Bringing alternatives closer to home: Rethinking where opportunity lies

The familiar mix of equities and bonds has underpinned portfolios for generations. But today’s markets tell a different story: inflation volatility, higher interest rates, and growing correlation between asset classes have strained the once-reliable 60/40 model. This is why investors are increasingly turning toward alternatives, not for novelty, but for necessity. 

Alternative assets such as private credit, infrastructure, and real assets offer return streams that behave differently from public markets. They bring diversification, resilience when traditional assets falter and at times, steady cash flows. Yet, despite their appeal, access has historically been limited to large institutions and high-net-worth investors, locked behind high minimums and opaque structures. 

That’s where BC Funding Solutions (“BCFS”) brings alternatives closer to home. 

BCFS is South Africa’s market leader in providing structured funding solutions to community schemes (complexes, estates and flats), that are the bodies corporate and homeowners’ associations forming the foundation of South Africa’s residential economy. Since 2001, BCFS has facilitated over R2 billion in funding, enabling these communities to maintain, upgrade, and stabilise their properties. 

Unlike speculative lending, BCFS funding is grounded in tangible needs: waterproofing buildings, upgrading lifts, installing solar and battery systems, and supporting schemes facing temporary cash shortfalls or levy arrears. Each facility is secured within a strong legislative framework that prioritises recoverability, offering funders exposure to real-economy credit flows that are both measurable and resilient. 

Through its structured funding suite, BCFS provides a practical way for individuals, corporates, and trusts to gain access to private credit in a simple and secure manner. 

Each BCFS lending solution addresses a specific challenge faced by community schemes, offering funders structured exposure to resilient, asset-backed credit streams. 

Since inception, BCFS’s products have demonstrated consistent, risk-adjusted performance. Both Powered Wealth and Fortified Capital Plus have delivered cumulative returns exceeding 240%, far outperforming the ALSI’s 95.6% over the same period. The Income Energiser fund, designed for shorter-term liquidity exposure, has also achieved strong relative performance against the South African 5-Year Bond Index, reflecting the resilience of BCFS’s underlying loan book. 

Globally, alternative assets have long been gated by exclusivity, reserved for institutions with deep pockets and long horizons. BCFS breaks down those barriers, offering structured exposure through funding solutions that are transparent, disciplined, and embedded in South Africa’s real economy. 

For discerning funders, this represents more than access, it represents intent. Alternatives need not sit on distant balance sheets or behind complex fund structures. They can exist within the communities we live in, powering solar roofs, repairing lifts, stabilising finances, and strengthening the very infrastructure that supports daily life. 

In an era where liquidity is abundant but true resilience is scarce, BCFS demonstrates that the next frontier of alternatives may not be offshore or abstract. It may be closer to home, measurable, secured, and quietly compounding behind every well-run community scheme.