Mailin Dalk

Mailin is a doctoral candidate at Steinbeis University in Berlin in the field of Finance, Banking and Controlling. She has spent 9 years in the banking industry, working for a major German bank and an independent private German bank. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a focus on Banking in Karlsruhe, before she completed her Master studies in Finance & Accounting at the Mercator School of Management in Duisburg (both in Germany). Mailin is interested in the segment of illiquid infrastructure investments, a scientifically least well-founded and new segment within the Alternative Investments.

Her dissertation is titled "Optimization of the selection process for illiquid investments by institutional investors – using the example of illiquid infrastructure funds". Illiquid Infrastructure Investments have recorded high growth, mainly because they correspond to the needs of institutional investors. But there are difficulties in valuation and integration to portfolio theories as there are no secondary markets and consequently no sufficient current or past data. Furthermore needs of investors go far beyond risk and return, for example due to regulation and payment obligations. The real use of illiquid infrastructure for investors cannot be quantified until now.

Mailin seeks to build transparency in the use structures of illiquid infrastructure investments and the decision systematic of institutional investors when facing this complex investment decision with a lack of transparency. Using an Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis she measures the preference for the different levels of the attributes and their impact on choice for illiquid Infrastructure investments. Furthermore she analyses whether schemes exist and how they can be explained, for instance by comparing preference schemes to the behavioral finance theory. Finally the goal is to analyze application possibilities of preference measurement in the investment process, for example a combination with the Analytic Hierarchy Process.

Mailin’s initial target audience will be institutional investors with regular payment obligations, such as insurances or pension schemes. The goal is to provide guidance about how to mention systematically individual preferences in the investment process. In the long run this method could be used for other asset classes or by other investor types such as Family Offices.

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