Private Capital Call

This month, we have Jack Ablin, Chief Investment Officer and founding partner at Cresset Capital, a top fractional family office serving high net worth individuals and families. Jack discusses his extensive investment background dating back to the 1980s, highlighting how his strategy has evolved towards asset allocation.Jack shares insights into the current macroeconomic landscape, particularly the shift in the bond market's competitiveness with equities and its implications for investors. He explores the attractiveness of private credit as an asset class, noting its potential as a hedge in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment. He shares his perspective on navigating private markets, advocating for a focus on middle-market opportunities and economically insensitive sectors.

This month our guest is Ron Kahn, Managing Director at Lincoln International and head of their valuations practice.Ron sheds light on the current market dynamics, highlighting the robust performance of private companies despite lackluster M&A activity. The podcast explores the current economic climate, noting positive indicators like EBITDA growth and expectations of Fed rate cuts.Throughout the conversation, Ron and Randy emphasize the resilience of private capital and predicting continued strength despite geopolitical uncertainties and upcoming elections. We also cover topics such as Lincoln private market index, financing costs, and the outlook for private capital and deal-making in the coming years.

This month our guest is Ed Goldstein, Partner, CIO of Coller Credit Secondaries, a leading investor in the secondary market for private assets.  In the wake of the global financial crisis, the private credit landscape experienced a seismic shift. As the secondary market gained traction, it began to offer liquidity solutions for investors in the private credit space. Investors, motivated by reasons such as underperformance, regulatory concerns, liquidity needs, stress, and opportunistic selling, started to explore this emerging avenue for portfolio management. The discussion shifts to credit secondaries being more of an LP market, investing for upside potential, and the necessity of diversified portfolios to mitigate risk. In essence, the private credit market, though relatively young, is showing signs of maturation and paving the way for a future characterized by specialization, strategic partnerships, and a more developed secondary market.

In this week's episode, we are honored to welcome the renowned economist, Dr. Mickey Levy. As a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a respected member of the Shadow Open Market Committee, Dr. Levy brings a wealth of knowledge and insight.Join us as we delve into a range of critical economic topics with Dr. Levy. Our discussion encompasses the resilience and recent slowdown of the U.S. economy, the ongoing concerns surrounding inflation, and the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy. We also examine the current state of interest rates, including both short-term rates and bond yields, and discuss the implications of persistent budget deficits and escalating national debt. Concluding our conversation, Dr. Levy shares his expert assessment of the long-term outlook for the U.S. economy.

This week our guest is Van Hesser, chief strategist at KBRA, a credit rating analysis agency. Van is also the host of his own insightful podcast, "Three Things in Credit," which I highly recommend.In this episode, we dive into the current economic landscape, explore the concepts of economic soft landings, no landings, and where we currently stand. We also discuss the aftermath of the banking crisis earlier this year, the question of systemic risk and private capital, and how to think about the default cycle – all essential considerations for private capital investors in the coming months.

We are thrilled to have Steve Segal as our first guest on the podcast. Steve Segal, a former Executive-in-Residence and Lecturer at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. He developed and taught a graduate level course in private equity and leverage buyouts.Steve was a co-founding partner of J.W. Childs, investing in middle-market growth companies, primarily in the consumer products, health care services and specialty retail sectors. During his tenure the firm completed more than 40 transactions with a total transaction value in excess of $11 billion.Today, Steve is primarily a private investor, frequently collaborating with others on early stage ventures.