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Introduction

Hello, hello. This is Abel Pacheco, your host for the Five Talents podcast.

We are super excited today. We have an amazing guest, Ms. Kelly Ann Winget. Kelly, how's it going? Good morning. Good morning. I'm so great. Good. It's good to have you. We appreciate it so much, and I'm excited to jump into a conversation, because, , for those listeners that know us, we're a commercial real estate podcast.

we end up talking a lot about financial freedom, passive investing, investing in private placements, things like that. anytime we have a opportunity to have a guest that knows this world of passive investing in addition to commercial real estate, but we have the opportunity to hear about alternative investments.

And she has one of those backgrounds that's just, awe-inspiring, in her, in her arena. So if you don't know Kelly, let me introduce her at least for a second, and then I'll turn it over to you, Kelly. But she's the founder of Alternative Wealth Partners, and she's the fund manager of [00:01:00] AWP Diversity Fund 1.

It's a $50 million fund that invests in alternative assets. So the alternatives, y- you ... Basically it's another opportunity outside of the stock market that gives high net worth, and high, income investors the opportunity to diversify their investments and to diversify in alternative investments, which w- we'll talk about that.

But, essentially you invest across a multiple different number of assets- All decreasing your risk. And Kelly comes from one of those families that just was, i- it almost sounds, you'll hear it, she was born into this. she was bred for this to, to be, one of those financial engineering, whizzes.

As well as, the oil and gas kind of assets. 'Cause they have, oil and gas assets in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma. And she successfully raised over $500 million of private capital that's all averaged about a 10% [00:02:00] annual, return over the last decade. So let me, let me just pause for a minute.

That's half a billion dollars, if you- ... if you're not good at math or it's too early in the morning. So it's quite a bit. So Kelly, thank you again. Let me turn it over to you. And in your own words, tell us who you are and what you do, and we'll just start a great conversation here. All right. Thank you, Abel.

I've been in the alternative space for a little over a decade. And, like he was saying, I was born into this. Both my parents were financial professionals. they owned several businesses. They helped run several businesses. my father worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers for 20 years. their parents and their grandparents were in the oil business.

I had two g- two grandfathers that were petroleum engineers, one of which worked for the Getty Oil Company, is pretty much responsible for everything that's happening in Saudi Arabia. my lineage is, comes from Louisiana. but I'm here in Dallas, Texas. over the last 10 years, I've helped companies raise capital.

any small business or kind of tech startup looking for capital to go to the next level would come to me, and I would [00:03:00] walk through that process of how to reach out to accredited investors, and start the conversation of, "Is this something you want to invest in?" In the last two years, it became pretty obvious that investors want these types of things, but they didn't wanna be communicated with the way that a lot of these companies reach out to investors, which is usually a cold call saying, "Hey, give me your money."

Yeah. So last year, in the middle of the pandemic, I had a lot of response from investors I'd worked with in the past saying, "We don't want our money in the market. It's too manipulated by, someone tweeting something. we have no idea what's going on. This pandemic has obviously shown us that markets are shifting."

And, I just leveraged the relationships I'd built over the last 10 years to say, "You know what? It's time to manage these assets on my own." So I put together a $50 million alternatives fund that allows investors to make a single investment, but be diversified across lots of different types of assets.

Typically, in private placements, your minimum's 50 grand. You have to put $50,000 into one deal and [00:04:00] hope for the best. And then you have to do that, 10 times to get diversity. the fund really just allows you to take that same 50,000, $100,000 and spread it- ... across, five to 10 different assets.

Yeah. Yeah. that's amazing. so much to dig into. Let me, I usually end up starting with, just a little bit more about you, your background- ... because I always find it so interesting. I tell everyone I'm a, I'm a third-generation real estate investor 'cause my grandparents had a house, their first house, right?

and then my dad, when he grew up, he had his, hi- his house and a rental. So I remember going with my dad and we'd go to, see some rental houses, and I don't think he would ever believe that I'm... until we're doing it now, we're invested in, $100 million of commercial real estate, and obviously I don't own 100 million.

I own a piece of it, but like you're saying, my money is diversified across many multiple deals. And so when we talk it's pretty cool. So you've got a interesting background. ... you're... So it's, it sounds like very much [00:05:00] financial, very much business, very much, just invested-oriented oil and gas.

How... What was that like growing up? what were some of your first- ... memories that you can remember of, being a little one and learning about numbers or investments and that kind of thing? so when my parents... My parents got, married young. They met at SMU in college. Okay. And, they started...

Now, I always say my mother is way ahead of her time. Yeah. she... My father and her were flipping houses in the '80s. they were buying rental properties, they were fixing them up themselves. Okay. They were flipping them. And, so it was interesting to have that, 'cause my house was being renovated for 20 years.

the entire time I was living- Oh, yeah ... in this house, the house was being renovated. Okay. Yeah, you were very much a real estate- You sound like any one of my real estate guests at this point. Yeah. my, my mom switched to renovating apartment communities in- Oh, okay ... in the late '90s, early 2000s. she- Okay

she definitely was like, I'm done," in about 2004. Yeah. So she was like, this is where I take my hat and [00:06:00] dip out." But, growing up it was interesting because my grandfather was always traveling. when he retired he was still, consulting for, oil companies. I have an aunt- Yeah, never retired.

Yeah, retired. But he, yeah, he just got out. Yeah. I don't think that if you're really good in oil and gas you ever retire. You're always being called by somebody for something. but we were always encouraged to start businesses and, research ways to support ourselves. We were never, handed anything.

it was actually so bad that I made too much money at 16 that I had to file my own taxes. Wow. Your parents are like, no. Not on my taxes. You gotta do it." Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't be claimed as a dependent at that point, so they were like, here you are. Start your new life."

Wow. yeah. My first business was selling golf balls back to the golfers when they hit their balls into our backyard. So there you go. That's a different one. I love it. So you kinda kept, It sounds like you very much grew up around the entrepreneurial, the investing, the, trying to [00:07:00] figure out how to turn, this active capital. Renovation- ... active. apartment investing, with your mom, active. You starting businesses. So it was never a W- hey, get a good job and none of that. It was like, no, go start...

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