The Credit and Alternatives panel at the 2026 Ben Graham Conference, hosted by CFA Society New York and moderated by Alto’s Evan Deussing, ranged across commercial real estate, gold, private credit, high yield and structured credit. Rance Gregory of Northmarq Fund Management, Charles Cameron of Van Eck, Steve Beckett of PIMCO, Martin Fridson of Lehmann, Livian, Fridson Advisors, professor Elham Saeidinezhad of the Colin Powell School at CCNY and Elle Sisco of Napier Park Global Capital each made the case that value still exists in credit even with spreads near historic tights.
Commercial Real Estate’s Relative Value
Gregory, who leads the investment management arm of Northmarq, a firm that does about $25 billion a year in commercial real estate transactions, argued the asset class is one of the last inefficient markets, still dominated by mom-and-pop ownership. He described a spectrum of access points from first mortgages up to direct equity, and singled out preferred equity that can deliver a low-teens internal rate of return with call protection and a minimum profit multiple, less risk and higher return than common equity for those who do it well.
The relative-value case, he said, comes from the speed at which interest rates repriced real estate in 2022 and 2023 and from loan maturities that now require gap capital. He reminded the audience that retail, long written off, has been the strongest post-COVID performer while office got hit, and that years of almost no new office supply set up the next cycle.
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