Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

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Sustainable Investing 2: Liqian Ma – Allocator Perspective (Capital Allocators, EP.140) Jun 11, 2020

Show notes

Liqian Ma is the Head of Impact Investing Research at Cambridge Associates. Liqian developed an early interest in the climate growing up in a coal-dependent city in China. He began focusing on sustainable investing over a decade ago and leads Cambridge Associates work with its 150 clients focused on the space. Our conversation provides an allocator's overview of sustainable investing. We start with Liqian's path and turn to how interested investors go about creating and implementing sustainable investment strategies. Along the way, we touch on manager selection, portfolio integration, investment opportunities and risks, and the implementation of sustainable investing concepts across the rest of Cambridge Associates activities.

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Sustainable Investing 1: Wendy Cromwell – The $170 Trillion Opportunity (Capital Allocators, EP.139) Jun 08, 2020

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Wendy Cromwell is Vice-Chair of Wellington Management and the Director of Sustainable Investment at the firm. She joined Wellington out of business school 25 years ago and has been there ever since. A year and a half ago, Wendy also became one of two asset managers on the 10 person Board of the UN PRI, or United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment. PRI is the world's leading proponent of responsible investment, canvassing 2,500 signatories globally across asset owners, asset managers and service providers. Their mission is to understand the investment implications of ESG factors and support the incorporation of those factors globally. Our conversation discusses Wendy's path within Wellington, the lingo of sustainable investment, market inefficiencies for an active manager in the space, implementation of sustainable investing across a large asset management firm, growth of interest in sustainable investing, integration of scientific climate research, rapidly rising interest and research in social considerations in companies, and developments on the come with carbon footprint, divestment, and regulation.

[REPLAY] Jean Hynes – Inside Wellington Management (Capital Allocators, EP.82) Jun 08, 2020

Show notes

Jean Hynes is a Managing Partner at Wellington Management, where she one of three people responsible for the governance of Wellington's storied partnership. Jean also is the sector leader of the firm's healthcare team that manages the Vanguard Healthcare Fund, three global healthcare hedge funds, and global healthcare sector portfolios. She joined Wellington after graduating from college in 1991 and has been at the firm ever since.

Our conversation covers Wellington's humanistic culture, its evolution from a U.S. value shop to a global federation of boutiques, talent recruitment, the successful merit-based partnership structure, and the Wellington of the future. Along the way we touch on Jean's progression from an administrative assistant to a Managing Partner, the healthcare team's investment philosophy and process, a day in her work life, and topical issues of active vs. passive, public and private investing, and large vs. small firms.

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Clarke Futch – Healthcare Royalty Partners (First Meeting, EP.20) Jun 01, 2020

Show notes

Clarke Futch is a co-founder, Managing Partner and Chairman of the Investment Committee at Healthcare Royalty Partners, an investment firm that purchases royalties and uses debt-like instruments to generate non-correlated return streams from biopharmaceutical assets. The firm is a leader in the space and has invested over $3 billion in 70 investments since its founding 14 years ago.

Our conversation covers Clarke's background in investment banking and path to pharmaceutical royalties in the earliest days of the business. We discuss the nature of the opportunity, the reason why it exists, and how it works, and the team in place at Healthcare Royalty Partners that makes it happen.

We then turn to the investment process, covering sourcing, screening criteria, due diligence, deal structure, portfolio construction, competitive landscape, risks, and opportunities in the current market.

Clarke offers an inside look at one of the more intriguing modern investment strategies with great insight and examples along the way.

Brett Jefferson – Inefficiencies in Structured Credit at Hildene Capital Management (First Meeting, EP.19) May 25, 2020

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Brett Jefferson is the President and Co-CIO of Hildene Capital Management, an asset manager he founded in 2008 that oversees $9 billion in structured credit strategies and was listed in Barron's Top 100 Annual Hedge Funds ranking for six consecutive years. Our conversation starts with Brett's education, in which he majored in lacrosse and minored in school. We hit on the early days of CDOs, putting his knowledge to work at Marathon Asset Management, taking a break, and then starting Hildene in the aftermath of the GFC. We then turn to Hildene's success in the inefficient market for bank trust preferred securities, its evolution from a founder-driven firm, success factors in the business, current opportunities and risks in CLOs, and Brett's involvement in the Premier Lacrosse League founded by Paul Rabil, who discussed the league on Episode 95 that follows in the feed.

[REPLAY] Paul Rabil - Lacrosse and Entrepreneurship (Capital Allocators, EP.95) May 25, 2020

Show notes

Paul Rabil is the co-founder and CEO of the Premier Lacrosse League or PLL, a new tour-based league of the top professional lacrosse players in the world that will debut on June 1st. Paul was the #1 player in the draft for Major League Lacrosse in 2008 after winning a national championship at Johns Hopkins. He is a 7-time Champion and 3-time MVP. Alongside his on-the-field accomplishments, Paul is a passionate entrepreneur who was the first lacrosse player to earn $1 million in endorsements.

Our conversation covers Paul's early interest in lacrosse, developing a social media fan following, the importance of sponsorship revenue for athletes, and the leverage athletes have over teams. We then turn to the formation of the PLL, including Paul's attempt to purchase the MLL with a search fund, his shift in business model from private equity to venture capital, the tour-based model, operations, distribution, and the on-field product. We close by discussing Suiting Up, Paul's podcast where he interviews top professional athletes and coaches, and the Paul Rabil Foundation, which brings lacrosse to schools for children with learning differences.

Paul is as savvy off-the-field as his is skilled on it, and as the PLL takes off as I suspect it will, this conversation may well mark an important moment in time for this fascinating start-up league.

Tune in to NBC to watch the first games from Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts on the first weekend in June.

Daylian Cain – Master Class in Negotiations (Capital Allocators, EP.138) May 18, 2020

Show notes

Daylian Cain is a Senior Lecturer in Negotiations and Ethics at the Yale University School of Management. His research focuses on "judgment and decision-making" and "behavioral business ethics." In other words, he studies the reasons why smart people do dumb things. Daylian teaches a course in negotiations and we turned to that for the subject of this show. Our conversation covers tactics for successful negotiating, things like preparing, deciding whether to 'go first', playing a weaker hand, asking for more, and gaining value from walking away. We close with current research in the field and in a closing question, tips on delivering effective constructive criticism. This was the last conversation I recorded before the onset of shelter-in-place, and I've been chomping at the bit to put it out ever since. Daylian refers to an online course he taught in April, and that sold out faster than he ever imagined. He's put together a new online training program called Negotiating in Difficult Times that I'm excited to take. The presale is now available, which you can access at negotiationmindgames.com. He's kindly offered a 20% discount to listeners of the show – just use the coupon code "allocators" when you sign up.

Laurence Siegel – Current Myths and Long-Term Optimism (Capital Allocators, EP.137) May 11, 2020

Show notes

Larry Siegel is the Gary Brinson director of research at the CFA Institute Research Foundation and an independent consultant, writer and speaker. Before his "retirement", he spent fifteen years as the head of research at the Ford Foundation and a dozen before that at Ibbotson Associates.

Our conversation starts with lessons Larry learned in his time as an allocator and turns to his recent paper describing the 10 Myths of investing, an allocator's version of Byron Wien's annual surprises. After walking through each, we touch on his recently released book "Fewer, Richer, Greener," which offers a case for long-term prosperity and growth, even amidst the unexpectedly challenging times we're currently facing.

Daniel Adamson – Innovation from Asset Giants at Capital Constellation (EP.136) May 04, 2020

Show notes

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 that are arising from this novel setup, and the serious challenges in bringing it to fruition. I suspect we'll see more efforts by asset owners to disintermediate pieces of the investment value chain, although as you'll hear, it's a lot easier said than done.

Tim McCusker – Advising Through a Crisis at NEPC (Capital Allocators, EP.135) Apr 30, 2020

Show notes

Tim McCusker is the Chief Investment Officer at consulting powerhouse NEPC, who serves 350 clients with total assets over $1.2 trillion. Tim joined me for the last of our special updates from the field during this unique and challenging period.

Our conversation touches on the separation of short-term and long-term strategies, different responses across hospitals, public funds, corporate funds and private clients, opportunities in credit, the state of private equity, due diligence conducted virtually, and long-lasting changes in workflow.

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