Alternative Investments
Creative Planning’s alternative investment management solutions help high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth investors diversify their portfolios and pursue opportunities beyond traditional markets. Our advisors connect clients with institutional-quality private markets and alternative investment strategies tailored to their goals and integrated with their broader investment portfolio and wealth management plan.
Why Alternative Investments?
For many high-net-worth investors, traditional investments such as stocks and bonds may not be sufficient to achieve their long-term objectives. Public markets can offer liquidity and transparency, but they can also introduce potential concentration risk, volatility and return limitations during certain market environments. Alternative investments — accessed through private markets and other non-traditional asset classes — provide an opportunity to complement traditional portfolios by adding differentiated sources of return and diversification.
The alternative and private market space includes private equity, private real estate, private credit and other alternatives. These investments can move independently of public markets, which can help smooth portfolio volatility and add resilience over time. While these assets can involve different (and sometimes higher) levels of risk, reduced liquidity and potentially higher fees than many mutual funds or traditional asset classes, they can also enhance diversification, improve risk-adjusted returns and help mitigate portfolio volatility over time.
At Creative Planning, we evaluate how private investments and other, more complex strategies can complement your broader wealth plan. We provide investment advice and information to support income generation, capital appreciation, inflation protection and values-based goals, depending on your specific objectives. By thoughtfully integrating alternatives into your investment strategy, we work to create a more balanced, strategically positioned portfolio that adapts to evolving market conditions.
Our Integrated Approach to Investments
At Creative Planning, we believe successful investing begins with a financial plan tailored to you. Our alternative investment management is part of a comprehensive investment management and wealth management strategy designed for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individual investors. Rather than managing investments in isolation, we look at your full financial picture — including your liquidity needs, tax considerations, long-term legacy and estate planning goals and more.
Our in-house specialists in tax, estate and retirement planning develop customized alternative investment strategies designed to complement your broader wealth management plan, using diversification as a core principle. We construct portfolios that combine traditional assets and traditional investment approaches with private markets and other alternative asset classes. This balanced mix of traditional and alternative asset classes aims to broaden potential investment opportunities, manage risk and support growth and capital preservation across market cycles.
As fiduciary advisors and experienced alternative investment managers, our role is to provide objective investment advice tailored to your unique circumstances. Every portfolio we build is designed to balance growth and preservation, leveraging alternative investments where appropriate to help you pursue your financial objectives with confidence and clarity.
Alternative Investment Strategies
Our alternative investment services are designed to help you access institutional-quality investment funds and direct investments while maintaining a disciplined, tax-efficient approach. Depending on your goals, time horizon, risk tolerance and eligibility status, our team may recommend one or more of the following alternative investment strategies:
- Private equity – Gain access to privately held companies with growth potential through specialized funds and direct investments, helping diversify your portfolio and capture opportunities beyond public markets.
- Infrastructure investments – Participate in private infrastructure as part of your allocation to real assets. This can include power generation, data storage and transfer, business critical infrastructure, and more. These strategies can provide a high degree of cash flow predictability, produce returns derived primarily from income, and produce revenues and cash flows generally governed by either rate regulation by governmental agencies or long-term contracts with creditworthy counterparties.
- Real estate investments – Participate in commercial and residential projects as part of your allocation to real assets. These strategies can provide income generation, appreciation potential and inflation protection and may include vehicles such as private real estate funds or, where appropriate, real estate investment trusts.
- Private credit – Access credit markets through direct lending opportunities and private credit funds that can deliver attractive yields and portfolio stability, supporting your broader private credit investing objectives.
- Tax-Efficient Structuring – Integrate strategic tax planning into your investment decisions to help manage tax liabilities and enhance after-tax returns, particularly when evaluating higher-fee, higher-risk alternative investment vehicles.
Each of these strategies is carefully evaluated within the context of your overall wealth plan, helping to ensure your investments support your broader financial and legacy goals while maintaining appropriate diversification and risk management.
Why Clients Choose Creative Planning
High-net-worth investors turn to Creative Planning for a level of alternative investment management that goes beyond access. We focus on thoughtful strategy, fund selection and integration within your entire financial road map. Our team coordinates every aspect, ensuring your alternative investment strategies align with your overall wealth, tax and estate plans.
Creative Planning’s in-house teams combine deep market insight with personalized attention, helping you evaluate opportunities across private equity, real estate, private credit and other alternatives. Our disciplined due diligence process reflects the standards of institutional investors and pension funds, supporting informed decisions so that each alternative allocation has a clear role in your long-term plan.
Speak with an advisor to learn how we can help build a more sophisticated, diversified portfolio.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Alternative Investing
While alternative investments can offer valuable diversification and return potential, they also come with unique complexities. Without proper due diligence, investors may face challenges such as illiquidity, a lack of transparency, misaligned risk exposure or overconcentration in a single strategy, fund or manager. Retail investors and accredited investors alike benefit from guidance when evaluating these structures.
At Creative Planning, our experienced alternative investment specialists help you navigate these risks by thoroughly vetting opportunities, structuring investments for tax efficiency and ensuring each strategy fits seamlessly within your broader financial plan. We also explain the key factors behind each opportunity — such as manager experience, investment approach, underlying assets and time horizon — so that you can make better-informed decisions. Our disciplined process helps protect your wealth while aiming to maximize long-term opportunity.
Awards & Recognition
Top RIA Firms 2019-2025
Awarded each September based on data from a 12-month period through June 30.
Best Wealth Management Firms 2026
Ranking released in February 2026, not based on a specific time period.
Top RIA Firms 2025
Awarded each July based on data from a 12-month period through December 31.
