The private equity short is a genius trade BUT I suspect there is going to be a big lag between a bear market and private equity earnings being affected because it takes a long-time to mark-down assets. Markets give a much higher multiple to management fees than to carry. When the oil business went to hell back in 2017-2018 the leading PE funds in the sector were marking companies at cost while the same companies' bonds were trading at 10 cents on the dollar.
The truth is most allocators and I mean 90% have not seen a full private equity cycle. The danger of mis-marking portfolios, not running Monte Carlo simulations, not stress testing a portfolio is that an allocator uses incorrect markings to create a weighted portfolio that is completely incorrect. In other words an allocator can think that 30% of their assets are invested in PE when in fact 10% or 70% is in PE.
Thanks Russell. Thanks v much for the mention. I agree with your carry/tax point. Away from that, I actually suspect that some of the PE shenanigans (antitrust) in roll ups (esp healthcare) exposes Big PE to bipartisan headaches. I had a good look at Ares and (mistakenly!) thought they were an ideal recession short coming into 2023. This was an expensive point of view... I actually think that they possibly have an incumbency advantage in the private credit space (BX and the rest are basically arrivistes here - performance of the 22/23 private credit vintage will I suspect, be HIGHLY variable). Ted Seides did a great podcast with the Ares CIO which I will dig out and post here when I find.
I’d be curious to hear your take on Howard Marks’ latest memo in which he says you should just own private credit and not equity. I see the point but worry that maybe players like Oaktree will pick and choose the parts of the market with the least risk but it seems like the PE credit funds are really exposed to a lot of junky companies that will go bankrupt quickly if the economy turns. These seem like very difficult waters to navigate to benefit long term from credit. https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/memo-podcast/further-thoughts-on-sea-change
Same conclusions but if I had to point to.a.difference he has the Fed at the centre of everything. For me politics dominates - which means wages are rising. The Fed will try and slow that inflation - which means capital suffers.
But rising wages should mean we avoid debt blows up like 2008. Growth should be good. But financial shenanigans gets punished... BREIT is an example of this
Interesting. It is short 200% 10 year JGBs, so if YCC was abandoned, it should do well. Normally I would suggest if you can access the JGB market directly, then short there... but this seems okay. Liquidity is not great, so really for small investors....
Public asset managers (TROW BEN and various others listed in London) have been absolutely savaged. Are they a good hedge for PE shorts in your opinion?
They're clearly in structural decline but have very attractive valuations.
The private equity short is a genius trade BUT I suspect there is going to be a big lag between a bear market and private equity earnings being affected because it takes a long-time to mark-down assets. Markets give a much higher multiple to management fees than to carry. When the oil business went to hell back in 2017-2018 the leading PE funds in the sector were marking companies at cost while the same companies' bonds were trading at 10 cents on the dollar.
The truth is most allocators and I mean 90% have not seen a full private equity cycle. The danger of mis-marking portfolios, not running Monte Carlo simulations, not stress testing a portfolio is that an allocator uses incorrect markings to create a weighted portfolio that is completely incorrect. In other words an allocator can think that 30% of their assets are invested in PE when in fact 10% or 70% is in PE.
Thanks Russell. Thanks v much for the mention. I agree with your carry/tax point. Away from that, I actually suspect that some of the PE shenanigans (antitrust) in roll ups (esp healthcare) exposes Big PE to bipartisan headaches. I had a good look at Ares and (mistakenly!) thought they were an ideal recession short coming into 2023. This was an expensive point of view... I actually think that they possibly have an incumbency advantage in the private credit space (BX and the rest are basically arrivistes here - performance of the 22/23 private credit vintage will I suspect, be HIGHLY variable). Ted Seides did a great podcast with the Ares CIO which I will dig out and post here when I find.
Hmmm guaranteeing the AUM - what could go wrong? 🤣
I’d be curious to hear your take on Howard Marks’ latest memo in which he says you should just own private credit and not equity. I see the point but worry that maybe players like Oaktree will pick and choose the parts of the market with the least risk but it seems like the PE credit funds are really exposed to a lot of junky companies that will go bankrupt quickly if the economy turns. These seem like very difficult waters to navigate to benefit long term from credit. https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/memo-podcast/further-thoughts-on-sea-change
Same conclusions but if I had to point to.a.difference he has the Fed at the centre of everything. For me politics dominates - which means wages are rising. The Fed will try and slow that inflation - which means capital suffers.
But rising wages should mean we avoid debt blows up like 2008. Growth should be good. But financial shenanigans gets punished... BREIT is an example of this
https://www.capitalallocators.com/podcast/the-world-of-private-credit-at-ares/ here it is.
'There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.'
--- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I was thinking about Chinese tech names as well. Politics was turning against them - and they just collapsed. Maybe same is happening in US tech....
Thought you’d appreciate this... https://youtu.be/CbqqAAgN-dI?si=Kat9hEw4lK-qqnuZ
A lot of people sent this to me!!
Excuse me Russell, off topic here
There's a new -2x leveraged JGB ETF
I call it the "Widowmaker ETF" but it's been trading well
Any thoughts?
https://nextfunds.jp/en/lineup/2251/
Interesting. It is short 200% 10 year JGBs, so if YCC was abandoned, it should do well. Normally I would suggest if you can access the JGB market directly, then short there... but this seems okay. Liquidity is not great, so really for small investors....
Public asset managers (TROW BEN and various others listed in London) have been absolutely savaged. Are they a good hedge for PE shorts in your opinion?
They're clearly in structural decline but have very attractive valuations.
Cheapness is not usually a good reason to buy