KKR Co-Chief Executive Officer Scott Nuttall said the long-term nature of 401(k)s makes them a sensible vehicle for private-market investments. But plan administrators will need safe-harbor protection from lawsuits in order to be comfortable including alternative investments, according to Nuttall. It’s KKR’s “hope and expectation” that those protections will develop over time, he said.
“People are saving for retirement in this target-date format, ” Nuttall said Tuesday at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. conference. “They’re thinking about their asset allocation decades out — not having private markets as part of that solution just isn’t really sensible.”