Alt Goes Mainstream

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Many of you have probably seen the red buses traversing the streets of London. Some of you have probably taken a London red bus to get to your next stop in the city.

One of those red bus companies, Arriva, is owned by $60B AUM infrastructure investor I Squared.

We went to North London to Arriva’s Palmers Green bus depot to take an inside look at the business of Arriva.

Arriva London is one of the largest bus operators in London. They’ve been carrying passengers around the UK’s capital since 1980, and they currently provide around 18% of the capital’s bus services, transporting 300 million passengers a year and covering 50 million miles across the 100 routes they operate under contract to Transport for London.

Arriva London is part of the broader Arriva Group, which operates in 11 countries across Europe. The Group operates almost 12,000 buses and 650 trains, completing 1.5 billion passenger journeys a year.

We had the chance to sit down with the team at I Squared behind Arriva and I Squared’s infrastructure investing platform that delivers essential, everyday services to people across the globe.

We talked with I Squared Senior Partner Mohamed El Gazzar, Fund Partner Maxime Jacqz, and Principal Kristen Guo about how they have built Arriva into a pan-European transportation platform.

Chapter 1 - Mohamed El Gazzar: Patience, price discipline in their infrastructure investments, and professionalizing the Arriva platform

Notable quotes from Mohamed:

“We’re very disciplined when it comes to our entry price. The deal doesn’t work, but we like a sub-sector. We continue to track that sub-sector.”

“Data centers need more power. The transportation sector is going to continue to electrify. The housing sector will continue to electrify. As a colleague of mine says, it’s yes or yes.”

“A lot of people buy certain businesses and say, ‘Oh, my exit route’s an IPO.’ But if the market’s closed, what do you do? We’ve been there before.”

00:00 Inside London Bus Depot

01:03 Infrastructure Investing Goes Mainstream

01:37 Sponsor Message Ultimus

02:35 Meet Mohamed El Gazzar

04:42 Europe Infrastructure Evolution

07:58 How Concessions Work

09:52 Why Buy Arriva

15:00 Carve Outs and P2P Deals

17:23 Value Creation and CapEx Plan

21:34 Electrifying Fleets and Power

26:51 Risks Regulation and Geopolitics

29:27 Diversification Mid-Market Exits

33:46 Democratizing Infrastructure Access

35:55 Closing and Sign Off

Chapter 2 - Maxime Jacqz: Value creation with Arriva

Notable quotes from Maxime:

“We hate the concept of having an asset which has unlimited downside and zero upside.”

“There is a single factor which is doing everything, which is talent. Without talent, you have nothing. The next buyer is not going to buy us. They’re going to buy the team.”

“Can we create an amazing value creation story with it? Yes. Could we also create a monster? Absolutely. And we don’t want that.”

00:00 Welcome Aboard Arriva

00:30 Maxime’s Path to I Squared

02:16 Investment Lessons on Risk

04:10 Electrifying the Bus Fleet

07:42 Platform Strategy and Synergies

10:24 Mid-Market Consolidation Playbook

12:58 Talent as the Value Driver

14:51 Picking and Backing Leaders

17:04 Operators vs Bankers Balance

18:45 Growth vs Exit Discipline

Chapter 3 - Kristen Guo: How capital markets can be a growth engine for infrastructure companies

Notable quotes:

“We’re very boring with our leverage profile. We always only take senior debt.”

“The debt should be a facilitator, but it should not drive the fundamental business decisions.”

“The amount of knowledge you learn by talking to someone on site, running that site, is way more than what you can read from a board deck.”

00:00 Welcome Aboard Arriva

00:30 Kristen’s Career Path

01:12 Capital Markets Fuel Growth

02:50 Financing Arriva Cash Flows

04:43 Building Lender Trust

05:48 Private Credit and Leverage

07:32 Platform Synergies in Action

09:08 Asset Management Conference

10:24 Site Visits and Real Learning

Bios

Mohamed El Gazzar is a Senior Partner of I Squared Capital, responsible for the infrastructure strategy in Europe. Mohamed is part of ISQ’s Executive Committee, Investment Committee, and Operating Committee, where he leads the Human Resources subcommittee. He sits on numerous boards and DATs, including but not limited to Conrad Energy, Lighten, Cube Cold Europe and Aggreko. Since joining I Squared Capital, Mohamed has led the acquisition and development of portfolio companies encompassing power and utilities, energy, transport and logistics, digital infrastructure, environmental infrastructure and social infrastructure. Some of the power and utilities investments that Mohamed has led include Energia Group in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; T-Solar, a solar PV portfolio with operations predominantly in Spain which was sold in 2020; and Conrad Energy, a UK independent power producer providing highly flexible generation; Aggreko, a leading global provider of mobile modular power, temperature control and energy services. In the transport and logistics space he led the 2018 acquisition of TIP Group, the largest pan-European trailer and truck lessor with presence across 17 countries in Europe and Canada; Cube Cold Europe, a pan-European cold storage platform focusing on acquiring and developing small- to medium-sized cold storage facilities across strategic areas such as ports and logistics hubs; and Arriva, a bus and rail operator. In 2019, Mohamed was involved in the acquisition of Domidep, I Squared Capital’s first investment in the social infrastructure space and one of the largest elderly residential care providers in France. In the digital infrastructure space, Mohamed led the acquisition of EXA, a leading pure-play operator of critical telecom infrastructure networks, which was completed in 2021. More recently, Mohamed led the acquisition of Applus, a global leader in the testing, inspection, and certification (TIC)sector. Before joining I Squared Capital, Mohamed spent 12 years at Morgan Stanley, most recently as an Executive Director of Morgan Stanley Infrastructure (MSI), a global platform for infrastructure investments at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Mohamed holds an LL.B. with Honors from Warwick University in the United Kingdom.

Maxime Jacqz is a Fund Partner based in the London office, leading ISQ’s European asset management function. Maxime focuses on portfolio company management and asset optimization, as well as due diligence and transaction execution. He serves on the boards and DATs of I Squared Capital portfolio companies including, but not limited to, EXA, Enva, Aggreko, Applus, Cube Green Energy, Cube Cold and nLighten. Maxime’s asset management experience includes setting up 100-day plans, appointing and incentivizing asset management teams, leading operational changes, chairing boards, executive committees and remuneration committees, managing refinancing processes, add-on investments and executing exit strategies. Prior to joining I Squared Capital, Maxime gained over 13 years of infrastructure experience, notably within EISER Infrastructure Partners (previously known as the ABN AMRO Global Infrastructure Fund), where he was a Director focusing on the infrastructure sub-sectors of transportation, energy (including renewable energy), and environmental services. Maxime started his career in the M&A team of ABN AMRO in 2004, where he advised numerous corporates in their acquisition strategies. Maxime holds a Master of Science from ESCP Europe in Paris and a German Diplom Kaufman.

Kristen Guo is a Principal in the Asset Management department based in the London office. Kristen drives value creation across ISquared Capital’s European infrastructure portfolio and leads capital markets, as well as exit strategy and execution. Over the past year, Kristen played a central role in financing transactions totaling more than €10 billion. She also participated in the sale of T-Solar, Energia and TIP Group. Prior to joining I Squared Capital, Kristen was at Kroll and NERA Economic Consulting. Kristen holds an MSc in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics from Peking University.

Thanks, Mohamed, Maxime, and Kristen, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about infrastructure and for all the work you and your peers do to help keep the buses, trains, and planes running on time, literally and figuratively.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Inside Arriva Depot

01:37 A Message from Our Sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

02:35 Meet Mohamed El Gazzar

04:42 Europe Infra Evolution

07:58 Concessions Explained

09:48 Why Buy Arriva

10:15 Deal Sourcing Journey

13:05 Arriva Competitive Moats

15:00 Carve Outs and P2P

17:23 Capex and Equity Story

21:34 Electrification Power Needs

26:51 Risks Regulation Geopolitics

29:27 Diversification Mid-Market Edge

31:00 Exit Routes Highway Metaphor

33:48 Democratizing Infrastructure

35:55 Meet Maxime Jacqz

36:33 Maxime’s Career Path

38:12 Risk First Value Creation

40:06 Electrifying The Fleet

43:52 Complex Mid-Market Strategy

46:37 Cold Storage Consolidation

49:11 Talent Drives Value

51:07 Dual Leadership Model

53:00 Balancing Operators And Bankers

54:41 Growth Versus Exit Discipline

56:32 Meet Kristen Guo

57:45 Debt Powers Growth

59:23 Financing Contracted Cashflows

01:01:29 Lender Trust And Leverage

01:02:21 Conservative Leverage

01:04:05 Platform Synergies

01:07:45 Closing Thoughts

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Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

One of the best-performing venture investors in history is back in the saddle. And this time, he’s bringing the stampede to invest in some of the most consequential companies of our time.

For Chris Sacca, the seeds of investing in energy were sown 23 years ago when he was building data centers for Google.

His investing career went into full bloom with Lowercase Capital, the venture firm he founded in 2010 with $8.4M in capital. Thanks to early investments in Uber, Twitter, Stripe, Instagram, Blue Bottle Coffee, Docker, Optimizely, and others, Lowercase’s first fund returned over 204x DPI and around 250x MOIC.

For his second act, he is going bigger to solve massive problems that require real solutions across energy, power, water, AI, transmission, and nuclear fusion.

He and his wife, Crystal, co-founded Lowercarbon Capital (and are the firm’s largest LPs) to invest in companies that own every part of the electrical stack, from sunlight to socket.

Chris and Crystal have built out a stellar team to match the opportunity in front of them by bringing together the requisite ingredients to be an expert and differentiated investor in energy, advanced manufacturing, . General Partner Clay Dumas was previously Chief of Staff in the White House Office of Digital Strategy. The firm’s most recent General Partner to join the ranks is Caie Kelley, who leads the firm’s Growth investing efforts. Caie brings to bear a background in private equity at Permira and investing in climate startups at Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures and output so considerable that the Lowercarbon team calls her “CaieGPT,” despite that output being human-generated.

Irrespective of political regime, geopolitical chokepoint, supply chain reconfiguration, the world was in dire need of better, faster, safer, cheaper, and cleaner energy alternatives.

Chris, Clay, Caie and team at Lowercarbon set out to invest in new energy and manufacturing companies that could become the foundation of the new energy economy when Lowercarbon launched in 2021. In that time, national security, energy security, geopolitical tensions, reorienting of supply chains, and a hotter earth have all undergone seismic shifts. Lowercarbon has invested across the energy stack to back companies addressing these challenges and building the foundation of the new economy.

There’s a lot to play for here on Earth, as Chris noted in the podcast, saying “Mars is for quitters. If we are going to Mars, we are giving up on what we have here.”

And what we have here is what this fascinating conversation with Chris and Caie focused on. We covered:

Why climate may not be the best way to describe Lowercarbon’s investing activities.

How big is the energy market?

Why Lowercarbon avoids investing in “science projects.”

What it takes to underwrite investing in hardware and hard tech companies.

How Lowercarbon unearths “fundamentally different technologies that are providing fundamentally different costs,” according to Caie.

Lessons learned from Lowercase and how to know when to bet big on an investment.

Why the likes of Antora, Crux, Fuse Energy, Base Power, Panthalassa, Cloover, Solar Square, Commonwealth Fusion, Emerald AI, and more could be such consequential companies.

Why the Lowercarbon team are “unapologetic capitalists.”

Bios

Caie Kelley, General Partner

Caie is a General Partner at Lowercarbon Capital, where she focuses primarily on growth stage opportunities and provides a quantitative lens to the team’s deep tech and science-backed work. Prior to Lowercarbon, she was at SOUNDWaves, the climate-focused venture arm of Sound Ventures, where she built out the team’s sustainability strategy, helped raise the fund’s first external capital, and backed founders at multiple stages of growth across batteries, alternative materials, circularity, and climate software.

Prior to Sound, Caie was at Permira, an $80b private equity fund based in New York, where she focused on technology and industrial services growth-stage businesses. Caie started her career in the technology investment banking group at JP Morgan in both San Francisco and New York, where she advised IPO-ready companies on how to graduate to the “real world” (public markets).

Caie holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and where she wrote a very, very long thesis on Southeast Asia and first became painfully aware of the disparate effects of climate change on developing parts of the world. Caie grew up in the Bay Area with two biologists as parents but is now a Southern California loyalist — she currently lives in Los Angeles where she spends her free time consuming reality television and staying up to date with pop culture discourse, and going on flat walks in the sun with friends.

Chris Sacca, Founder & Managing Partner

Chris is the co-founder of Lowercarbon Capital, backing the world’s most ambitious and scalable decarbonization solutions across energy, industrial materials, transportation, carbon removal, and advanced manufacturing. The portfolio spans countless companies, each proving to the world that hard-tech climate solutions are just good business.

Alongside his wife, Crystal, Chris also co-founded Lowercase Capital, best known for its very early investments in Uber, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker, Optimizely, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Stripe, making it one of the most successful venture funds in history.

The performance of the Lowercase funds vaulted Chris to the number-two spot on the Forbes Midas List and landed him a place on Vanity Fair’s New Establishment list before he shifted in 2017 from broad-based venture capital to focus on climate innovation, philanthropy, and creative pursuits.

Before becoming an investor, Chris served as Head of Special Initiatives at Google, where he founded and co-led the Access division. His projects included Google’s multi-billion-dollar initiatives for the 700MHz and TV white-spaces spectrum, culminating in Google’s $4.7 billion bid in the FCC spectrum auction. Chris oversaw billions of dollars of global energy projects and co-led the siting and acquisition of groundbreaking data centers in Oregon, Georgia, and the Netherlands. Chris helped expand the company’s global fiber-optic and undersea cable footprint, drove many of Google’s business development and M&A transactions, and was a founding team member of the company’s New Business Development division. In recognition of his accomplishments, Chris was among the first Google employees ever to receive the Google Founders’ Award, the company’s highest internal honor.

Earlier in his career, Chris practiced law at Fenwick & West, representing startups, venture firms, and multinational corporations in financings, M&A, and licensing deals, and later held executive roles, including General Counsel and Head of Corporate Development, at one of the world’s largest streaming and digital media companies, Speedera Networks, later acquired by Akamai.

For almost 20 years, Chris has been a fixture on television, radio, podcasts, in magazines and newsprint, and across social media. He joined the cast of Shark Tank for two Emmy Award-winning seasons and has appeared as himself on the ABC series Alex, Inc., and on Showtime’s Billions. Chris has been featured on major business and news television shows around the world and has been interviewed for a multitude of print articles and podcasts on investing, entrepreneurship, culture, and the future of technology and AI.

Chris graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a member of The Tax Lawyer law review and was honored as a Philip A. Ryan and Ralph J. Gilbert Memorial Scholar. He also graduated cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he majored in Humanities in International Affairs and was both an Edmund Evans Memorial Scholar and a Weeks Family Foundation Scholar.

During his studies, Chris attended universities in Ecuador, Ireland, and Spain, and worked in El Salvador while in law school. Long before any of that, beginning in seventh grade, Chris attended night school at the State University of New York at Buffalo for six years of college mathematics, where he discovered that technology, computers, and innovation would become lifelong passions.

He is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, served as an Associate Fellow of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University and an MIT Enterprise Forum Global Trustee, and was named to the Atlantic Council Vanguard 25. Chris is also a Trustee of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Foundation, the team that puts the “Team” in Team USA.

Chris lives with Crystal and their three daughters in Montana. When not working to unfuck the planet, Chris is an avid alpine and Nordic skier, kitesurfer, recovering Ironman triathlete, average-proficiency crossword puzzler, beginner guitarist trying to keep up with his kids, intermittent helicopter pilot, underwhelming pickleball player, collage and found-materials artist, and once bicycled coast-to-coast across the United States.

Thanks, Chris and Caie, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about investing in energy.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast

01:53 A Message from Ultimus Fund Solutions

02:56 Climate Week Kickoff

03:31 Chris Sacca’s Background

06:21 Caie Kelley’s Path to Lowercarbon

10:35 Avoiding “Science Projects”

11:30 Early-Stage Edge

13:26 Underwriting Hardware

18:22 Panthalassa Case Study

21:58 Project Finance Pull

23:36 Arbor Turbine Bottlenecks

26:42 How Big Is Energy Market?

31:57 Fusion And Dual Use

34:26 Giga Transformers Story

37:19 Permissionless Investing

42:17 Resilience As Opportunity

46:44 Narrative And Messaging

47:47 Stop Shaming Consumers

48:09 Pragmatic Pro Energy Pitch

49:30 Beyond Paper Straws

49:59 Optimism And Storytelling

51:20 Making Projects Bankable

53:17 Electrification Demand Is Inevitable

56:56 LP Education And Capital Flow

01:10:09 Hard Tech Verticalization

01:12:28 Platform Funds And New Markets

01:17:20 Founders Who”Blew Their Minds”

01:21:49 Purpose Profit And Patriotism

01:28:42 Lowercarbon Outpost Demos

01:29:03 Portfolio Lightning Round

01:32:43 Ocean Wave Power Data Centers

01:35:54 Final Wrap

Editing / post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

What happens when you bring Tokyo-Neapolitan style pizza to New York?

You get one of the hottest new reservations in a city full of top restaurants and pizza spots.

Are there similarities between pizza and asset management?

Different styles of pizza appeal to different people. Same in asset management. But there is one constant: the way the pizza is made matters.

At Pizza Studio Tamaki, the Tokyo-Neapolitan pizza is made with acclaimed pizzaiolo’s Subasa Tamaki’s dough flown in directly from Japan. Every detail matters. Every flavor is unique. And it all blends together into a unique pizza experience.

That’s something Nomura Asset Management International is aiming to do in the U.S. with both public and private markets.

We recently sat down at Pizza Studio Tamaki for a live podcast with Nomura Asset Management International CEO Shawn Lytle, with the wealth channel in the audience, to discuss pizza, patterns in asset management, and private markets.

Shawn’s deep experience working for a number of the industry’s largest asset managers and understanding of what the wealth channel needs across public and private markets set the table for a great discussion on the evolution of asset management, how culture impacts how firms work with the wealth channel, and how to bring an international brand into the U.S. market.

We ate the pizza while we podcasted, and we even did a pizza rating. Spoiler alert, PST was really good. So was the podcast.

Bio

Shawn is Chief Executive Officer of Nomura Asset Management International, where he is responsible for overseeing the business, investment teams, and strategies for clients. He joined Nomura Asset Management as part of Nomura’s acquisition of Macquarie Asset Management’s US and European public investments business in 2025. He also serves as the President of Nomura Funds (formerly, Macquarie Funds) and oversees registered vehicle governance in the US and Europe. Shawn is a member of the Nomura Asset Management International Executive Committee

He has more than 30 years of asset management experience. Before joining Macquarie in 2015, he held several management and equity investment roles at UBS Asset Management and various roles at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Shawn is a member of the Investment Company Institute (ICI) Executive Committee. He is also a board member of OppNet and Philadelphia Financial Scholars, in addition to being the former Chairman of the National Association of Securities Professionals (NASP).

He earned a Bachelor of Science in marketing from The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

Thanks, Shawn, for sharing your expertise, wisdom, and passion about asset management and private markets.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Tokyo Pizza Meets NYC

01:07 Ultimus Fund Solutions Sponsor Message

02:05 Meet Shawn Lytle

02:18 Inside Pizza Studio Tamaki

02:37 No Barstool Review Tonight

03:49 Craftsmanship and Culture

05:16 Four Firms Four Cultures

07:09 Bringing Japan to US Wealth

07:40 Asset Manager Fundamentals

08:42 Nomura Long Term Edge

09:23 Choosing the Right Partner

10:06 Diversification Not Mag 7

11:13 Curated Choice Trend

12:11 Models and Mixing Strategies

13:30 Beta Is Free Alpha Matters

14:32 Building Nomura Platform

15:46 Investing Not Cost Cutting

16:35 Nomura ETF Success Japan

17:50 Marketing Innovation Push

18:13 Sports Marketing Origins

19:34 Trust Builds Brand Equity

21:43 Shelf Space Consolidation

23:16 Defining the Nomura Brand

24:02 Next Wave Private Markets

24:32 Vehicles Liquidity Fit

25:51 Private Credit Signal Noise

28:04 Brand Equity Consumer Analogy

29:56 Pizza Rating Time

30:46 Wrap Up and Thanks

Editing / post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s podcast dives into the world of data and decision-making in private markets.

We were in the studio with private markets polymath Jeb Altonaga. Jeb is SVP, Head of Business Development in Private Markets at Arcesium, where they have built a financial management data platform aimed at solving the data normalization problem across public and private markets.

Jeb’s multihyphenate background puts him in a position to see the data challenges for GPs and LPs alike from all different angles as Arcesium works to take unstructured data and turn it into structured data and insights to help asset managers run their businesses more efficiently and serve LPs better.

Jeb’s background spans Citadel, where he was Head of Relationship Management & Operations in Asia-Pacific, to being an LP as the COO at Blue Pool, a large family office based in Asia, to running capital formation and as COO at Australian activist investment firm Sandon Capital. He joined Arcesium in August 2025 to spearhead the execution of business strategy and the product roadmap for Arcesium’s software solutions in private markets.

We had such a fascinating discussion given the various vantage points that Jeb has had in private markets. We covered:

How to think about data normalization and why it matters.

Where and when transparency makes sense.

Which asset classes may benefit from less transparency.

What secondary markets might do to transparency in private markets.

What a tradable market in private markets could look like.

The evolution of private credit’s market structure.

What Jeb would make more efficient about private markets.

Why it’s important to be a lifelong learner.

Bio

Jeb Altonaga leads business development for Arcesium’s Private Markets segment, drawing on over 25 years in alternative investments, capital formation and funds management. He founded Clearglass Capital Partners, a private capital advisory firm, and previously served as COO at Sandon Capital in Sydney and Partner & COO at Blue Pool Capital (& Pinyin) in Hong Kong and began his buy-side career at Citadel Investment Group in Chicago. Jeb holds an MBA from NYU Stern and has served on the board of Hedge Funds Care Asia.

Thanks, Jeb, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about public and private markets.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Alt Goes Mainstream

01:25 A Message from Ultimus Fund Solutions

02:26 Meet Jeb Altonaga

03:02 Career Breadth Advantage

04:09 Why Arcesium Now

04:47 From Loan Tapes to AI

07:07 The Missing Middle Layer

08:23 API First Standardization

09:09 Do GPs and LPs Want Standards

10:54 LPs Must Drive Change

11:52 LP Diversity and Budgets

14:49 AI Adoption For Different Generations

18:12 Private Markets Desktop Race

21:41 Speed Delivery and Incentives

24:11 Evergreens and Secondaries Push

29:22 Secondaries as Rebalancing Tool

30:09 Transparency vs Information Edge

30:46 Private Equity Needs Less Transparency

31:08 Why Private Credit Is Different

32:48 Highway Analogy for Market Evolution

34:13 Tech Stitching Private Markets Data

35:11 Golden Source Data Lake Explained

36:16 Arcesium Intelligence and Agents

38:01 Why Firms Get Different Outcomes

40:50 Tech Democratization and Human Edge

42:28 Private Credit Marketplace Debate

44:29 Locks, Liquidity, and Stability

47:13 Secondary Trading Desks Game Changer

49:07 Magic Wand Fix Security Master

53:09 Industrywide Effort and Closing Thought

Editing / post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s podcast dives into the world of real estate with one of the industry’s largest managers and investors in industrial real estate.

We sat down in Franklin Templeton’s New York City office with real estate veteran Josh Pristaw, Managing Director, President of Clarion Partners, a $73.3B AUM real estate investment firm within Franklin Templeton’s alternatives platform.

Josh discussed data and durable demographics, which are drivers of the deeply researched investment process that his team at Clarion employs to invest in industrial real estate.

Josh’s background, which spans developing shopping centers to investing in real estate Brazil to running one of the industry’s leading single-family rental investing platforms at Pretium, has helped him lead Clarion, one of the industry’s largest industrial real estate investment platforms.

Josh and I had a fascinating conversation, connecting data and demographics to actionable insights in real estate investing. We covered:

The durable demographic and secular trends driving Clarion’s investment strategy in healthcare real estate.

How 10,000 people turning 80 years old in the US daily is creating an “aging in place” dynamic that is impacting housing supply and self-storage demand.

Why industrial demand is tied to e-commerce growth.

How Clarion takes a quantitative approach to real estate investing, evaluating sub-markets using recursive factor analysis.

How diversification and liquidity drive Clarion’s open-ended fund strategy, with 95% of the firm’s $73.3B in AUM residing in open-ended funds.

Why data centers pose liquidity, capex, valuation, and concentration challenges for open-ended fund vehicles.

Bio

Josh Pristaw, equity owner and Managing Director, is President of Clarion Partners. He is a member of the Firm’s Executive Board, Investment Committee, and the Board of Directors for Clarion Partners Holdings, LLC. He joins Clarion from Pretium, where he served as Senior Managing Director and Head of Pretium’s real estate platform. Prior to Pretium, Josh co-founded GTIS Partners.

He has more than two decades of real estate experience across property sectors and functions, including acquisitions, asset management, portfolio development, and capital markets. He joined Clarion Partners in 2025 and has been working in the industry since 1997. Josh graduated from Dartmouth College, B.A. (1997).

Thanks, Josh, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about real estate investing and your data-driven approach to the asset class.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Introduction

01:14 Message From Ultimus Fund Solutions, Our Sponsor

02:46 Josh’s Career Origins

05:01 Understand Demographics and Mega Trends

06:36 Senior Housing Supply Gap

07:35 Housing Turnover and Storage

08:51 Data Models Across Sectors

10:40 Four Drivers of Returns

13:06 Timing Bets and Liquidity

16:20 Lessons Learned From Building In Brazil

22:20 Data Meets Relationships

22:35 Clarion Data Science Edge

23:32 Asset Class Specialists

23:56 Vertical Integration Analytics

24:21 Housing Demand Funnel

25:03 Industrial Demand Megatrends

25:19 Ecommerce Growth Wave

26:05 Efficiency and Taller Warehouses

26:58 Robotics Power and Floors

27:51 Future-Proofing Specs

29:08 Infrastructure Constraints Risk

31:04 Macro Trends Change Underwriting

32:20 Why Not Big Data Centers

36:14 Liquidity Mismatch Warning

39:34 Evergreen Fund Playbook

41:13 Hardest Parts and Skills

45:15 Career Advice and Wrap Up

Editing / post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s podcast takes us to Oslo, Norway, for a very special conversation with Christian Sinding, the former CEO of one of the industry’s leading alternative asset managers, EQT.

Christian’s hometown of Oslo provided an ideal setting to showcase both the Nordic heritage that represents EQT’s DNA and the global ambitions of a firm (and one of its portfolio companies, 1X) that is looking to fund Europe’s first €1T company.

Christian has been one of the alternative asset management industry’s leaders. He was most recently the CEO of EQT, where he steered the firm on an impressive growth path as a public company and helped scale the firm to almost €300B AUM.

He’s now focused on another ambitious project: the Scaleup Europe Fund, a fund that EQT is managing and has support from the European Commission to invest in Europe’s most promising technology companies.

With 1X Tech’s NEO humanoid robot joining us for part of the discussion, Christian and I had a fascinating conversation about the past, present, and future of alternative asset management and Europe’s technology ecosystem. Christian and I discussed:

The evolution of EQT and alternative asset management.

What Europe needs in order to fund the future.

How Europe can harmonize its capital markets infrastructure.

What it will take to create the €1T company.

What it means for companies to have global ambition.

The what, why, and how behind EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund.

Why EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund invested in Iceye and Lovable.

Why EQT invested in 1X Tech.

How Christian’s “why not” attitude can take Europe’s technology ecosystem to the next level.

Bio

Christian Sinding is an Institutional Partner at EQT with nearly 30 years of experience at the firm. He served as CEO and Managing Partner from 2019 to May 2025, during which EQT quadrupled in size, becoming the fourth-largest company listed on the Swedish stock exchange.

As CEO, Christian oversaw EQT’s public listing on Nasdaq Stockholm in 2019 and guided the firm’s development as a publicly listed organization, with a strong focus on governance, transparency and long-term, responsible ownership.

Prior to becoming CEO, Christian served as Head of EQT Equity from 2011, where he played a central role in building EQT’s core investment franchise and expanding the firm’s international footprint. Under his leadership, EQT scaled from a market value of approximately €6 billion at listing to around €40 billion in 2025, further strengthening its position as a global leader in private markets.

Christian chairs the EQT Council and the Global Investment Forum, serves as Chair of the Investment Committee for the Scaleup Europe fund, and serves on the Investment Committees for EQT Equity and EQT Future. He is also a board member of the EQT Foundation, supporting EQT’s long-term societal engagement.

Christian brings deep experience in leadership, governance, public markets and long-term value creation, with a focus on resilience and partnering with founders and management teams to build durable, globally competitive businesses.

Thanks, Christian, for sharing your passion, expertise, and wisdom about private markets and building companies and for such a fascinating conversation.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Meet NEO, the 1X Robot

00:06 Europe’s $10B Gap

00:18 The “Why Not” Mindset

00:29 Lovable and The Trillion Euro Ambition

01:37 A Message From Our Sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

02:38 Christian Sinding’s Nordic Roots

03:18 Scandinavian Roots Global Outlook

05:40 EQT Culture and DNA

09:10 Inspiring Change Full Potential Plans

11:34 Troika Model Explained

14:43 IPO Success Playbook

19:37 EQT Growth Strategy

22:41 Why Venture and Growth

26:04 Hard Tech Capital Needs

30:58 Europe at a Turning Point

30:58 Europe’s Innovation Gap

33:51 Policy Push for Growth

34:25 Rethinking European Listings

35:05 Building a Pan-European Exchange

35:45 From Local Winners to Global Ambition

37:10 Geopolitics Fuels Founder Drive

38:09 Lovable and the Trillion Euro Vision

39:10 EU Inc and Capital Reforms

40:58 Private Longer Needs More Capital

41:38 Scale Up Europe Fund

44:19 Why This Fund Wins

48:56 Catalyzing Europe’s Flywheel

51:41 The “Why Not” Mindset

54:07 NEO the 1X Robot in Action

57:23 Wrap Up and Thanks

Join over 17,400 Substack subscribers & followers and 46,000 LinkedIn and podcast followers who are thought leaders and executives from top private markets firms and wealth management like Blackstone, Apollo, Ares, KKR, EQT, Carlyle, Blue Owl, CVC, TPG, Brookfield, Vista, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, Nuveen, Hg, Permira, Stonepeak, Hamilton Lane, StepStone, Partners Group, General Atlantic, Hightower, Focus Financial, Corient, Cerity Partners, and more.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s podcast takes us into the importance of ownership and equity, and how the world’s largest private equity firm (source: PEI 300) has helped create a culture of ownership within its portfolio companies and more broadly across the industry.

With the backdrop of KKR’s studio in New York and the firm fresh off the heels of celebrating its 50th Anniversary, we sat down with KKR’s Global Co-Head of Private Equity Pete Stavros for a live conversation during AGM’s RIA Field Trip to discuss how culture can be a competitive advantage and how it defines much of what KKR does both internally and with its portfolio companies.

Pete has not only been a leading private equity investor at one of the industry’s largest firms, but he’s also been a pioneer in one of the industry’s most important initiatives: enabling employees of private equity-backed companies to share in ownership of the companies where they work.

The firm’s Broad-Based Employee Ownership has delivered on its promise in many ways, with KKR’s recent 14x (and $4.75B) exit on CoolIT providing all 650 CoolIT employees with cash payouts that ranged from approximately one year to more than eight years of annual pay, which, as Pete noted in our conversation, was “life-changing for many employees.”

Pete and I had a fascinating conversation about the culture of ownership at KKR, the evolution of the firm’s private equity platform, why it’s so important to make employees owners, and how it’s created a ripple effect in the industry. We covered:

KKR’s “we not I” culture.

Why the most important trend in private equity going forward will be a shift from “balance sheet and income statement arbitrage to total cultural transformation.”

Why and how culture is an advantage — and how KKR sustains its competitive advantage.

The power of a scaled platform and why the division of labor is important as firms grow.

What Pete means by “persistence in process.”

How can companies encourage people to act like owners, and why is it so important for employee retention and productivity?

How can sharing equity ownership be used as a tool to change culture?

The impact the private equity industry can have through its ability to cascade change.

Bio

Pete Stavros (NewYork) joined KKR in 2005 and is Co-Head of Global Private Equity. This includes oversight of assets across Europe, Asia and the Americas and traditional large and mid-cap private equity, core and growth equity. Prior to this role, Pete served as Co-Head of the Americas Private Equity platform. He is a member of several investment committees at KKR. As an investor, Pete has helped lead a number of successful investments across sectors and sizes, including HCA Healthcare, Nielsen, Gardner Denver / Ingersoll Rand, Capsugel, Capital Safety, Hyperion, Flow Control Group, Charter Next Generation, Minnesota Rubber and Plastics, Geostabilization International, Crosby Group and CHI Overhead Doors. Prior to becoming Co-Head of Americas Private Equity, Pete led the Industrials industry team where he pioneered an innovative employee engagement and ownership model. This approach has been successfully implemented at more than 90 KKR companies and has positively impacted more than 200,000 workers. Pete is the Founder and Chairman of Ownership Works, a non-profit focused on building a worker ownership movement globally and enhancing the financial resiliency of the workforce. The goal of Ownership Works is to create more than $20 billion of wealth for working families over the next decade. Pete is also the Founder and Chairman of Expanding ESOPs, an organization focused on dramatically expanding the number of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) in corporate America. Prior to joining KKR, Pete was an investor with GTCR Golder Rauner, where he was an investor in the healthcare sector. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry, magna cum laude, from Duke University and an M.B.A. with high distinction, Baker Scholar, from Harvard Business School.

Thanks, Pete, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion on private equity and making everyone an owner.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Live From AGM Field Trip at KKR Studio In NYC

00:29 A Message From Ultimus Fund Solutions

02:00 Meet Pete Stavros

02:09 The Story of Joining KKR

02:33 From Interviews To NYC

03:08 All About Collaboration

03:26 A No Star Culture

04:40 How Culture Is Sustained

04:53 Ritz-Carlton Analogy

05:23 No Star Culture

05:42 Culture Shapes Investing

06:07 Platform Resources Edge

06:24 Capital Markets Bench

06:41 Macro And Ops Experts

07:06 Making Resources Work

08:11 Consistency And Process

08:40 Evolving Value Creation

09:07 Gardner Denver / Ingersoll Rand Case

09:49 Value Engineering Method

10:09 Warehouse Teardown

10:54 Customer Feedback Loop

11:25 Sixty Million In Savings

11:50 Culture As The Next Frontier

12:16 Defining Transformation

12:27 Workforce Crisis Stats

13:39 Problems Are Global

15:04 Underwriting Culture Risk

15:28 Leadership Makes It Work

16:42 Ownership Done Right

17:49 BBEO Origins

20:07 Early Mistakes Learned

20:51 Scaling To 85 Companies

21:00 CoolIT Exit Results

22:00 Closing The Wealth Loop

22:26 Financial Literacy Journey

23:02 Truck Loan Lesson

23:54 Building Resilience Stack

25:42 Exit Support Package

26:17 Industry Adoption

27:13 Ownership Works Launch

27:51 Street Loan Cautionary Tale

30:03 Why Share The Playbook

31:42 Taking Ownership Global

32:13 International Rollout

33:30 Local Culture Differences

34:19 State Of Private Equity

34:45 Is Software Dead

35:17 KKR Software Approach

36:41 AI At Portfolio Scale

37:34 One Hundred Thirty Tests

37:57 Buying The Fear Trade

38:11 Accounting Is Not Dead

39:14 Closing Thoughts

Join over 17,300 Substack subscribers & followers and 46,000 LinkedIn and podcast followers who are thought leaders and executives from top private markets firms and wealth management like Blackstone, Apollo, Ares, KKR, EQT, Carlyle, Blue Owl, CVC, TPG, Brookfield, Vista, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, Nuveen, Hg, Permira, Stonepeak, Hamilton Lane, StepStone, Partners Group, General Atlantic, Hightower, Focus Financial, Corient, Cerity Partners, and more.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

We went to Miami to sit down with the professor of infrastructure investing and Founder, Chairman, and Managing Partner of I Squared, Dr. Sadek Wahba.

Sadek has blended academic knowledge and a practical approach to infrastructure investing to build I Squared into a $60B infrastructure investment firm in 14 years, some of which he has adroitly distilled into the 2024 book that he authored, Build: Investing in America’s Infrastructure.

We had such a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion that I’ve decided to break down our conversation into chapters.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Alt Goes Mainstream at I Squared in Miami

01:39 A Message From Our Sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

02:41 Meet Dr. Sadek Wahba

03:18 Career Path Origins

03:59 World Bank Lessons

07:36 Private Sector Contrast

08:55 I Squared Focus Model

10:22 Platform Playbook

13:02 Dr. Wahba’s Book

14:35 AI Infrastructure Wave

16:19 No Free Lunch: Ownership and Regulation

16:58 Politics And History

19:57 Municipal Debt Funding

21:55 User Fees Reality

25:55 Ownership Management Regulation

29:57 Incentives

32:40 If It Sounds Too Good To Be True

33:57 I Squared Investing Approach

37:29 Risk Return Discipline

39:17 Building Durable Infrastructure

40:37 Regulation Risk Reality

42:27 Balancing Risk Return

43:50 Why Middle Market Wins

45:14 Great Management Traits

46:22 Infra Tech And AI

49:51 Platform Building Playbook

52:59 Capital Flows And Competition

57:57 Democratizing Infrastructure Ownership

01:04:11 Privatization And Listed Airports

01:07:42 Retirement Accounts For Infrastructure

01:09:28 Nearshoring And National Security

01:16:02 Investor Skillset And Edge

01:18:01 What Drives The Mission

Join over 17,300 Substack subscribers & followers, 46,000 LinkedIn and podcast followers, and syndication to the 330,000 Bloomberg Terminal userswho are thought leaders and executives from top private markets firms and wealth management like Blackstone, Apollo, Ares, KKR, EQT, Carlyle, Blue Owl, CVC, TPG, Brookfield, Vista, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, Nuveen, Hg, Permira, Stonepeak, Hamilton Lane, StepStone, Partners Group, General Atlantic, Hightower, Focus Financial, Corient, Cerity Partners, and more.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

We went to Golub Capital’s New York office to sit down with Co-CEO David Golub.

David Golub and his brother Lawrence both started their careers in private equity. It was their experiences in private equity in the 1990s that turned them into private credit pioneers.

Lawrence and David have built Golub Capital into a $95B private credit behemoth, largely due to their pioneering decision to create the “one-stop” unitranche loan solution for sponsor-backed companies after spotting a gap in the sponsor finance market.

Fast forward over 30 years, and Golub Capital is one of the leaders in private credit.

David discussed how Golub has spent the balance of its life as a scaled specialist credit manager “honing the competitive advantages” that make the firm so unique. Golub has built a cadre of 200 high-quality sponsor relationships with many of the industry’s top private equity firms, which call on them when they are seeking sponsor financing for their companies.

David and I had a fascinating conversation that covered everything from the early days of private credit to the story of pioneering unitranche loans to what LPs should look for in GPs to the psychology of relationships and partnerships. We discussed:

What David and Lawrence saw in the early days of private equity informed how they decided to build Golub.

Why the unitranche loan became popular with private equity sponsors.

What Golub looks for in relationships with private equity sponsors.

Why focus has been a key driver of scaling Golub’s business.

What LPs should ask GPs when evaluating their fund and firm.

Why LPs should evaluate GPs based on how GPs think about their own business.

The psychology of relationships and partnerships.

How David’s experience being surrounded by a family of psychologists and psychiatrists has given him an edge in investing, negotiating, and building win-win relationships.

Bio

David B. Golub, Co-Chief Executive Officer

David Golub is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Golub Capital, a market-leading, award-winning direct lender and experienced private credit manager. As of April 1, 2026, Golub Capital had over $90 billion of capital under management, a gross measure of invested capital including leverage. Golub Capital partners with institutional investors and family offices, offering tailored solutions for investors’ credit asset strategies. The Firm specializes in delivering reliable, creative and compelling financing solutions to companies backed by private equity sponsors. Golub Capital has been a top 3 U.S. Middle Market Bookrunner each year from 2008 through Q1 2026 for senior secured loans of up to $500 million for leveraged buyouts. Golub Capital has been consistently recognized with industry awards, including Lender of the Year, Americas (Private Debt Investor, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) Lender of the Decade, Americas (Private Debt Investor, 2023), Senior Lender of the Decade, Americas (Private Debt Investor, 2023), Senior Lender of the Year, Americas (Private Debt Investor, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2025) and BDC Manager of the Year, Americas (Private Debt Investor, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2023).

Mr. Golub is active in charitable and civic organizations. Mr. Golub is a member of the Founder’s Council of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, where he was the first board Chairman and a long-time director. Mr. Golub is Co-Founder and Chair of the Golub Capital Nonprofit Board Fellows Network, which operates at 20 leading business schools; its mission is to make nonprofit boards more effective by training hundreds of MBA students each year to become highly skilled nonprofit directors. Mr. Golub is a member of the Association of Marshall Scholars’ Director’s Circle and previously was a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council. He has served on the boards of the Loan Syndications and Trading Association, the Hudson Guild and the World Policy Institute. Mr. Golub is on the board of directors of Burton Snowboards and has served on the boards of numerous public and private companies.

Prior to joining Golub Capital in 2003, Mr. Golub was a Managing Director of Centre Partners, a leading middle market private equity firm, and of Corporate Partners, a Lazard-sponsored $1.5 billion private equity fund formed to acquire significant minority stakes in established companies.

Mr. Golub earned his AB degree magna cum laude in Government from Harvard College. He received an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Thanks, David, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about private credit, the business of asset management, and the psychology of relationships.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Introduction

01:23 A Message from Ultimus Fund Solutions, Our Sponsor

02:21 Meet David Golub

03:21 David’s Career Shift to Credit

05:24 Joining Forces with His Brother

06:18 Sponsor Finance Market Gap

11:23 Origin of The Unitranche Loan

13:19 Crisis as the Catalyst

14:03 Underwriting Differently

15:19 Distressed Value Mindset

17:01 What Makes a Good Business

20:42 Relationships And Game Theory

22:19 Capital Isn’t Proprietary

27:02 Being First Call

27:58 Managing Growth Carefully

29:45 Only The Paranoid Survive

32:08 Job One Is Performance

35:43 PE Industry Underwriting

36:59 Raising Capital Follows Winners

38:47 Future PE Picks Fewer Lenders

39:27 Credit Partner As A Signal

41:01 Risk Real Vs Perceived

42:15 Cycle Headwinds Explained

43:25 Press Noise And Redemptions

45:43 Why Some LPs Lean In

47:15 Two Narratives Debunked

47:27 Stress Drivers Under Surface

48:51 Manager Dispersion Worsens

50:07 Junior Debt Warning

50:27 How To Underwrite Managers

53:21 Ask For The Why

54:24 Best LP Questions

56:53 Culture Of Balanced Thinking

57:47 Interviewing For Rigor

58:48 Building The Wealth Channel

59:41 Early Fundraising Origins

01:01:14 Investor Diversification

01:04:44 Decades Mindset And Focus

01:05:48 More Of The Same Strategy

01:06:31 Adjacencies And Secondaries

01:06:45 Why Continuation Vehicles Fit

01:09:42 Problem Solving Relationships

01:11:06 Authenticity Over Tricks

01:12:21 Repeat Game Negotiation

01:12:37 Closing

Join over 17,100 Substack subscribers & followers, 46,000 LinkedIn and podcast followers, and syndication to the 330,000 Bloomberg Terminal userswho are thought leaders and executives from top private markets firms and wealth management like Blackstone, Apollo, Ares, KKR, EQT, Carlyle, Blue Owl, CVC, TPG, Brookfield, Vista, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, Nuveen, Hg, Permira, Stonepeak, Hamilton Lane, StepStone, Partners Group, General Atlantic, Hightower, Focus Financial, Corient, Cerity Partners, and more.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s podcast takes us to the heart of New York City to talk with James Li, the President and Partner of Davidson Kempner, a firm that was an early participant in the merger arbitrage, distressed debt, and opportunistic credit industries.

Davidson Kempner’s heritage lies in cutting through complexity to find value.

Founded in 1983, Davidson Kempner’s origins began in merger arbitrage, distressed debt, and opportunistic credit. The firm, which now has around 1,800 clients, began accepting outside capital in 1987 and has since built out its investment platform to include convertible arbitrage, long / short equities, asset-based lending, and real estate strategies.

Davidson Kempner has since grown to almost $40B in AUM across public and private markets strategies.

The firm has a penchant for navigating complex situations across public and private markets to opportunistically uncover value, noting that “no situation is too complex for [them].”

James unpacked how the firm’s family office DNA has evolved across three generations of leadership into a scaled investment platform across public and private markets to inform the firm’s relative value investing perspective.

James and I had a fascinating conversation on a number of pressing topics at the intersection of public and private markets. We covered:

How do public market feedback loops inform private market investments?

How post-GFC growth in private equity has created “indigestion” in the system.

What the current state of private equity means for capital solutions opportunities.

Why distressed and opportunistic credit can be countercyclical.

What deglobalization means for investing in private markets.

Why are allocators shifting toward absolute return strategies?

How Davidson Kempner’s family office DNA has informed how they approach working with the wealth channel.

Bio

James Li is the President and a Partner at Davidson Kempner. Mr. Li also co-manages the Client Partnerships & Business Development department and oversees the Firm’s Capital Markets, Strategy and Treasury Teams. He joined the Firm in 2018 and is based in the New York office.

Before joining Davidson Kempner, Mr. Li was a Managing Director in the Client Relationship Management and Strategy Group at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Mr. Li received a B.S. from Columbia University.

Thanks, James, for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about public and private markets and your approach to investing in complex situations.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.

That’s Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you’re already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team’s deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.

Learn more: ultimusfundsolutions.com or email [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Live From Davidson Kempner’s Office in NYC

01:36 A Message from Ultimus Fund Solutions

02:37 Introduction to James Li

05:21 Why Join Davidson Kempner

06:17 Three Generations Of Leadership

06:46 Family Office DNA

08:28 Principled Investing And Complexity

09:13 Finding Returns In Complexity

12:38 Liquid Versus Private Feedback Loops

13:57 Macro Forces And Time Horizons

14:57 Deglobalization And Global Footprint

16:46 Competition And The Marginal Buyer

17:52 Private Capital “Indigestion”

19:12 Capital Solutions Playbook

22:30 Integrated Public Private Edge

32:05 Hedge Funds Return

32:50 Post GFC Lessons

33:01 Incentives And Capacity

33:40 Liquidity Mismatch Risks

34:06 Evergreen Vehicle Design

34:33 Public Private Split

35:00 Avoiding Leverage

36:13 Mark To Market Mechanics

36:37 Flows Back To Hedge Funds

37:28 Educating Wealth Investors

37:46 Strategy Buckets Overview

38:20 Merger Arb Explained

39:43 Global Credit Toolkit

41:02 Portfolio Velocity And Risk

42:13 Investment Led Ownership

45:07 Less Competition In Small Deals

52:16 Opportunistic Credit Case

55:49 Long Term Firm Vision

59:57 Closing Thoughts

Join over 17,100 Substack subscribers & followers and 46,000 LinkedIn and podcast followers who are thought leaders and executives from top private markets firms and wealth management like Blackstone, Apollo, Ares, KKR, EQT, Carlyle, Blue Owl, CVC, TPG, Brookfield, Vista, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Fidelity, iCapital, Franklin Templeton, Nuveen, Hg, Permira, Stonepeak, Hamilton Lane, StepStone, Partners Group, General Atlantic, Hightower, Focus Financial, Corient, Cerity Partners, and more.