Building Portfolios That Never Say Sorry with Kinsted's Brent Smith

In this illuminating episode of Insight is Capital, host Pierre Daillie sits down with Brent Smith, CIO of Kinsted Wealth, for a deep dive into how private investors can now build truly institutional-style portfolios. Smith—who spent decades leading Franklin Templeton’s Multi-Asset Strategies group before co-founding Kinsted—shares a masterclass on the evolution from the 60/40 portfolio to a comprehensively diversified portfolio structure that mirrors the strategies of pension funds and endowments.

This is a conversation about rethinking diversification, embracing patient capital, and building the kind of portfolio resilience engendered by institutional and private wealth management. Smith unpacks how Kinsted’s approach to portfolio design, liquidity, and alpha generation is quietly transforming how advisors and their clients think about wealth, access, and opportunity.

💡 3 Key Takeaways

1. From 60/40 to Institutional Thinking “If you really want a true institutional-style diversified portfolio, you have to embrace the private markets.” Smith explains how Kinsted rebuilt its platform around public, private, and alternative assets to reflect how pensions like CPP and endowments like Yale invest.

2. The Power of Patient Capital Smith calls it “the patience dividend.” Investing in drawdown funds like Brookfield’s Global Transition Fund requires long-term commitment—but it’s how institutions extract real value. “You require a lot of patience when you’re investing in private assets,” he says. “Ultimately, it’s going to come.”

3. Portable Alpha for Private Wealth Through a bespoke partnership with Morgan Stanley, Kinsted built a multi-strategy hedge fund platform inside its global equity pool—targeting MSCI World +4–6% returns with near-zero beta. “Everyone’s doing this in the institutional space,” Smith notes, “just not in the high-net-worth space.”

📍 Timestamped Chapters

00:00 – Introduction: From democratization to institutionalization of investing 02:30 – Brent Smith’s career journey: From Franklin Templeton to Kinsted Wealth 05:00 – The behavior gap in diversification and the problem with FOMO 08:00 – Re-engineering 60/40: The 50/30/20 evolution 11:00 – Why private markets are the next frontier 15:00 – How Kinsted built access to institutional-grade assets 20:00 – The patience of private investing: Brookfield and beyond 25:00 – Private market myths and education gaps 33:00 – Data centers, energy transition, and thematic private investing 40:00 – The liquidity illusion: Long-term capital vs short-term fear 47:00 – The relationship premium: Access through trust and time 55:00 – Portable alpha and structural alpha explained 1:07:00 – Partnering with advisors: Building the next-gen private platform 1:11:00 – The future of advice: Proactive vs reactive 1:13:00 – Inflation, valuations, and the end of the Fed Put 1:17:00 – Closing thoughts: Patient capital and the pension mindset

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