Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe wasent Thal. Joe, We're about to do something we've never done before.
I'm very excited about this. This is something that I've always sort of like wanted to do, maybe even before we had a podcast, Like even since I was like a little kid watching TV and no like seeing like some like news show. Because we're going to talk to like someone disguised, right.
And yes, we are going to talk to an anonymous source, an anonymous person, someone who's anonymous online but will also be doubly anonymous on this podcast, and we're going to be disguising their voice.
Yeah, I'm really excited.
I've always wanted to do that because you know, like those old like I don't know, like investigative.
Shows where they have the shadow shadow you see the silhouette.
Yeah, they sound like a robot and stuff like that, and it's like, oh, that's so cool, and you know, it's like there's no reason we can't do that.
Okay, Yes, that is exactly what we're going to do. I'll just go ahead and say it. We're going to be speaking with high yield Harry, who runs a couple of different accounts on social media. He's on Twitter and also on Instagram. He also has his own newsletter where he's basically chronicling some of the craziness that happens on
Wall Street in various ways. But also in the credit markets specifically, and listeners know that private credit and it's sort of differences to traditional public credit markets, So publicly issued junk bonds or leverage loans has been a topic of interest for us, but in general, credit markets are always interesting things, and we have been at a sort of interesting juncture in them where last year turned out to be a fantastic year for credit if you got
in at the right time. And that is despite lots of people expecting that this would be the area where you would see the impact of higher interest rates.
This was the.
Frothiest area of the market in some respects, certainly leverage loans, and that would be the place where you would see trouble from the rate hikes, and yet early twenty twenty four haven't really seen that.
So we talk, obviously, as you said, a lot about credit. We talk about a lot in the macro sense, where is the investor demand coming from what is the effect or not effect of higher interest rates? What is the effect of Dodd Frank and shifting lending capacity from banks to other non bank institutions, et cetera. And all that's great and all that's important, but you can't really like understand it just from the sort of like numbers without understanding like someone who would just like talk.
About like the world of like actually like making the loans and making the.
Deals right, the incentives that go into doing this, and like who are the players play in this market? Yes, So, without further ado, I am very pleased to say we have Highyeal Tarry with us. As mentioned, this is his real voice. I think it will be obvious when the episode comes out. But Harry, thank you so much for doing this.
Yeah, Hi Tracy, Hi Joe. Thanks for having me. You know, glad to be the exception, and I'm interested in hearing how my voice is going to sound. You might might be sounding like the Riddler, you know, holding Gotham for ransom, but you know, it'll be interesting to hear how it works out.
So first question, I want to give you the space to, you know, explain who you are without giving too much away and doxing yourself. But who are you and what do you do?
Yeah, so I'm a junior professional within the world of public credit. Uh. You know, I did the typical stint from the cell side to credit, and I've experienced wearing wearing different hats in terms of public credit and private credit. Right now, my focus is on public credit. You know, I like the opportunity set there and I'm more of a market based individual as opposed to a deal team guy,
so that that kind of me to public credit. But you know, I've dipped my toes in both and have done plenty of investment committee memos for both types of offerings.
I'm really excited about this. I want to get into, you know, the world of credit and what you've seen from the inside and all of that. But now before we do, talk about like your public persona, the high Yield Harry persona on Twitter and Instagram, what prompted you to adopt this persona and what you know, what come from?
And why are you one of the only good ones?
You're two? Time I was I was sitting around in mid twenty twenty, COVID was going on, was in my parents' basement and you know there was a lot going on the credit markets back in like March and April, but after that it really settled down and had a lot of time on my hands after some you know, more stressful like two AM nights, and I decided I really
wanted to make a finance meme account. Finance memes in particular on Instagram really originated back in like twenty seventeen, and you know, I would say that was really the golden age of finance memes. And I was really as a younger guy, enjoying all the memes coming out from all those accounts, and I noticed some of those guys are starting to post a lot less, so I figured, you know, I should try my hand at this. So I figured, you know, my my favorite show is Succession.
You know, I love that show, and I figured, you know, I should, I should probably do some memes and incorporate Succession into it. And look, that got a lot of popularity early on. And you know, as as things developed in the credit markets, especially with all the M and A activity and craziness going on in like twenty twenty one and early twenty two, you know, I think people took interest in the into in the account.
These are popular meme formats, but you're kind of using them to say very specific things about the credit markets at times. So what is it about the meme format that lends itself to sort of credit analysis or credit commentary.
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's funny how niche you can really get, like, you know, you can you can get very complex and talk about like liquidation preferences or you know, pick for like payment in kind and all these all these different nuances from the form of a of a viral meme. You know, I'm not really sure what drives that psychology, you know, I just I just know people people love it and react to
it in a very unique and niche way. And you know, it's it's just really hard to like after that in a bottle, I suppose. But you know, as long as people are enjoying it and enjoying all these goofy memes and videos, and you know, I'm happy to oblige and keep the party going.
You know, I've heard people say things like, you know, when you're becoming fluent in a foreign language, when you have a dream in that language, And I think there's an equivalent where it's like, you know, you actually understand an industry well when you get the jokes and the memes and the more uniche the better. And you know, it's like, because there are meme pages for like literally
every industry. There's like, you know, trucking memes and then truck driver meme pages, and then freight memes and freight meme pages. It goes at broker broker meme pages, et cetera. And it's like I get someone, you know, I look at them because we've done a lot of freight, and I like get.
Half the jokes.
It's like, Okay, I still have more work to do.
That's right. When you use the distracted boyfriend meme, it's like a proficiency certificate.
Yeah, it really is.
It's like, can you make a meme for an industry that the industry participants themselves find funny? And most people can't do it because they don't know enough. But like that is I do think like sort of like the test of industry domain expertise. Can you mean, can you get the memes and can you make the memes that the other people find funny?
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, Joe. And you know, I think as time has gone along, it's it's taken me a very short amount of time to make some of these memes. And you know, I wish I had a more useful skill, like a skill to economic value. But you know, I
watch a lot of TV. I'll watch a lot of good TV shows and I kind of have like etched in my brain, use some of the great quotes or some of the great scenes from them, and you know, all of a sudden you might get a like no Country for Old Men or a Tomorrow meme, you know, associated with finance, and you know that's the type of stuff that like people people love out of nowhere, and you tie that to something niche and you know it'll pop off.
I definitely have more questions on the social media side of things. But why don't we talk credit for a bit? You know, I'm sure you've been listening to some of the episodes that we've done where we're digging into private credit. But how would you characterize the difference between working in private credit versus working on the public side?
Question?
Yeah, so you know there's pros and cons in each. You know, I think with private credit, I was, I think there's higher compensation for the individuals in there, So you know, that's best one thing. But uh, you know, I think I think with private credit, you you can structure things in a lot of different ways, and you know, the the opportunity set is very large.
Uh.
You know, you can look at something from a lower middle market lens, middle market lens, or you can even eat and share in the broadly sy indicated loan market. You know, I think with private credit, one one thing in particular is you get you can get a lot more in the weeds. You know, you can get a lot more comprehensive data room, and you know, really get in front of the management teams, really make sure uh
they're answering the questions you need. And you know, I think I think the relationship with sponsors is a lot more important in the private credit world, where you know, in private credit, a lot of our deal flow came
from sponsor relationships. You know, may may come from a banker, but it also may come from a sponsor in terms of you know, we want you as the lender that we're going to work with, or you know, uh, here's ten lenders we're gonna we're gonna pick one or maybe we'll pick four, and you guys need to get a
term sheet in our hands as soon as possible. Uh. You know, I think one of the cons with private credit though, is I think from a fun standpoint, you're a little more concentrated on your bets, and then there's illiquidity as well, so you know, when you really make an investment, you know, I think you need a lot higher conviction given that is, you know, it's not necessarily
something you can trade out of. So flipping over to public credit from a liquidity standpoint, you know, you may have one hundred lenders within a broadly syndicated loan, and you know, if it's a billion dollar loan, you can get decent liquidity there, you know, even if it's like a B minus credit. So you know, I think I think having that liquidity is a big positive for public credit because with private credit, I think it's a lot harder to change things or have a loan change hands
as things go south. But you know, the con with public credit, in contrast to what I explained with diligence in the data room and you know, getting in front of management and what have you, is you know, you get on a lot of these lender calls is a public credit guy and management will frankly, just toss your question to decide or say oh, you know, well we'll follow up with you offline about that, or you know, say oh, we're not going to disclose that for competitive reasons.
And you know, some of these questions are things you need to know. Is A is a underwriting investor and it's unfortunate it doesn't get answered, but that's kind of how it's structured. And you know you'll get a data room and public credit to that's a lot more thin
relative to the private credit. And then the last component too is you know documentation where you know, I think public credit we've seen this massive wave of pub light loans, you know, no maintenance covenants and you know, looser docks in terms of what a sponsor can and cannot do. I think of private credit you can get some stronger protection and you know, more more of a heads up
as things go south. You know, I think, is the private credit loans get bigger, there's you know, there's looser documentation, but you know for a general middle market or or lower loan, you know, I think you're getting stronger, uh documentation.
M Can I ask a definitional question, is a data room a literally a room where you walk into a sealed room and look at information and can't take it out.
Or is it is that? Is it virtual? Like what is a data room?
Yeah, well it's funny, you know, a data room gets gets a lot of jokes like that where people meme about it being a physical place, but it's actually more of a virtual place. You know. It could be on a website like syndtrack, or it could be on something as simplistic as dropbox, where a lot of data is
inputed into an online database. So that can be financials, can be a confidential information memorandum sim you know, lender presentation, legal documents, KPIs, and just a lot of various information that helps an investor assess an investment opportunity.
Can I ask your take?
This is a question that comes up in every credit conversation, and I'm not always satisfied with the answers, But what is the attraction for investors to go into private credit? Because people say it's correlated, but it's like, yeah, of course it's it's like and it's like other returns are higher. But you know, as you say, it's a liquid no mark to market, how would you characterize the appetite from investors to lend via the private credit channel.
Yeah, you know, I think as like sofur and base rates have has increased, you're getting a very attractive return. And then you know, I think also from the covenant standpoint as well, you know that that provides a little more structure relative to leverage learns or how you'll bonds potentially. And look, I think private equity has shifted a lot
of deal flow to private credit. So naturally, if you're if you're looking to invest in credit, you know you're looking to include some private credit into that mix as well. You know, I'm still I'm still bullish on private credit. You know, I think there's a lot of smart and sophisticated investors in the space. But you know, I think I think there I think there's also a lot of
deals that get done on a relationship basis. But ultimately, you know, you get pretty pretty decent double digit returns and you know you have a first lean position as opposed to an equity position, So you know, on an LTV basis, I think you're fine with with a lot of these names, talk.
To us more about how a private credit deal actually comes into being versus say, a syndicated loan or something like that, because I think like the actual process by which an issuer chooses to go the public or the private route is still something I'm kind of like wrapping my head around, like what is the I guess the catalyst for going one way or another? Who's like calling the shots or who is influential in this process?
Yeah, so, you know, I think a big thing I saw on private credit was people or sponsors would favor private credit in situations where banks for someone else is moving too slow and you know, they, like private equity, would want to partner that moves fast and moves quickly with them. So, you know, I think I think that's an instance where private credit can come in and you know, help provide a level of execution and certainty, which you know, I think I think is massive, you know, I I do.
I do think the public credit market makes a lot of sense for a lot of these bigger issuers. But but in terms of like you know, on the smaller side, I think I think private credit comparably make makes a lot of sense. So in terms of how these how these deals end up getting done, you know, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of this is from relationships. You know, might be a banker who gives it out, but it's predominantly going to be a sponsor who's who's seeking out
term sheets from from lenders. Uh. You know, in terms of assessing this, it's it's all about you know, myself as a junior person and then you know, other other people on the totem pole from like VP to director m d uh, you know, assessing the data room hot, you know, getting in front of the sponsor, make sure we're getting what we need answer before we can take this to an investment committee, you know, confirming internally whether senior individuals and the firm have have interest in continuing
with the process. Uh. And and you know a lot of these a lot of these deals end up end up following a timeline where it's like, oh, you know, we already have turn sheets or indicated interests from a lot of other lenders. We need you to move fast. And part of it too is like a sponsor testing you of like you know, you you need to move fast because we want to work with the partner who
will move fast with us. So you know, we we work pretty hard modeling and deal out, you know, building out like an internal memorandum which you know is our is our story for the investment, you know, detailing the transaction, the sponsor, the company, you know, getting nuts and bolts on on how on how the company works. You know, any any key risks in mitigans from like a vendor, contract, cost, structure,
industry standpoint. Uh. And then you know, thinking internally how how we want to go about uh the pricing we offer and you know, and any other components and in look too, I also you know, spend some time uh you know, doing a little bit of equity as well, and you know, whether we can provide a a lending solution that's first lean in conjunction with some other lenders, or whether we want to provide something from a one stop shop situation where you're also contributing equity to help
you know, really carry the deal. Is a key component when when modeling it out, when when doing research and kind of measuring returns and look from there, you go to your investment committee. You you you figure out what what needs to be addressed, whether the risks have been mitigated, and if it has been you're able to go and get an indicative term sheet out to out to a sponsor if they select you or you and another group
of lenders. You know, you might find yourself in the Midwest, look like on the on the floor of like a of a widget manufacturing company and you know, working hand in hand with legal the sponsor to to you know, really assess the deal and make sure it it closes, and you know you feel very comfortable and have a strong conviction in your deal.
Were you ever involved in a deal where you had to take back the keys, as they say, and like you know, you end up running the widget manufacturer accidentally?
No, I haven't, And I think I think that's a function of the current credit environment where things are still okay, you know, if we've had a massive rise in interest rates, I think it takes a while for that to like
filter out. I think those taking the key situations are going to be an interesting storyline over the next few years, you know, I think maybe to get ahead of myself, you know, I think pick and payment in kind is a way right now for a lot of sponsors and lenders to address some of these you know, twenty twenty one or deals like that that that were a little weaker and you know, give it a little bit of of a longer timeline to run. So you know, I think the moment we're we're we're going to see less
key taking situations. You know, I feel I feel a little comfortable with twenty four. It's just going to be interesting, you know, in twenty twenty five and onwards, how many key taking situations we get?
Yeah? What do you think also about some of the big investment banks now getting into private credit, because this seems to be the irony, right, It's like private credit kind of became a thing because banks were retrenching from lending or it was harder for them to lend. But now they're getting into it, and also like they're sort of competing with I guess their own syndicated bond and loan businesses. It just seems kind of funny.
Yeah, it's a little bizarre because it's pretty much balance sheet lending. So you know, it's it's a little interesting. You know. I I have a harder time imagining, you know, banks wanting to hold on to a lot of debt. You know, I think I think the syndication market it works works really well from like a risk management standpoint, but it'll be you know, it'll be interesting to see
how how it develops. And you know, I don't even know if I want to call it private credit if it's a bank doing right, it's just kind of like it's kind of like bank lending.
Is the idea that they're going to create pools of capital to lend that aren't there, like balance sheet capital, that they're going to get out like essentially create some vehicle for outside lend or outside LPs or investors, and then the bank essentially becomes the conduit for it.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean there are there are some like balance sheet lenders, but you know, there are also a lot of banks looking at JV partners as well. You know, it'll be interesting to see how it develops. I think, like one argument for it is like maybe you can graduate people from like middle middle market lending to you know, larger lending, you know, as as a company grows over time, and you know, maybe that's a good way to have
relationship management, if you know. I cause I think, like history, you've seen a lot of like middle market names graduate over time to like the broadly syndicated loan market.
You mentioned that for professionals in this space, private credit is currently more lucrative than public credit is that basically a function of the necessity of things like relationships or the skill level to craft the right you know, covenant structure for the deal. Thats just say, more importance of relationships, more importance of being able to create a bespoke covenant structure that allows the people in the space to make more money.
Yeah, you know, I feel like I've seen a lot of investment banking analysts and associates head over to private credit as opposed to them heading over to public credit. So, you know, I think that's the function of it where you know, that skill set they had an ib makes more stents than private credit because you know, it is like very similar to what they were doing before in banking. So you know, I think that's a key driver. I
think fun growth is a key driver. You know. I think the returns I think a m growth are are key drivers in the moment. And look, I think with public credit to you know, compensation varies widely depending on where you are, and you know, some some public credit can be a lot more sleep and night credit as opposed to private credit, which I think, you know needs significant diligence and given the like ill liquidity, you know, you're really you're really digging in there and spending a
lot of hours on it. Well, I think I think, I think a lot of public credit. You know, if if it's more hedge fund oriented or long short oriented, and I think that that compensates higher. But if there's a little more sleepy of a fun then you know, I think they'll comp lower.
You actually do a compensation survey on your newsletter, I think. And I find this a really interesting aspect of some of the anonymous finance accounts now that they are you know, either collecting or being given and information from people in the industry, primarily I think, like younger people in the industry.
And this seems to be a big change on Wall Street. Like, you know, there used to be if you worked at Goldman, maybe you talk to other Goldman people a little bit about comp but everything was like kind of secret, like there wasn't a lot of transparency on Wall Street. But it feels like that's changing, even though it's just to be clear, it's not the banks themselves that are driving this transparency. It's like the actual workers and primarily the junior ones.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know, I think that's one of the better parts of running this platform is just the compensation transparency that's been able to come out of this, especially in credit because you know, I think with investment banking you can kind of figure out structure of where analysts and associates get paid out. But you know, once you get once you start getting like credit associate and credit VP compensation level by city, you know, you can
provide a lot of transparency. And I've had a lot of people come to me and say, you know, they've used it in terms of making sure they're getting compensated appropriately when when getting a new job or or something along that line. So you know, I think there there's also some private equity compensation in there too within the survey. And you know, I run this like every March, and you know, I think you'll learn a lot from it. So I'm excited to see what I find out in
the next month, month and a half or so. But you know, I think you can you can really learn a lot from it. And I think I think over time is you know, more followers increasingly become more senior is going to be really interesting sort of provide more transparency beyond just the junior level and really dig into like Okay, you know, I'm a mid level professional. What should I be making? You know, what type of carry
interest should I be having? Even And you know, I think that type of granularity is going to be good because I think, especially like the mid level, you know, there's there's not much transparency.
Are you well with coming on and Tracy?
Should we do a lots more in March with the results of the survey?
Yeah?
Yeah, come back.
Can we have you back on in March and do a little mini episode with reveal the survey results?
Yeah? Yeah, let's see what happens. Yeah, it comes out, It comes out by my news letter.
But yeah, no, you mentioned that you started the account in twenty twenty. You know a lot of people at home doing things on the internet. One of the things that I've come to appreciate about that era or twenty twenty in particularly twenty twenty one, very evident in say like tech investing, that like there was just this explosion
of deal flow, like particularly private tech investing. So like people you maybe someone had a sub stack, maybe they had ten thousand followers on Twitter, and suddenly they could like plug and play into angel list and they started like signing over Zoom and docu sign angel deals and then I sort of live later on like realized it was it just tech that like in real estate transaction, it's a very similar phenomenon that a lot of people
got in. You know, these sort of crazy years and syndications of like hey, let's sort of you know, buy up apartment buildings and the sun belt and stuff, and so you had all these like newcomers. Can you talk a little bit about like what twenty twenty and twenty twenty one was like from the private from the credit perspective or the private credit perspective, those sort of like those sort of like crazy high speed like go go years.
I think during that timeframe I can speak a little more to like public credit sure as opposed as opposed to private credit. But you know, I think there was there was a lot of deal flow in twenty one, and you know, a lot of LBOs came to the market, you know, I think, I think a little bit later in twenty twenty as well. Yeah, and you know, you
you had this massive rush of deals. You had investment bankers getting really worked to the work to the brim, and you know that provided like a lot of a lot of compensation increases where you know a lot of people across the industry at a junior level where all of a sudden getting like a twenty five k bump, fifty fifty k bump, you know, great bonuses, and you know, I think that was that was great in terms of enhancing junior compensation, but you know also in terms of
deal flow. You know, you had a lot of deals get done at at low rates in high multiples, and you know, we're competitive processes and you need to look at some of these deals and be like, you know, DoD GEZ, like do we do we really want to
underwrite this? You know this kind isn't good and look, I think the biggest thing from this, and you know, the more challenging part of being a credit investor is you looked at a lot of these twenty twenty twenty twenty one financials and yeah, this company have a gangbuster year, you know, and do an amazing job, and then they come to the market to refinance or take a dividend or something like that, and then look, all all of a sudden, you have all these people do these deals
and then you realize it was a COVID bump, Like you know, you realize everyone was stuck at home, and there's you know, there's all these companies that had one time big, big events and then now financials are down like significantly relative to heights. And look, that makes up a lot of the distressed market you see in public credit at the moment. And I think this is probably a similar story on the private credit issue side as well.
And you know, I definitely screened a lot of deals that had like a gangbuster twenty twenty or twenty twenty one and then you know, really fell off, and you know, you don't want to catch a falling knife there. I guess it's easy to say this in hindsight, but not
a lot of people actually did. It was you know, to kind of spot the trends of like, oh, you know, this isn't really sustainable, and you know, go and invest in this type of deal, because you know, if you did, now you're looking at a distressed or more challenging situation and something that looks a lot worse relative you're underwright.
And I think there's a lot of like market participants who are now dealing with this hangover relative to twenty twenty one, and you know, our stuff with a lot of distress names and you know, worse situations or you know, took a hit when they when they didn't really need.
To speaking of things not being sustainable. Does it feel like the balance of power is starting to shift? I guess away from the junior analyst because this was also a hallmark of the twenty twenty twenty twenty one boom times. Right, everyone was working super hard, there was so much deal flow, and that kind of gave a lot of employees the fire power to start pushing back against some of their
working conditions. So, for instance, we saw the I guess infamous at this point Goldman presentation where I can't remember if it was interns or the analysts, but they basically presented or they disseminated a presentation to Goldman senior management, serving their working conditions, their work hours, and making the point that things were getting worse and they were even having to work on Saturdays, which historically was something that
was preserved on Wall Street. Is that starting to shift now as interest rates go higher and maybe deal flow has ebbed a little bit in twenty well not a little bit significantly in twenty twenty three.
Yeah, you know, I think that dynamics started changing even in like twenty twenty two. And you know, shout out to Liquidity on the yeah on the thoo for getting that GS presentation out there. I think he got it DM to him and he just posted it, and you know, that really helped spark the movement of people getting paid more. I think this dynamic started change when when deal flow went down in twenty two, and you know, I think that's when you first started seeing cuts amongst the junior level.
You know, there's been some private equity and private credit junior cuts in twenty three. But I think I think a lot of the people that ended up worse off for people who kind of stuck around and investment banking
a little too long. You know a lot of people who didn't get that like associate offer after their two years and in banking, or you know, I like, I know people that got zeroed on their on their comp from a bonus standpoint, or you know, they got bonus and like you know, they worked like ninety hours and got like a twenty k thirty k bonus, which you know is a lot less than what you can find
in public credit private credits. So you know, I think I think people forgot that, like twenty one was an extraordinary year, and you know, not how you want to measure future compensation. So yeah, look there's cycrutality, and you know, I think if we don't get deal flow ramping back up in twenty four, then I think things get increasingly challenged. And look, I think most people are back in the office at least three days a week, if not four.
You know, I'm not I'm not a fan of five days in but you know, I think I think I think the tide certainly has turned, and you know, but look, the reality is, it's it's so much better than it was in like twenty nineteen. You know, it's so hats off from that perspective.
Wait, just real quickly, I guess you're not a fan of five days in the office.
Just I'm just curious.
Do you notice any difference of working in the office first not and on productivity, on how the team operates whatever.
Yeah, you know, you know, I think I think it depends. Look, I think if you if you're in a deal team structure, like if you're in private credit, I think it's I think it makes a lot more sense to be in the office. But if you're styled off like if you're in public credit, if you if you're covering a certain industry and most of your communication is with your portfolio managers.
That and I think I think remote work really kind of favors that, you know, I think I think to be fair too, a lot of people live in like small Manhattan apartments, so you know, being in the office, especially when you know it might be anywhere from like ten minutes to thirty minutes away, it is that big
a deal. But you know, I am kind of bullish remote work over time because I think for me in particular, right, like I you know, I do my job, and then I also do this high old Harry stuff off to the side, and you know that that involves a lot of work in my apartment. And you know, I'm certainly productive when I when I'm doing that.
Joe's trying to bait me into another rant against return to office. I'm not going to do it, Joe, don't know.
The only reason I asked is because, like it's such a charged topic that the only person I would ever trust to get a good answer is someone who's anonymous.
Wait, but Harry, actually you brought up exactly what I wanted to ask you next, what are the logistics of actually running an anonymous social media account while working in the industry, And do you ever have weird situations where like you're sat in the office and someone brings up one of your memes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it's it's tough to get too too granular on that, but you know, I have I have a lot of people who I work with or I have worked with, who follow the account, who like my stuff all the time, who are subscribed to my newsletter. So you know, that's that's always that's always interesting. And you know, I think it's I think it's humbling too.
And like someone I looked up to at like an analyst level, who's like a little bit older than me, like likes my stuff and you know, says, oh this is good or whatever, like you know, that's that's definitely humbling for me. But but yeah, you know it is. It is a little uh challenging to try to navigate that, you know, especially when someone makes a joke who're just kind of like wondering out. You know, I think I'm pretty sure I made that joke on social media like a few days ago.
Hild Harry that was so much fun. Thank you, yeah, thank you for coming on and letting us disguise your voice and sound like the Riddler or Robot. I actually don't know what it's going to turn out like, but I'm really looking forward to listening, so thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
Up, Joe. That was so much fun. I have to ask, do you have a Burner account?
I have an alt? I've said it.
Oh, yeah, it's where I post really controversial takes, like my view on the Jones Act and work from home and return to office, things that, you know, really things that I would not want to be associated with publicly.
I've I've often been tempted to start an anonymous alt, but I haven't done it. I am on Reddit anonymously, but I think that's like, that's pretty normal.
That was really fun though.
I really enjoyed that conversation and just sort of like hearing about it from the insids, especially the fact that he's done both private and and public credit. I thought it was really interesting this idea, and that hadn't clicked
to me before. But it makes a lot of sense that private credit is more like ib skills investment banking skills and that public credit is probably just like more like traditional analyst skills, where you're looking at a balance sheet and you're like, Okay, are they going to be able to make this payment? And the idea like that is the different skill dimensions. They're not something that had really clicked to me before.
Very much relationship building in private credit. But I would just push back against that a little bit, which is like, if you're syndicating deals in the public market, there is an element of that because you have to build the consortium and you have to you know, talk to your potential investors. But yeah, absolutely it feels more ib like. I also thought it was interesting what he was saying
about some of the pressure on speeds of deals. So the idea that like, well, maybe a company is going to want to do a private credit deal because it's faster than talking to a bank, or the bank is taking too long to you know, tick various risk management or regulatory boxes or whatever.
It does feel like.
In business there is like a real value to being able to like produce cash at any time at any at a moment's notice, And it feels like, you know, it's like the rest of us, you know, plead So if we want to like buy a property. You know, it's like you go to a bank and you fill out hundreds of pages of paperwork and then you hear
back and then maybe months later it gets approved. Whereas if you actually want to do business, if you actually want to do deals in a real way, you really need to have that relationship where it's like, hey, it's me Joe. Hey Tracy, I need a million dollars because there's an opportunity to buy this self storage space on Monday, and you say, yeah, I know who you are, Joe.
Here's the million dollars. And if you have that relationship, that's incredibly valuable versus the person that sort of has to go to the traditional route.
Hey, Joe, I need a million dollars to buy a chain of self storage units.
No, I'm not lending it to you, Tracy.
I don't know your track record, and I think and I think self storage is overvalued.
Okay, fair enough. Shall we leave it there.
Let's leave it there.
This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. You can follow me at Tracy Allaway.
And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our guest High Yield Harry. He's at High Yield Harry. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman, dash Ol Bennett at Dashbot and kel Brooks at kel Brooks. And thank you to our producer Moses Ondam. For more Odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots where with a blog, transcripts and a newsletter, and you can chat with fellow listeners twenty four to seven in the discord discord dot gg slash odlines.
And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you want us to have Harry back on to talk about his comp survey, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember you can listen to Oddlots episodes ad free if you're a Bloomberg subscriber. All you have to do is connect to your Bloomberg account to Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening,