and I were like, we have to do something different. And it’s exactly the time when you came to me and said, we have to do something different. And, you know, I think this was in, you know, early 2020 2019. We had just bought our first investment property, and you know, searching for that yield, searching for that thing outside of the market, was important to us now; fast forward, you know, five years now, and we’re looking at alternative investments and, and how to not only do we get involved, but how do we get our investors involved. And I didn’t realize the amount of alternative investment information that was out there. When you go to conferences, like the real estate, radio, guys, and they have private credit notes, natural resources, oil and gas wells. I mean, it’s the Wild West out there, and you can invest in anything private debt, private equity, invest in companies, the latest thing, I think, all of the social media influencers are, or they’re buying into HVAC companies and landscaping companies then and making them more, you know, their SEO and making them more valuable that way, there’s a million different ways to make money. And I think that we kind of settled on the quote, unquote, an alternative asset of real estate as our vehicle to kind of really move our kind of ns to be answered. There’s a lot of education to be had and a lot of conferences to go to. And, you know, they’re out there. So why not? And, just to stack on top of that, Greg, not everybody listening to this is going to be ready for alternative investments, right? You may be just starting, and maybe you were bankrupt a couple of years ago; you’re just repairing your credit and trying to get back on your feet. Maybe you sold and had an exit from your company after 30 years, and you’re sitting on a ton of liquidity, ready to be put to work. I mean, there are so many different ways that people make their money, and they choose to allocate it towards investments. But you have to be in the right spot. Right. You have to be in the right spot. You have to be aware that a lot of these funds are accredited. Greg, right? For accredited investors, we can touch on that a little today and what that means. So don’t take this as financial advice. Don’t take this as you know; you should be doing this or doing that. You know, Greg and I do have disclosures, you know, on our website because we are registered reps of a broker-dealer. So obviously, you always get with your team.

Greg Lyons  08:43
Yeah, I think it’s just more informational, right? Where’s money flowing these days? We also pulled up something from Grandview research and data as of 2023. And 20 years ago, back around 2003, alternative investments represented four points a trillion in global assets under management, right? And you fast forward 20 years to 2023. And you have 22 trillion in assets under management or 15% of global assets, right? under management. That’s a huge jump in 20 years, and a lot has happened in 20 years, right? I mean, I don’t even think the iPhone is 20 years old. So, the number of leaps that different industries are making in the alternative asset arena has just kind of blown up as it became more accessible to people. And I think we’re the exact people that took advantage of that kind of wave of saying this is accessible now; I wasn’t previously a part of private equity or hedge funds or real estate private placements, but now I am, and now I’m here to play. So, when you look at this, I think you touched on what Regulation D is. That’s 506 C and 506. B, why don’t we? Why don’t we tackle that right now? We raised money at the city capital to a Regulation D. arrangement. And that’s it. That’s basically how companies raised capital without the need for full-scale registration with the SEC. And two different kinds of offerings will focus on two different kinds of offerings, and that’s the 506. C and the 506. B. offerings.

Tim Lyons  10:34
Cool. Yeah. Greg, you know, I think it’s really powerful when you put the numbers behind the alternatives like that. As far as you know, we’re talking trillions in 2024, not billions anymore. They used to be the biggest number that we, you know, kind of counted up to buy, and that information came from the Chartered Alternative Investment and Analyst’s Association website from January of 2024. So, it’s, I mean, you can see that it’s up-to-date data. And, you know, and there’s another thing that Greg, Greg and I were, were talking about before we hopped on, and this is from a study done by SLC G economic consulting, and it was entitled The Securities and Exchange Commission investor Advisory Committee, dated September 21, 2023. So, we’re talking maybe six months ago. And for Regulation D, which is an exemption like Greg was talking about, there are two ways to get securities across the finish line. The first way is to have registered securities. So, like, you hire an investment bank, like JP Morgan, or Goldman Sachs, or you know, somebody like that takes you through the SEC process of getting your hedge fund or a hedge fund, your ETF, your mutual fund, your IPO, and getting that registered with the SEC, then on the flip side, there are unregistered securities. And that’s where certain exemptions will come in, right? So, you’re exempt from having to get your security registered with the SEC. And as part of, you know, the space that we play in is the Regulation D exemption. And there are two ways to get involved as a 506. B, as in Bravo, and a C, as in Charlie, the 506 B has been around for a while. And that’s how people used to get into these private placement deals, right? But you had to have a substantive relationship with the issuer or the sponsor of the deal. And that’s kind of like how you found out about these deals going on. So, if you were at the yacht club, or the marina or, you know, the golf club, or you know, whatever it may be, that’s kind of how you heard about these things. And it was really democratized to, you know, to the masses, in 2012, with the Jobs Act of 2012. On there, then-President Barack Obama wanted to maybe democratize some of these offerings in an alternative investment space, right? Like, why should you know, regular, you know, investors don’t have the opportunity. So that’s really where the 506 C came in. The difference is that in 506 c, it could now be marketed to people through podcasts, commercials, newspapers, the internet, and social media. But the caveat is that they’re only allowed to have accredited investors join in on those 506 C deals. The 506 B can have an unlimited number of accredited investors, but only up to 35, which is what’s called non-accredited or sophisticated investors. And that’s why it’s so powerful to hop on a call with somebody like Greg Polarize to figure out where you fall on that. You know, are you even eligible? You know, you know, on top of all the other things, we talked about illiquidity and stuff like that. So that’s a little rundown on the Regulation D offering.

Tim Lyons  13:47
Yeah, and, you know, that’s why we never talk about specific deals on our podcasts, right? We don’t know who’s listening. There’s, there’s, we have a variety of listeners all over the world which is, which is crazy to us. But you know, when we offer, we play, put our offerings out to our investors with cityside capital. We don’t come on here and talk specifics because there are non-accredited investors. There’s just, you know, regular people listening. So, we never get specific here. That’s why we’re always talking in broad terms. If you want to learn more about what we do, you can contact us. But you know, this is just for general knowledge, general purpose, and alternative assets. We also interviewed some wonderful people who do all sorts of different things in the real estate world. That’s just kind of to get you thinking and saying, you know, how do I get involved? Our main bread and butter, you know, when we were with cityside capital, is the Regulation D offerings.

Tim Lyons  14:46
So, let’s put some numbers behind this, Greg, according to that study that I referenced before. You know, at least 15 trillion of Regulation D securities were sold from 2009 to 2020. It can paired to 16 point 4 trillion of registered securities sold. So, think about that. I mean, it’s only, well, I’m going to say only 1.4 trillion differences, Greg, but the drop of the hat neck dropping that, to follow that up, you know, 4.4 trillion of reg D securities were sold in 21, and 2022, which is 13%, more than the 3.9 trillion, that proceeded from the public offerings, or, you know, the registered offerings. So, you can see, this is a space that has grown exponentially in the 2000s. Right, and it’s only getting bigger. And I’m going to leave you with this last one: 75.7% of reg D proceeds were in offerings that were sponsored by what’s called an RIA, or registered investment advisor. So that’s like the financial advisor that you sit with at the bank, the storefront, or wherever you go. So, these are actually, you know, there’s a whole community of RAS out there that are participating, and they may have access to these types of deals. So, you know, they may not show them to you if you’re not accredited as white, never heard about them. Or if you’re accredited, and you kind of told them that you are not into speculation or not into illiquid assets, you know, they may never show it to you because you’re just, you know, you told them that that’s not what you would like, you know, but if you really tell them that, hey, I want to keep x amount, you know, the majority of my money here, and I want to take this little slice, and I want to maybe participate in, you know, a private placement, you know, that’s maybe the conversation to have with your financial adviser.

Tim Lyons  16:37
Well, that’s the interesting thing: if you don’t ask the right questions, you’re never going to get the right answer. And whether you’re talking to us, you know, that offer reg D offerings? Or if you’re talking to your financial advisor at Schwab, or, you know, wherever your financial advisor is, you have to ask the right questions, right? And I think a lot of the times, if you’re younger, they may keep you in 80%, equities, 20% bonds, you get a little bit older, 6040 allocations. But, you know, as you try to grow your wealth, you know, I think Tim, you put that, that $1 million mark out there a little bit earlier in the podcast, if you just go without the latte, in 40 years, you’ll have a million dollars saved up, I think the way the world’s going and inflation, how much things cost, just the cost of living. And then if you layer on kids and all different sorts of things, $1 million, which used to be the bogey of what you needed to, you know, kind of save up for, probably is not going to afford you the lifestyle that you want to have, you know, X number of years down the road. So, while I personally have exposure to the stock market, I also have exposure to these alternative assets. That’s not for everyone. But I do have a slice of my net worth in these alternative assets, to hopefully not only get to that million dollars saved, but you know, kind of blow past that, but also maybe even get some cash flow, get some appreciation from the different investments that I’ve made, you know, and you take that in aggregate with the equities I have, you know, hopefully, one day I’ll be able to sit on the beach, I may be you know, 107 years old, you know, sipping on a Mai Tai, but, you know, that’s the action that I and Lisa are taking my wife to ensure that we have the retirement that we want.

Tim Lyons  18:35
Greg, well said, you know, we were at a conference in January, and one of the speakers mentioned up on stage, he goes, raise your hand, if you know, five or ten years ago, you told yourself that if you could only have $10,000 a month in passive income, you would make it you’d be there. And I kid you not out of the, I don’t know, 300 or so attendees. Literally everybody raised their hands, you know, and said, Yeah, a number of years ago, if somebody would have said, you know, 10,000 a month, I would have been awesome, right? And I’m not saying that’s not awesome. He then said, tell me today, if you could run your whole household on $10,000 a month, right? And you think about that with the mortgage and the two cars and maybe the schools and the kid’s sport and the travel sports and the vacation, and you go on and on. Right. And the grocery bill and everything, you know, a family of five, I don’t know that I, you know, can say that confidently. We could do it on time if we really had time. But to have the lifestyle maintenance, you know, a lot of people didn’t raise their hand, and we were all kind of giggling to each other, you know, because that was certainly a goal of mine at one point in time, right? So, but to Greg’s point, you know, with inflation as we’ve all kind of been sitting here over the last couple of years, and I pulled it up Greg, dollar and phrase inflation from 2020 Till today, you know and 2020 it’s recorded as be Paying 1.23% And then dollar inflation and 21 4.7 22 8% 23 4.12, and so forth and 2024 1.22%. So, you can see that there’s a devaluing of the dollars, right? So 100, a nominal 101 $100 bill doesn’t buy $100 worth of stuff that it didn’t in 2020. It just doesn’t, right? So, once you wrap your head around that, and you realize that, you know, I not only need to keep up with inflation but then get ahead of it to start growing my wealth. So, Greg, I think we just passed over one thing I want to touch on: the accredited investors. Right? Yeah. So, there are a couple of definitions for an accredited investor. But you know, the main ones are these: Number one is that you, as an investor, have had an income of $200,000 or more over the last two years with the expectation of making that much going forward. The second way is basically the same thing. But it’s $300,000, right over the last two years, with the expectation of making that going forward. But that’s what you and your spouse do if you file jointly. And the third way is an Andorra statement. And you could have the first two or this one, or just this one, and it’s a net worth of at least $1 million, without counting the equity in your primary residence. So, you know, finding out if you if you’re not sure how to calculate net worth, you just Google net worth how to calculate it, you know, talk to your financial, you know, advisor or talk to your CPA, all those folks on your team will be able to help you figure out what your net worth might be. Also, they are the same folks who you know who are able to give you a letter of accreditation. So, if you do want to participate in a 506 C offering, or you know, Regulation D 506, B, or C offering that they can actually give you a letter of accreditation, there are templatized versions, there’s sometimes some people do like a letterhead statement. But yes, just knowing kind of where you stand, you know, and also, if you have a series seven, if you have a series 82. And there are 165 or 65, you know, those also will qualify you as accredited. So, I mean, if you go to sec.gov and type in the accredited investor definition, there’s a whole webpage that kind of goes over this stuff.

Tim Lyons  22:23
You know, I think this is good information. And I think when you take this all in, you have to say to yourself, how do I get involved? And I think if you’re listening to this, you’re taking the great first step of saying, how do I get involved? I need to learn from different people, right? We’ve always advocated podcasts, books, and educating ourselves, which is fantastic. But, you know, I think, you know, nothing really replaces reaching out to someone and having a conversation, right? You know, sometimes not all this is black and white, you know, like, take step one, take step two,  takes step three, you know, it’s, I think it’s like when you aggregate information, you know, different things, click in your mind and say, oh, you know, I have, I have a real interest in what they’re doing in oil and gas, I have real interest in what they’re doing in real estate, you know, buying small businesses. And I think the more people you talk to in different sectors, I think you learn more about, you know, what you’re drawn to, and if you’re drawn to something, you’ll be more interested in it, you’re going to learn more about it. And that’s where you can really start to make the jump. So, you know, for people that are, you know, interested in real estate investing, you know, a couple of different things like that, we offer a variety of different things that at cityside capital, you know, I think the best first step is to jump on a call. I mean, you know, we, as you know, we can talk, and I think, you know, the different things that we could bring up learning more about you and your circumstance can help us say, hey, we may not be able to help you, but we know of someone that can, and I think that’s important when you just start the conversation.

Tim Lyons  24:06
Right? 100%, right, because, you know, we’ve had tons of investor calls over the last couple of years now, which is kind of crazy to look back and think of them, but just certainly been people who are kicking the tires, and they’re like, you know, explain to me what you do. And we have a conversation like, Nah, man, I’m good. You know, I understand it, you know, I’m not ready for that. And I wish them well. And I say, Listen, if there’s any way I can support you going forward, you know, you know, if you need a CPA recommendation or something, you know, I’ll tell you who I use or whatever, you know, like, then there’s other folks who were like, you know, gosh, I wish it would have gotten started 20 years ago, I mean, I never even knew about this, and there’s everybody in between. So, but Greg, you know, this might be a good chance for us to kind of tell people on the podcast, you know, what is the process of investing in a 506 b or c offering or private placement offering, if you will, with a company like ours, right because we get that question a lot, because you know, even though you can read the books and go on the podcast, until you actually start clicking the buttons, signing documents, you know, e-signing documents, wiring money getting distributions, getting your monthly updates or quarterly updates, until you actually do the thing you don’t really know maybe what the process might look like. So, what’s kind of talking about that a little bit?

Tim Lyons  25:24
Yeah, I think the first I think the first thing you should do is hop on a call, right? With either one of us, you know, or Paul, just say, hey, how does this work? And how does it fit into my life? You don’t have to give us your social security number, your firstborn, your middle nor ame, your mother’s maiden; wee; we don’t need any of that. It’s a general conversation to say, hey, this is kind of where I am in life. This is what I’m interested in. How do you see this fitting in? And I think that’s a great thing to do; it could be a 10-minute call, it’d be a 30-minute call, depending on, you know, what you want to talk about. And you know, it’s just kind of a learning process. And we may say, may wish you well and never speak to you again. Or you may want to take the next step and say, hey, why don’t you put me on your mailing list? And I think that’s where the education just kind of explodes. Because not only and we’re not going to hit you with an email every three days, it’s more of like a general email each month, you know, kind of telling you what’s going on. And then we send out our offerings. And when we send out our offerings, they could be one a month, they could be one every other month, you know, depending on our deal flow. But when you get on that mailing list, each of our offerings will have an investment summary; they’ll typically have a webinar done by the operator, where you know, most of your questions can be asked, and I think when you see between 135 of these offerings, in different asset classes, multifamily, self-storage, industrial, you start to kind of learn the different language, and you start to understand, you know, what the investment summaries are telling you. And that’s when you can come up with really great, great, great questions, which may lead to another phone call.

Tim Lyons  27:09
That’s exactly, uh, Greg; I always tell people to listen, you know, start opening the emails, right? Even if you have no intention of ever investing in that particular offering, you know, quick click the button, see what the offering looks like, read it, you know, click the webinar, you know, you don’t have to watch it on your TV screen. I mean, the TV screen, your computer screen, you can, you know, I listen to a lot of webinars in the car on the way to work or just doing my errands, right? You know, but listen to it, right? Because you’re getting the picture from the issuer or the sponsor themselves. What’s the backstory behind the property? Why are we doing this? What’s the why behind the how, right? And I think you can also get a feel for the sponsors. Do I like to sponsor? Do I like the way they talk to the audience? The way they explain things, you know, all those things. It’s a recorded webinar, but you can get a lot of information from it. And then I always invite people, you know, even if you’re not going to invest in the deal that we’re doing, you know, hop on a call, bring your questions, you know, if you want, we can share our screens, we can go through page by page, we can just dart around to whatever the questions you might have, because all of that, Greg is, is education, right? If you’re really committed to investing in alternatives and learning about them, you know, this is a great way to do it, right? See what’s out there right now, and see how it’s going. Right? Greg, finally, then, after that second call, or you know, sharing screens, if you really liked the deal, and you want to invest, you know, there’s a button that’s called a soft commitment, you can hit the button and, and submit your soft commitment. And what that means is, hey, guys, you know, I’m interested in this deal. And I just need some more time for due diligence; I need time for, you know, moving money out of one account to the next account, you know, whatever the case might be, but you’re, you’re stopping the clock because these are on a first come first serve basis. So, the only fair way to do it, to be quite honest, is to And it stops the clock, right? And then you know, you raise your hand, and you say I’m interested. Once you do this off-commit, that’s when you’ll get the subscription documents, they’re called, so the subscription documents and the operating agreement for whatever the offering might call for. Those are usually done by a DocuSign type of program, where you can electronically sign and return those documents with a few clicks of a button. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t kind of tell you. I think Dad taught us this, Greg, from an early age; you should probably read them. I know people always have a good idea. You know, click, click, click, click, and they send it right back. But you should read the agreements. I mean, I do. I know I’m a pain in the butt about that kind of stuff. And I know I’m not an attorney, but you know, you have to read the operating agreement and the subscription docs.

Tim Lyons  29:47
Well, Tim, you also learn a lot, and you may come up with some more questions, but that’s the important thing.

Tim Lyons  29:54
Finally, you would wire the money, right? We have what’s called wiring instructions with the bank name, the entity name, and whatever the offering is buying, purchasing, or investing in. And it would have the bank’s name and address and a phone number, usually, and then it has the routing number and the account number that you’re wiring the money to, and then you would get a confirmation that the wire was received. And then what should we expect next, Greg? So, you know, we always get this call, you know, this kind of question, I should say, from brand new investors is, you know, alright, I wired the money, now what? You know, and it’s kind of exciting. I still remember, you know, sending my first 50 Oh, yeah, wire, and, you know, sweating to death until I heard that it was received. But the next step is that you know, you get an email, when we close, right, we’ll get an email when we close whatever, say it’s a multifamily property or whatever it might be that we’re investing in. And then, you know, the communication cadence, right? Or are there going to be monthly updates or quarterly updates? You know, Greg and I are a huge fan of the monthly updates from the issuers themselves because it gives them everybody a little bit of comfort factor to know, every 30 days, I’m going to know what’s going on with that property that I invested in. And then the distribution schedule, you know, is it the fifth of every month? Is it, you know, 90 days, I’m sorry, 60 days, after the quarter close, you know, there’s all different types of structures and agreements that, you know, these deals have. But that’s really kind of how the process looks, from, you know, kind of getting educated, hopping on the call, to looking at deals, watching the webinars to submitting your questions, hopping on another call, if you need it, you know, getting a soft commitment in wiring your money, what to expect next. And that’s really the process of being an LP, a limited partner in one of these types of deals.

Tim Lyons  31:44
Yeah, and the questions don’t stop there. And that’s fine. You know, around March of every year, you’re going to get a k one, with your share the depreciation from the, you know, from the property, and, you know, depending on what you invest in, and that’s going to open up a whole new canon of questions. And, you know, we’re about a year at that time when we’re starting to get the depreciation questions. And I love it when people reach out. Hey, what do I do with this? Do I give it to my accountant? What do I say, you know, like, all those different things? That’s fine; whether you’re a longtime investor or a first-time investor, these are great questions. Because, again, you’re increasing your investing muscles, right? You’ll learn more about the process and, and that, again, that’s the most important thing, hopefully, growing your money, you know, growing, you know, growing your capital, but you’re learning how to do it. And that’s just, like, just so important. So, you don’t just stay in the, you know, very dogmatic, you know, 6040 allocations, you know, you’re learning how to, you know, really grow your money. You know, depending on what your goals are, right, we’re not selling everyone that they should invest in alternatives, you know, that that’s up to the person that’s up to their own research. But this is just a way that we’re doing it, and you know, we are loving what we’re doing, and the alternative investment space doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere. And that’s exciting for us as capital raisers. But the opportunities that are out there are exponential. And that’s very exciting for us.

Tim Lyons  33:21
Greg, when we’re born and we come out of the womb, we don’t start walking on day one. And the same thing goes for becoming a skilled investor, right? You don’t just come out because you graduate college, or you started your own business, or you’re retired, you know, it doesn’t just automatically make you a great investor or good investor or whatever. So, I would say this is the process. Right? Greg, Paul, and I are here to support that process in any way we can. So, we do have a new phone number, Greg; I’d love to get that out on the podcast here. It’s 844-289-1075. So, you could always email us, Tim, at citysidecap.com. Greg at cityside cap.com, or Paul at cityside cap.com. So, with that, Greg, that was a great episode. Just kind of do some housekeeping, write some definitions, and give people a bit of process-oriented mechanics-type stuff. So, you know, if you’re listening to the podcast, and you’ve hung along this far, that means you got some value out of it. And you know, Greg and I, you know, we love to hear from the listeners, whether it’s by email or DM on LinkedIn or something like that. If you got any questions, or if you want to hear certain topics, if it’s something that we’ve covered, or you want to go down a little deeper, or you want to a certain operator on, you know, send, send us an email, because we’re always looking for, you know, feedback and whether it’s good, bad, the ugly. And then, finally, if you could give us a five-star rating and review on whatever podcast platform you’re listening to this on, just take a minute, please. There’s one link in our show notes. It’s one click, and it’ll bring you right to a page where you can leave. That is much appreciated. It gets out. It gets our show out in front of more people. It gets us some exposure; it gets us to be able to get bigger names on this podcast. And just really help us spread the word.

Greg Lyons  35:12
And more than anything, really, it’s a gentleman’s agreement. I mean, we put this out for free; the least you could do is leave a little rating and review just a gentlemen’s agreement.

Tim Lyons  35:22
I love it. So, Greg, that’s going to be done for this week’s edition of the Passive Income Brothers podcast, and we look forward to serving you again next week.