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Dave Tayeh, Head of Private Equity North America at Investcorp — Investing in Relationships: The people side of private equity

Mar 3, 2022

26:02

Summary:

The private equity industry has a reputation for being, well, pretty private. That’s been changing over the course of the last decade and where PE firms used to keep their cards close to their chest, they are increasingly championing transparency. That shift allows investors to form more informed assessments, and businesses looking to sell are able to have a better understanding of who they’re working with and how their interests align.

Relationships are an important factor to evaluate in investment decisions. Dave Tayeh, Head of Private Equity North America at Investcorp knows that well, having had experience as both an operator and an investor. At Investcorp, a global manager of alternative investments, Dave and his team leverage their global platform and resources to drive growth and value in the companies and relationships they invest in.

In this episode, Dave explains how he evaluates opportunity when deciding which companies to partner with, his perspective on how the private equity game has changed over time, and the investment strategies his team employed to support their portfolio throughout the pandemic.

Highlights:

Introduction to Dave’s career at Investcorp (03:16)
Dave describes Investcorp and their mission (05:44)
Why private equity wants to partner with founders (06:48)
What differentiates Dave and his team at Investcorp (08:19)
Dave describes the six verticals they invest in (09:58)
The case study of Wrench (11:00)
Dave’s philosophy on leverage (12:26)
How Investcorp weathered the storm of Covid-19 (14:15)
Dave explains why managing people and relationships is key to PE strategy (18:53)
Dave provides his opinion on how private equity has changed over the last 20 years (21:00)
Wrap Up (23:30)

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