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Head of Investor Relations at $3 Billion Hedge Fund Tells All | Capital Raising 101 Mar 11, 2026

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In this episode, we sit down with Kate Baumann, Head of Investor Relations at Empyrean Capital Partners (a $3 billion event-driven, multi-strategy hedge fund), LIVE from iConnections in Miami.

Here's the thing nobody tells you: the amount of money a hedge fund manages — its AUM — is the single biggest driver of how much everyone at that fund gets paid. The 2% management fee is what funds the operation, allows traders to generate good returns (alpha) which then can pay top talent, and creates the flywheel that attracts more capital and better talent.

Kate explains exactly how that fundraising engine works, from identifying which allocators (pensions, endowments, sovereign wealth funds) are the right fit, to running competitive analysis against peer funds, to crafting the narrative that gets an investment committee to say yes. She also gets into the five pillars of Empyrean's event-driven strategy, transactional, structural, stress/distressed, and legal/regulatory, and why all five are firing right now.

She also gets real about what it takes to be successful. This isn't IR at a corporate .Kate talks about what it takes to raise money, to build the relationships, travel every other week, and why wining and dining (what may have worked in the 1990s.) doesn't work now.

Whether you're thinking about a career in investor relations, trying to understand how hedge funds actually raise capital, or just want to know what happens behind the scenes at these huge hedge fund conferences, this one's for you. Kate shares her path from JP Morgan's private bank during the financial crisis to running IR at a multi-billion dollar fund, her advice for young people breaking in, and why the best IR professionals think like allocators, talk like PMs, and build relationships that compound over decades — not transactions.

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Jobs, Oil, and the Ellison's LBO of Warner Brothers | TWSS x CNBC's Dan Nathan & Guy Adami: "He Said / She Said" Mar 09, 2026

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We're back for the ninth installment of He Said She Said, our regular crossover series with Dan Nathan and Guy Adami of CNBC's Fast Money. We recorded just after the open Friday morning, breaking down a February jobs report that caught many off guard -- 92,000 jobs lost, massive downward revisions to prior months, and mounting evidence of an organic economic slowdown that's been building for over a year, well before AI has meaningfully reshaped the labor force.

We dive into the Paramount-Warner Brothers mega-deal, what amounts to the largest leveraged buyout in history led by the Ellison family with sovereign wealth fund backing and clear echoes of Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition playbook. Kristen walks through the deal mechanics and the real meaning behind "synergies" -- Wall Street's favorite euphemism for mass layoffs -- while the group debates the timeline for AI-driven workforce displacement across sectors from tech to banking.

Jen brings the macro picture into sharp focus, drawing parallels to 2008 as oil prices spike amid escalating geopolitical tensions, war insurance gets pulled from shipping vessels, and the bond market sends confusing signals about inflation and flight-to-quality dynamics. The conversation rounds out with a look at emerging cracks in private credit markets -- including cases of double-pledged collateral fraud coming to light -- and what a persistently elevated VIX alongside modest equity drawdowns might be telling us about complacency lurking beneath the surface.

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Iran Is Shaking the Oil Markets. What the Top Commodities Traders Are Thinking Right Now Mar 05, 2026

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In this special emergency episode of The Wall Street Skinny, we sat down with Andreas Laskaratos, CEO of AB Commodities Group, a global oil and gas shipping and trading firm with operations spanning Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Andreas is one of the few people in the world who operates across both the physical and financial sides of the commodities complex, and he's been a longtime friend of the show.
With Iran blockading the Strait of Hormuz, shipping rates spiking 5x overnight, and 20% of global oil flow suddenly in question, there was no one we wanted to talk to more. Andreas walks us through the mechanics of what's actually happening when it comes to oil, natural gas, and the broader commodities complex.
We cover everything from the basics (WTI vs. Brent, what actually comes out of a barrel of crude, why it costs Saudi Arabia $5 to extract oil and the U.S. $50) to the trades being put on right now, why China is likely hurting the most, and what the 45-day timeline to $150 oil actually looks like. Andreas also had his war insurance canceled in real time while we were recording, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about where things stand.
Whether you work in finance, energy, or you're just trying to understand why your gas prices look the way they do this is the best crash course you'll get in commodities in under an hour.

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LIVE from Miami: Is Private Credit Fundraising OVER? Mar 03, 2026

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We sat down with Ron Biscardi, the CEO and co-founder of iConnections, live at Global Alts Miami to get the skinny on what's happening with fund managers and allocators in real time. Last year, private credit was the undisputed darling of investment strategies. Now, on the heels of Blue Owl headlines and concerns about cracks within the private credit markets, headlines seem to suggest a tough road ahead.

But reality is far more nuanced. Ron synthesized both emotional reactions and hard data from investors responding to new perceived stresses in the sector in ways that might surprise you. We also learn where smart money is pivoting, where it remains steadfast, which asset classes and investment strategies stand poised to benefit, and how allocators are positioning for highly volatile markets this year.

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Paramount Outbids Netflix for WBD & Middle East Military Action Fallout | Emergency Episode Mar 02, 2026

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Kristen and Jen tackle two major stories in this double emergency episode. First, Kristen breaks down latest update in the Warner Bros saga — how Paramount outbid Netflix with a $31/share offer, why Netflix walked away, and what the deal means financially. They cover the cursed history of Warner Bros. M&A deals, the staggering leverage Paramount is taking on (potentially the largest LBO ever), the accretion/dilution math that made this a non-starter for Netflix, and why it's an existential move for Paramount. They also get into the ticking fee structure, the $7 billion breakup fee, and why so many people are nervous about this outcome.

Jen then covers the weekend's military action in the Middle East and how it's hitting markets on Monday. She walks through the relatively muted equity reaction, the split between defense stocks and travel names, the divergence between WTI and Brent crude, and why treasuries initially rallied before selling off. The yield curve is bare flattening as the market prices out near-term Fed cuts, since sustained oil price shocks would feed through to broader inflation beyond just energy. Gold is catching a bid as the classic risk-off trade, while Europe looks more vulnerable than the US to prolonged disruption given its energy dependence.

Coming later this week: episodes recorded at the I Connections conference, including an Investor Relations 101 conversation and a look at where allocators are directing capital this year, with equity long/short and macro funds gaining ground over last year's private credit buzz.

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Industry S4E8 "Both/And" | Where does Industry go from here? Mar 02, 2026

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It's a bittersweet day at The Wall Street Skinny, where we are recapping the SEASON FINALE!! While this one is lighter on finance than most episodes this season, we still dig into the mechanics of closing out a massive short position without spooking the tape. We also break down how hedge fund fees actually work — the industry-standard "two and twenty" structure where managers earn a 2% management fee on assets under management plus 20% of profits — and use that framework to reverse-engineer what this three-person fund operating out of a hotel room should have actually earned versus what got paid out. The numbers don't quite add up, and we have thoughts.
This finale also takes a hard pivot into politics, power brokering, and some very dark territory for one of our favorite characters. We trace every reference and detail — from Walt Whitman to the Talented Mr. Ripley, George Orwell to Henry VIII — and debate what the show is setting up for its next chapter. Character arcs that have been building all season reach their breaking points, alliances shatter in stunning ways, and the episode forces us to ask whether people are truly capable of change or destined to become the very thing they fought against.
We share our honest reactions to what worked and what left us frustrated, revisit our season-long theories one final time, and give our last bullish and bearish calls of the season. Thank you to every single listener who joined us on this ride — your feedback, theories, and insights made this our favorite recording day of the week. See you next season.

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TWSS x CNBC's Dan Nathan & Guy Adami: "He Said / She Said" - Blue Owl's Private Credit Fiasco Feb 25, 2026

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We teamed up with Guy Adami and Dan Nathan to discuss two major developing market stories ahead of meeting in Miami for the iConnections Global Alts conference. The first topic is stress in private credit, centered on Blue Owl’s retail-focused semi-liquid vehicle (Blue Owl Capital Corp II) facing heavy redemptions and gating, highlighting the liquidity mismatch between retail redemption needs and long-dated loan assets. They contrast the gated evergreen structure with Blue Owl’s publicly traded BDC that was trading roughly 20% below NAV, discuss Blue Owl’s reported loan sales near NAV, and explore why the issue is pressuring related stocks like Blue Owl and Blackstone despite an S&P 500 that appears indifferent. The group connects the private credit conversation to how AI/data center buildouts are financed, including references to Meta-related structures and concerns about CoreWeave’s ability to raise capital for data center obligations, and notes that credit markets often reprice quickly only after complacency breaks. The second topic is prediction markets, focusing on Kalshi and its partnership with Tradeweb to publish analytics and potentially enable institutional trading of binary outcomes on events like Fed decisions and macro data, raising questions about democratized access, liquidity constraints, regulatory gaps, spoofing, and the role of insider information, along with implications for politics and whether more information is always better.

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Industry S4E7 "Points of Emphasis" | Hostile Takeovers Feb 23, 2026

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In this episode, we're breaking down Season 4, Episode 7 of Industry, "Points of Emphasis" — and we have a lot of feelings. We walk you through all the major plot developments, from Whitney's attempted escape and his terrifying confrontation with what appears to be his foreign handlers, to Yasmin's ruthless political maneuvering to bring down Lisa Dern and protect herself as Tender collapses around her.
Along the way, we dig into the finance: what a hostile takeover actually is and why Whitney's stock-for-stock bid for PierPoint is more smoke and mirrors than strategy, the real-world Porsche-Volkswagen story that inspired Whitney's synthetic position playbook (and why it still wouldn't be legal today), and why Harper's team is covering their short carefully as the stock craters.
We also get into the emotional core of the episode: Lord Norton's heartbreaking decision to let Henry face the consequences, the long-awaited Harper and Yasmin reconciliation, and what Yasmin's admission that she's "never been necessary" might be setting up for the season finale.
Share your theories and let us know where you think this all ends for our characters!

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Goldman Sachs’ Head of Alts for Wealth, Kristin Olson: What No One Tells You about Investing in Private Markets Feb 19, 2026

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Kristin Olson, Goldman Sachs’ Head of Alternatives for Wealth, sits down with us for the most candid, no-fluff conversation about private equity and private credit we've ever had. .
She walks us through the very real benefits of investing in private capital while also answering the cynical questions: do “retail” investors in private equity products like evergreen funds and perpetual funds get the A-team investors? Are those structures getting the best deals? How do the fees compare to the fees on products for institutional investors? Plus, If more buyers flood the market, does that push prices up and compress returns?
Kristin breaks down for us how this whole ecosystem actually works, she discusses the biggest shift in private markets right now, and the pros and cons of newer structures that aim to make private assets feel more like “normal investing.”
Finally, we go deep on what investors should actually ask before putting money into private equity and private credit. Kristin talks us through how fees can be misleading, when carry is taken, hurdle rates, gating/redemptions, and what “liquidity” really means when markets get stressed. This is an episode every investor should listen to before putting private capital into their portfolio.

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TWSS x CNBC's Dan Nathan & Guy Adami: "He Said She Said" | 100 Year Bond + Paramount / WBD Update Feb 17, 2026

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In the sixth installment of He Said, She Said on the Risk Reversal Podcast, Kristen and Jen are joined by CNBC's Dan Nathan and Guy Adami to talk century bonds, Paramount / Warner Brothers update, and the existential angst surrounding AI. The episode kicks off with a listener question about Alphabet’s recent $32 billion debt issuance, including a rare 100-year sterling bond, prompting a deep dive into who issues century bonds, who actually buys them, and what locking in ultra-long-term rates signals about corporate views on term premium and fiscal risk.

From there, the group pivots to an update on the Warner Bros–Paramount–Netflix saga, Finally, the crew tackles the market’s rapidly shifting narrative around AI. What was once a universal tailwind for SaaS and hyperscalers now feels like a sector-wide threat, with investors “shooting first and asking questions later.” The group weigh in on productivity, unemployment fears, private market risk, and whether today’s selloff in software names is a buying opportunity or a warning sign.

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