100: Private Equity Co-investments with Neuberger Berman
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Release Date: 06/04/2024
117: Geopolitics with Alan Dupont – Tech wars, Geoeconomics and the Mag 7
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In this episode, I'm speaking with Dr Alan Dupont, who is the founder and CEO of Cognoscenti Group. Alan is a highly respected geopolitical strategist and has advised a wide range of governmental and commercial organisations, including the Northern Territory Government, Asia Society, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Outcomes Australia. He has advised several Australian ministers of defence and foreign affairs, and in 2013 established and led the Abbott government's defence white paper team. Alan started his career in government, including as an Army officer, intelligence analyst...
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116: Igneo Infrastructure Partners' Danny Latham – Infrastructure 2.0, Waste to Energy and Transition Assets
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In this episode of the [i3] podcast, Conversations with Institutional Investors, we speak with Danny Latham, Partner and Head of Australia and New Zealand for Igneo Infrastructure Partners. We discuss the evolution of infrastructure assets, termed "Infrastructure 2.0," which includes renewable energy, digitalisation, and waste management. Danny highlights the shift from traditional infrastructure to more dynamic, B2B-focused assets, emphasising the importance of cash flow predictability and regulatory risks. He also touches on the role of gas as a transition fuel, the potential of...
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115: Gain Line Analytics' Ben Darwin – Performance Analytics, Team Cohesion and The Wallabies
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Ben Darwin is the Co-founder and General Manager of Corporate at Gain Line Analytics and in this episode we're going to take a look at what makes teams successful and stay successful. Ben is a former Wallaby player, having played 28 test matches for Australia. He's a former coach and a performance analyst, having worked with a number of rugby teams, including a Japanese team, the NTT Shining Arcs and Suntory Sungoliath, he started Gain Line in 2013 out of a desire to introduce a greater degree of empirical analysis into professional sports. But his research goes broader than just...
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114: Bellmont Securities' Michael Block – The Michael Block Roadmap to Investing
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Michael Block is Chief Investment Officer of Bellmont Securities and Adjunct Industry Professor at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where he helped establish the UTS Anchor Fund. The UTS Anchor Fund is a live investment portfolio managed by students to give them hands on experience with managing portfolios. In this episode, we take a look at Michael's extensive career in investing, spanning roles with Future Plus, Nambawan Super, Australian Catholic Superannuation & Retirement Fund and now Bellmont Securities, and discuss the lessons learned during this time and how you can...
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113: FCLT's Eduard van Gelderen – Long Term Investing, Concentrated Portfolios and Decarbonisation
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Eduard van Gelderen is Head of Research for Focusing Capital on the Long Term (FCLT), an organisation that was established in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, or Great Recession as it is known in the US, to move away from a so-called “quarterly capitalism”, which arguably contributed to the crisis, and towards a true long-term mind-set.
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112: Fulcrum's Suhail Shaikh – Absolute Return Investing, Market Timing and The Role of Luck
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Suhail Shaikh is Chief Investment Officer of Fulcrum Asset Management and is the portfolio manager of Fulcrum’s Discretionary Macro and Diversified Absolute Return strategies. In today’s incredibly volatile environment of tariff wars and deglobalisation, investors tend to be more sensitive about the level of their absolute returns, than their performance against the benchmark. In this episode, we delve into the philosophy of absolute return investing, we talk about the role of skill versus luck, the use
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111: ART's Michael Weaver – The Role of Real Assets in a Pension Portfolio
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In episode 111 of the [i3] Podcast, we speak with Michael Weaver, who is the Head of Global Real Assets with the Australian Retirement Trust. We discussed the role of real assets in the context of a multi-asset, pension portfolio, the ever-lurking threat of inflation, the return of office property and more. Please enjoy the show!
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110: Allspring Global Investment's Jamie Newton – Is Now The Time to Add Duration?
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In episode 110 of the [i3] Podcast, we speak with Jamie Newton, Head of Global Fixed Income Research and Deputy Head of Sustainability at Allspring Global Investments. We discuss why now is a good time to add duration to fixed income portfolios, concerns over the lack of experience with high default rates in private credit and opportunities in data centres and other digital assets. Enjoy the Show!
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109: Is DeepSeek What It Promised To Be? – Will Liang Explains New AI Model
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In episode 109, we are back with Will Liang, Executive Director at MA Financial, to discuss the introduction of DeepSeek and the impact on the future development of artificial intelligence and the global economy. Are tech firms going to scale back their investments due to this low cost model, or is it all a bit of a hype? Enjoy the Show!
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108: Victory Park Capital's Brendan Carroll – Private Credit, Asset-backed Lending, ChatGPT
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Private credit has evolved significantly since the global financial crisis, and Brendan Carroll, Senior Partner at Victory Park Capital, has been at the forefront of that transformation. In this episode, we explore how private credit investments are adapting to meet the needs of insurers, the growing role of asset-backed lending, and why insurance companies are becoming the fastest-growing investor base in the space.
info_outlineIt is our 100th episode of the [i3] Podcast and we are celebrating this with an in-depth discussion on innovation in private equity, especially mid-life transactions, with David Morse, Managing Director and Global Co-Head of Private Equity Co-Investments at Neuberger Berman. Enjoy the show!
Overview of Podcast with David Morse of Neuberger Berman
01:00 Starting in mid-market lending, but liking what the guys on the other side of the table did more
03:30 Deal flow in Private Equity has been low and portfolio companies are for more than 6 years, an eternity in PE
06:00 Prior to 2022, you had the “rocket fuel of private equity”, cheap debt and distributions exceeded capital calls. But you get to the third quarter of 2022 and all of those sources of liquidity have dried up
09:00 What we saw was that seller expectation was still quite high, but buyer expectations had come down dramatically, because the cost of capital had gone up
12:30 Today, PE transactions are not leveraged buyouts anymore, it is a very equity heavy transaction
16:30 Mid life transactions are co-investments into the private equity space. They focus on companies that have been owned for a few years, but are still performing well and needs capital to continue its value creation plan
19:00 When you are a GP, there are really only three sources of capital: private debt, secondaries (continuation funds) and co-investments (including mid life deals)
22:00 The problem in PE is not the returns, it is the distribution. And that is why there is an opportunity for private debt, secondaries and co-investments
25:00 Should we re-lever assets?
31:00 Distribution levels are at their lowest since 2010 and so LPs say: ‘I cannot commit to your next fund until I see some cash back’. If you ask me who is going to blink first, seller expectation vs buyer expectation, then I’m going to say seller expectation first.
33:00 Investment banks told us that their backlog of signed M&A agreements was higher in Q1 of 2024 compared to Q1 2021, the record exit year of all time.
35:30 The deal flow that has collapsed is one private equity firm selling to another private equity firm
37:30 In terms of the deal being done, we’ve seen a shift towards up market
38:30 We subscribe to not just interest rates ‘higher for longer’, but ‘higher forever’
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