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Witkoff, Monroe Capital score $303M loan for huge Miami Worldcenter project. Thousands of resi units on tap for mixed-use district downtown Witkoff and Monroe Capital scored a $302.6 million construction loan for a massive residential complex in Miami Worldcenter. Construction is set to begin on the first phase of 700 North Miami Avenue after Witkoff, in partnership with Monroe Capital, secured financing from Athene Annuity and Life Company and J.P. Morgan Chase, Yimby reported. The transaction refinanced about $57.3 million in existing debt while providing $245.3 in construction financing, the outlet said. New York-based Lotus Capital Partners arranged the financing. Witkoff, led by Alex Witkoff, and Monroe Capital, headed by Theodore Koenig, first proposed the 3.4 million-square-foot mixed-use project in 2022, The Real Deal previously reported. Phase one calls for 894 residential units in a 60-foot tower, as well as more than 17,000 square feet of retail space and a nine-story parking garage spanning over 167,000 square feet. At completion, the Kobi Karp-designed project will include three more towers rising 50, 51 and 53 stories, the publication said. There will be a total of 2,346 residential units, about 30,500 square feet of commercial space and 2,078 parking spaces. The project has already secured site preparation approval. The master building permit and phased vertical construction permit are under review. Construction costs are estimated at $270 million. Witkoff and Monroe Capital acquired the 5-acre development site for $94 million in 2021. It's one of the district's final large-scale undeveloped parcels. It is the site of Miami Arena, which opened in 1988. The arena once housed the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers and hosted entertainment events before its demolition in 2008. Miami-based MDM Group previously planned a Marriott Marquis hotel and 600,000-square-foot expo center for the site, which it bought for $45 million in 2017, TRD reported. That proposal ultimately was abandoned. Miami Worldcenter in Downtown Miami is Florida's largest open-air shopping and entertainment district, according to its website. Spanning a 10-block radius, the 27-acre development includes $100 million in completed infrastructure with 100,000 square feet of public space, 300,000 square feet of retail space and 16 high-rise towers, according to a CIM Group news release. CIM Group announced the Miami Worldcenter's grand opening last year. - Grace McClung

The agreement provides Athena Holdings with an initial loan facility of up to $1.75 billion, injecting strong liquidity support into its operations and stra | Bitget crypto news!

Athene elevates Matthew Michelini to president. Apollo's head of Asia-Pacific steps up at the asset manager's insurance affiliate. Athene Holding Ltd. announced Monday the promotion of Matthew Michelini to president, leading the firm's key growth initiatives, including its efforts to sell lifetime income products to retirees. Michelini steps up from his role as head of Asia-Pacific at Apollo Global Management, which he has held since 2021. He succeeds Grant Kvalheim, who was elevated to CEO in 2025. Michelini will report to Kvalheim. Having joined Apollo, the parent company of Athene, in 2006, Michelini participated in the creation of multiple growth initiatives at Apollo, including its hybrid value business, dedicated insurance platform and financial institutions group, as well as the formation of Athene. "Athene has an extraordinary opportunity to address the growing and urgent demand for guaranteed retirement income," Michelini said in a statement. "Having worked closely with the Athene team since the very first days of the company, I am energized to take on this leadership role as we strive to create and provide simpler, easier to deliver, and a more diverse set of retirement solutions." Before joining Apollo, Michelini was an investment banker at Lazard LLC. Michelini earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Princeton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. More on this topic: Home > News > Asset Allocation > How Should Institutional Investors Approach H2 2026 - Active or Passive? How Should Institutional Investors Approach H2 2026 - Active or Passive? Much depends on an organization's portfolio objectives. Market volatility and geopolitical uncertainty have renewed discussions about investing decisions and how institutional allocators should incorporate active or passive strategies. Research shows that passive strategies often beat active strategies, notably in U.S. large-cap equity markets, because of their high transparency and efficiency. In the decade through 2025, only 10% of active managers beat their passive indexes, according to Morningstar. Active managers can be more successful in less-efficient markets, such as emerging markets, the company's research shows. Apurva Schwartz, a portfolio specialist at Harding Loevner L.P., a long-only active manager, says the remainder of 2026 might offer a better environment for active management in equities, as there is greater dispersion of returns, and correlations are lower. Fundamentals matter more, too, she says. "In the last several years, macroeconomic liquidity and narrow leadership [from a few mega-cap tech companies] have overwhelmed fundamentals, so you have not seen active managers do quite as well," Schwartz says. Making strategy changes is a nuanced decision for institutional investors. It is not based just on asset class and opportunity, but on where and how specific investment goals are made and implemented, according to researchers and investors. Large-Scale changes remain unlikely. Institutional investors that have heavy allocations to passive strategies are unlikely to make large changes to their portfolios just because markets may offer greater dispersion and mispricing opportunities, says Mark Stahl, manager of global manager research at investment consultant Callan. At most, allocators may make marginal changes. "When you think about active/passive with a lot of institutional clients, it's kind of a long-term strategic decision," Stahl says. That is how Ben Cotton, CIO of the $81.5 billion Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement Systems, approaches the pension fund's portfolio allocation. "I'm not a big fan of short- or intermediate-market timing, and that would include timing elements like when to be more active or more passive," Cotton wrote to CIO to answer questions. "We view that as a longer-term decision that takes shape over time as our conviction in certain investment managers or strategies increases or decreases." PennPSERS' pension portfolio is split approximately 53.5% to active strategies and 46.5% to passive strategies, and it includes allocations to equity, fixed income, real assets, opportunistic and cash. When investment staff members consider strategies, Cotton says they run a cost-benefit analysis based on relative market efficiency, as well as their relative confidence in managers' ability to outperform. For the remainder of 2026, Cotton says PSERS will stay the course. "There is a lot more noise and uncertainty in the market more recently," Cotton wrote. "Perhaps counterintuitively, that really leads us to have less certainty in our views. When we are less certain, we're more likely to manage closer to our allocation targets. It doesn't really change the active-passive split so much." Weighing opportunities for alpha. Jan-Carl Plagge, global head of indexing, active and ESG research at Vanguard, says greater dispersion does not necessarily equate to active manager outperformance. Investing is still a zero-sum game of winners and losers. "I think what is often still misunderstood is that there might be a directional relationship between dispersion and the likelihood to outperform the market in aggregates, and that isn't the case... regardless of whether or not we're in a high- or low-dispersion environment," Plagge says. Although Vanguard is best known for its passive strategies, it has many active strategies, particularly in bonds. Plagge says the firm uses a four-category framework for its multi-asset portfolios, which contain a mix of different asset classes in different regions, with different exposures to active and passive. The decision to take an active, rather than passive, approach comes down to the investors' gross alpha expectation, costs basis, the level of active risk and the investor's active-risk tolerance. Plagge also differentiates between passive investing and index investing. Index funds that replicate the entire market are passive investments, but not all index funds are passive, he stresses, citing sector, industry and smart-beta funds as examples of active indexing because of their narrower approach. Investors may also use indexed funds tactically. Gene Podkaminer, an institutional investment strategist at the Capital Group, concurs, saying from an informational perspective, one can argue that moving away from a simple market-capitalization weighted index is an active decision. "It's best to have your eyes wide open and be very explicit about that, versus implicitly thinking that [indexing is] more passive when actually it may not be," he says. Where investment decisions are made. Podkaminer says active and passive strategies are two ways to express risk along a continuum. Which ones to use in what circumstances depend on the asset owner, the portfolio objectives and who makes the decisions. "I love the question [whether allocators should use active or passive strategies], because it's actually a very deep inquiry into the way that risk is spent, into the way that we think about what an asset class is or is not, and also into the way that decisions come down exogenously, depending on [where] they're made," Podkaminer says. Before investors choose active or passive strategies, he continues, they first should define what they consider an asset class. "Figuring how you define an asset class - or how you define a performance metric - shows you what the embedded active decisions are within that," Podkaminer says. He prefers to define asset classes as equities, fixed-income and real assets, because those categories allow for a more meaningful discussion of where and how to spend risk, rather than using narrower definitions, such as large-cap equity or emerging-market debt. Podkaminer says the current debate regarding active or passive is tied to ongoing discussions within the industry over the decision to pursue a more investment-prescriptive strategic asset allocation approach or a total portfolio approach in which the board designates a reference portfolio and the CIO works within a risk budget. Still, he says, even strategic asset allocation approaches can be active, such as a board of directors clearly defining to the investment team how much to allocate to U.S. and international equities. "Already, right there, you've made an active decision, even if you implement passively," he says.