My guests on today’s show are financial journalists Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap, co-authors of “The Caesars Palace Coup,” a book detailing the bankruptcy of Caesars Entertainment. Coming off the heels of our Private Equity Masters mini-series, this conversation dives into a private equity deal gone wrong, including some technical aspects of what it takes to emerge from a bankruptcy. We walk through the intricacies, tensions and dynamics of the Caesars bankruptcy, whose stakeholders included Apol...
Aug 16, 2021•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today’s show is a special sponsor insight highlighting an example of the terrific research that comes out of Pitchbook. My guest is Wylie Fernyhough, PitchBook’s lead private equity analyst, where he produces industry research and dives deep on thematic areas of interest. Our conversation covers his research on the business of buying stakes in asset managers. We discuss its history, rationale, and perspectives from each side of the table involved in these transactions - the stake buyer, the mana...
Aug 13, 2021•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s show, Stephen Gilmore interviews Greg Jensen. Stephen is the Chief Investment Officer at New Zealand Super Fund, the NZD $59 billion (USD $41 billion) innovative sovereign wealth fund whose CEO Matt Whineray was a former guest on Capital Allocators. Greg is the Co-CIO of Bridgewater Associates, where he works alongside fellow Co-CIOs Ray Dailo and Bob Prince at the $150 billion systematic global macro manager that he joined twenty-five years ago. Bridgewater’s investment process is un...
Aug 12, 2021•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our Private Equity Masters mini-series concludes with Chuck Davis, the CEO and Chairman of the Investment Committee at Stone Point Capital. Stone Point has invested $21 billion across 135 businesses, all in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Stone Point’s predecessor entity at Marsh McLellan twenty-three years ago, he was a partner at Goldman Sachs, where he spent the prior twenty-three years, culminating in serving as Head of Investment Banking Services Worldwide. Our conversatio...
Aug 09, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s manager meeting, Kristen VanGelder speaks with Jonathan Lewinsohn. Kristen is Deputy Chief Investment Officer at Evanston Capital, a $4 billion hedge fund of funds whose CEO and CIO, Adam Blitz, was a past guest on the show. She’s spent the last eighteen years at Evanston alongside Adam and the team. Jonathan co-founded Diameter Capital four years ago alongside Scott Goodwin and today manages a $6 billion credit-focused hedge fund alongside $1 billion in CDOs and a $1 billion drawdown...
Aug 05, 2021•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Orlando Bravo is a Founder and Managing Partner of Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm focused on software and technology companies with over $78 billion in assets under management. Among his many accolades, Forbes named Orlando “Wall Street’s best dealmaker” in 2019. Our conversation covers Orlando’s background, early investment lessons, and approach around management, analytics, and collaborative culture. We then turn to the Thoma Bravo’s investment philosophy, team structure, work with portfol...
Aug 02, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s manager meeting, Jim Dunn speaks with Julia Bonafede. Jim is a past guest on the show and the CEO and CIO of Verger Capital, an OCIO whose anchor client is Wake Forest University. Jim previously served as CIO of Wake Forest and before that, was CIO of investment consultant Wilshire Associates, where he worked with Julia. Julia was at Wilshire for 24-years, capped by serving as President of Wilshire Consulting and as a member of Wilshire’s Board of Directors and Wilshire Consulting’s I...
Jul 29, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Doug Ostrover is the Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Owl Capital, a public company borne out of a merger combining Owl Rock Capital and Dyal Capital. Doug is also the CEO and Co-CIO of Owl Rock Capital Partners, a direct lender to middle-market companies that he co-founded in 2016 and today manages $30 billion in permanent capital assets. The combined Blue Owl manages approximately $53 billion in assets, over 90% of which is in permanent capital vehicles. Previously, Doug was one of the founders, and...
Jul 26, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s show, Tom Lenehan interviews Bill Ford. Tom was a very early guest on the show while at Rockefeller University and earlier this year took over as CIO of the $1.6 billion Wallace Foundation. Bill is Chairman and CEO of General Atlantic, a pioneer in growth equity investing that was founded by Duty Free Shoppers entrepreneur Chuck Feeney in 1980. Today, General Atlanticmanages $53 billion in assets with a globally-integrated team operating under a single investment platform. Had the tim...
Jul 22, 2021•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Virginie Morgon is the CEO of Eurazeo, a publicly listed asset manager that’s one of Europe’s leading private equity investors with more than $26 billion in assets, including $8 billion in permanent capital, across private equity, private debt, and real asset strategies. Our conversation covers Virginie’s background, transition to private equity, and Eurazeo’s rich history. We discuss the business strategy under her leadership, longstanding emphasis on ESG, European focus, investment strategy, a...
Jul 19, 2021•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast On today’s manager meeting, Joel Wittenberg speaks with Eli Casdin. Joel is the former Chief Investment Officer of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the U.S. Eli is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Casdin Capital, a $3.5 billion dollar investment firm focused on investments in life sciences. Their conversation starts with Eli’s thematic case for biotech and role of big pharma. They turn to the firm’s assessment of company management teams, pr...
Jul 15, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast David Rubenstein is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group. Founded back in 1987, Carlyle is one of the world’s largest and most diversified global investment firms with $260 billion in asset under management across three business segments and twenty-nine offices around the world. Our conversation covers David’s start in private equity, growing Carlyle from the early days, raising capital skillfully, recruiting talent globally, and managing a public company. We then turn to David’s ...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alex Shahidi speaks with Jeremy Grantham. Alex is a past guest on the show and Co-CIO of Evoke Wealth and ARIS Consulting, a $19 billion registered investment advisor he co-founded in 2014. Jeremy is the famed leader of money manager GMO, overseeing $60 billion in assets. Their conversation discusses the current market bubble unlike any other in history, some thoughts on climate change, value investing, and where to invest today . Alex and I kick it off with his thoughts on GMO and the fit insid...
Jul 08, 2021•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Manager Meetings with Capital Allocators will feature an interview with a money manager, conducted by one of the manager’s institutional clients. We’ll share the stories and strategies that attracted the attention of the investor, bringing to light investment opportunities for allocators, both from well-known and less well-known managers, each time introduced by someone who believes in the manager’s ability to add value. You can find episodes of Manager Meetings at capitalallocators.com/podcast ...
Jul 05, 2021•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Robert F. Smith is the Founder, Chairman and CEO, Vista Equity Partners. Vista is a private investment firm that focuses entirely on enterprise software companies and manages $75 billion in assets across private equity, permanent capital, credit and public vehicles. Taken together, Vista’s current portfolio companies are about 70 in number and house 70,000 employees, 700,000 customers across 175 countries, and 200 million global users. Its combined revenue would make the portfolio one of the lar...
Jul 05, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast John Connaughton is a Co-Managing Partner at Bain Capital, a leading global private investment firm that oversees approximately $130 billion in assets. Founded in 1984 as the pioneer of a consulting-based approach to private equity investing, Bain Capital today invests across private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital and real estate. Our conversation covers the early years of private equity at Bain Capital, its growth in products and assets, investment process, competitive environme...
Jun 28, 2021•1 hr•Ep 201•Transcript available on Metacast My guest on the first episode of Private Equity Masters is John Toomey, one of two members of the Executive Management Committee at HarbourVest Partners. For more than thirty years, HarbourVest has invested across all parts of the private equity spectrum - in funds, secondaries, and direct co-invests. Today , it oversees over $75 billion of assets and canvasses the world. Our conversation discusses the early days of private equity investing, evolution of strategies across primaries, co-invests, ...
Jun 21, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Katy Milkman , the James G. Dinan Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, host of Choiceology , Charles Schwab’s popular podcast on behavioral economics, the co-founder and co-director alongside Angela Duckworth of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative, and most recently, the author of How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You are to Where You Want to Be . Our conversation covers Katy’s path to studying change and her new book, which is framed around ident...
Jun 14, 2021•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alex Rodriguez had a 25-year professional baseball career, highlighted by appearing in 14 MLB All-Star Games, winning the 2009 World Series Championship as a member of the New York Yankees, and hitting 696 home runs including more grand slams than any other player in history. He is also is the Chairman and CEO of A-Rod Corp, an investment holding company he started at age 20 in 1995 that today spans investments in real estate, venture capital, a SPAC, and recently announced, the Minnesota Timber...
Jun 07, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Charley Ellis is the founder of Greenwich Associates, author of sixteen investment books, and now a three-time guest on the show. The bookends of his published library - his seminal book, Investment Policy, and most recent work, The Index Revolution , discuss the case for indexing for most investors. Yet one of Charley’s most longstanding and passionate engagements proved the exception to the rule – his decade and a half of service on Yale University’s Investment Committee, including nine years ...
May 31, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Investment luminary Charley Ellis is the founder of Greenwich Associates, author of 16 books, and one of the most sought-after industry advisors worldwide. He also believes deeply in the paradox of skill and his latest book, The Index Revolution: Why Investors Should Join It Now , presents a compelling case for indexing for most investors.. Charley was an early guest on the show and we reconvened to talk through the full case of indexing for individuals and some of its constraints for institutio...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Charley Ellis is one of the most highly regarded experts in the investment business. After spending nearly a decade as an equity research analyst in the 1960s, Charley founded financial services consulting firm Greenwich Associates in 1972 to help institutions understand what their clients think of them. Over 50 years, Charley has worked hand in hand with nearly every major financial institution in the world and has published sixteen books on investing, including his most recent “The Index Revol...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Ashby Monk is the Executive and Research Director of the Stanford University Global Projects Center. Ashby was named by CIO Magazine as one of the most influential academics in the institutional investing world. His current research focuses on the design and governance of institutional investors, with specialization on pension and sovereign wealth funds. Ashby’s most recent book, The Technologized Investor, is a practical guide showing how institutional Investors can gain the capabilities fo...
May 24, 2021•1 hr•Ep 196•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Ashby Monk is the Executive and Research Director of the Stanford University Global Projects Center. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of Oxford, a Senior Advisor to the Chief Investment Officer of the University of California, and the co-founder of Long Game. Ashby advises sovereign wealth funds and large pension funds, and is involved with a bunch of fin tech companies, all of which attempt to create innovative solutions to fixing the financial future for individuals...
May 24, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Dan Ariely is a leading behavioral economist, author, entrepreneur and the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Dan is a founding partner of Irrational Capital, an investment research firm that quantifies the impact of corporate culture and employee motivation on financial performance. My initial conversation with Dan two years ago has been one of the most downloaded episodes of the show, and a recent research piece by JP Morgan entitled The Human Ca...
May 17, 2021•59 min•Ep 195•Transcript available on Metacast Dan Ariely is a renowned behavioral economist, author, entrepreneur, and investor. He is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. Dan is the author of six books, most of which have the word “Irrationality” in the title and has a weekly column in the The Wall Street Journal called “Ask Ariely.” Dan’s TED Talks have been downloaded more than 10 million times. Dan also is a Founding Partner of I...
May 17, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sulaiman Alderbas, the Head of Alternative Investments at Kuwait’s $130 billion Public Institution of Social Security, or PIFSS. Sulaiman arrived at PIFSS from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Development in 2016, shortly before a scandal erupted when the former head of PIFSS was convicted of corruption and embezzling public funds for thirty years amounting to billions of dollars. Alongside Meshal Al-Othman, who joined to lead PIFSS from the Kuwait Fund, Sulaiman took part in a massive restructuring of ...
May 10, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Johnson is the Managing Partner of Astra Capital Management, a mid-market growth buyout firm specializing in the communications and technology services sectors. Mark co-founded Astra after twenty years of experience investing at JH Whitney, Blackstone, and Carlyle. He partnered with seasoned deal and operating executives and brought the best practices from large shops to Astra with an entrepreneurial lens to address a focused strategy in a new way. Our conversation covers Mark’s unusually p...
May 06, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Steve Moseley is the Head of Alternative Investments at Alaska Permanent Fund, a $70 billion sovereign endowment that supports the citizens of Alaska. Steve leads a small team, based in Juneau, Alaska, that is one of the most active participants in what he calls the space in between General Partners and Limited Partners. Across private equity, venture capital, infrastructure, and private credit, Steve and the fund are considered one of the most innovative investors in private markets. Our conver...
May 03, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Daniel Adamson is a Senior Managing Director at Wafra and the President of Capital Constellation, a joint venture between mega asset owners in Europe, North America and the Middle East that invests in the next generation of private equity managers. Our conversation focuses on this innovative joint venture and how a group of large asset owners came together to scale their resources. We touch on a host of issues relating to the formation and implementation of the business, the many possibilities t...
May 03, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
