YouSaid · the spoken record

Brendan O'Connor

lines on the record: 70
first: 2026-02-05
most recent: 2026-02-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“The continued evolution of regal partners, it will become a far more highly recognized brand of best in class, active banishment capability located in Australia with a much larger non-Australian client base than it does today.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are no shortcuts at the end of the day to build anything truly successful, focused on that achievement as opposed to just the effort around it. There are no shortcuts. Building things properly in a sustainable way is the only sustainable way to build a great business.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've received a lot of advice over the years. The two pieces that come back to my mother and father. My mum had a great expression, Brendan, of a job's worth doing, it's worth doing really well. I hear myself saying that to my kids a lot. And dad, particularly from a construction perspective, was always Brendan measure twice cut once. They're two little truisms that I take with me that can be broadly applied to many aspects of life.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first regular paid job was paper delivery. This is the local newspaper. The papers were delivered on a Tuesday evening, on a Wednesday morning. I had to go out and start delivering them. I was 13 years old. I had my basket at the front of my bike going around the suburb, I was doing it. What I learned from it was people were happy to pay me to do things if I could be consistently reliable and be honest in what I'm doing because I found that they said, oh, Brendan, thank you for doing that. We found other workers do it for a few months and they stop it or they dump the papers into the creek and things like that. Call me naive. That truly surprised me. Hard work I learned was a pathway to earning money. I needed money. I wanted money. So it was self-fulfilling.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's an easy one surfing. Our whole family surfs, I picked up surfing probably in the last 15 years. It didn't grow up surfing. I'm particularly proud of the fact that I learned to surf later in life if I could surf every morning before work, I would. I try and get out surfing as often as I can. It's that great hallmark of a hobby where not only is it incredibly distracting because it's hard to think of anything else when you're popping up on that wave, but it's also got a nice fitness element to it, less time in the gym, more time surfing is my heaven.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Got no doubt that we'll be over $50 billion over the years ahead. But it's important that I word it around investment returns as opposed to simply asset gathering because the thing that makes us unique given that founder-led business and alternative focus is we eat our own cooking. We don't want to be the leader of $100 billion of low margin underperforming farm. We want to be the leaders of a business that is generating great returns for our clients and therefore for ourselves and be proud of that whether that's $20 billion or $50 billion or $100 billion, that's the second derivative.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a challenging one in some respects because I find that a common failure in markets, at least asset management markets here domestically, is for people to fall into the trap of saying flag on the hill, we're going to be $100 billion the next five years. It's a crude measure, but it's not necessarily the best measure to demonstrate the success or capability the investment business you're building. So as much as people want you to throw out their, here's a number, we're going to be X billion in five years time, you can set your clock by it and come back in five years' time you'll see us. Your better measure is more nuanced than that. Our success will be continuing to develop and acquire additional investment capability where we are generating great investment returns for our clients. If we can do that within our existing product sets in the additional investment capabilities we think naturally sit as part of our platform of”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That we're also a public company. There are good aspects to that, there are bad aspects to that. You need a steady hand and approach to be able to navigate your way through that and not get unduly distracted on the positives or the negatives either way. The benefits being listed ultimately outweigh the negatives. The other benefit I'd say is that it's given us a currency, i.e. the share price that we can use to help acquire investment capability. And that has been powerful in helping us grow.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The governance of an independent board brings with it, by definition, a new set of stakeholders that like any team need to be brought along the journey, buy into the strategy, be comfortable with both the risks and also the opportunities, ultimately the strategy of how we take that forward. There's been far more of my time spent working with the board, taking them and helping them understand the strategy. they're prodding and testing the strategy and ultimately agreeing what the strategy is and taking that forward. That's a whole other aspect of it. There is the reverberations, I'll call it, from being a public company in respect of Newsflow by being a large asset management business in Australia, we'd always had a profile, but that profile, particularly through the press, seems to have amplified.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That helps marketing. And the third thing surprised me. The third thing was actually the additional spring in the step that happened from a staff perspective by saying, hey, I work for that business and I can see whether the share price is up or down, there is an engagement that comes from being part of a growing listed business. That's been a real thrill”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A backdoor listing of regal partners onto ASX. That's some of the behind the scenes colour as to where we are. So this is June 2022. We ended up as an ASX listed business. The transformational piece that has come from is really three key things. One is a step change in the governance that wraps its arms around the business as an ASX listed business. An independent board, independent chair, our risk committees, compliance committee is now answerable to independent board members as opposed to reporting through to executives in the business is point one. Point two is that translates into far easier door opening opportunities, particularly from an offshore perspective when we're talking about marketing in Asia, the US, or the Middle East around demonstrating, hey, here's Regal Partners. You can independently look on the ASX website. These are our filings. This is who we are. There's a step change in profile.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a perhaps dual factor. One is as a privately owned business attracting talent Phil King and I have put in place a long-term incentive plan that gave employees equity in the business that vested over a period of years. The bulk of that equity was coming in its first tranche to Vest. And we say, well, as much as people should take a long-term approach and appreciate the dividends coming through, We thought that they probably want to invent where they could liquidate some of that as well. That just happened to coincide with a period of time where our business had recovered well from COVID, had probably record performance, and at the same time there was an ASX listed hedge fund that had fallen on harder times and was looking for a bit of help to take it forward. So we engineered a reverse acquisition of that business, which basically meant”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of higher for longer inflation, sticky inflation, breakdown of some of the free trade agreements that were happening and lowering costs before, geopolitical risks and a higher cost of security, including defense, that all speaks to a more diversified portfolio of alternative investment strategies. That's the tailwind that Regal has playing into. That's the capability that we're building. Regal is seeking to be that collection of best-in-class investment strategies that offer alternatives or difference investment strategies that can provide growth no matter what the backdrop to the market.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It goes back to that mantra around the right to play. What right do we have? The same way that I enforce the discipline from a murder and acquisition or an inorganic growth discipline, demonstrate your edge in what you're doing. It's the same for Regal overall. We need to be able to hold ourselves accountable to have a true edge in what we're doing. And that is built around generating great investment returns for our clients. The domestic market, which we sit in Australia and so we'll start there, is very dominated by a lot of older companies built in another era that provide exposure to long-only equities or long-only public fixed income. We don't believe we've got a particular edge there. I don't believe that that's the future for investors looking to achieve growth in their portfolio. Given that backdrop,”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a less homogenous asset class, more heterogeneous opportunities in there, then it becomes more around relationships. What type of borrowers are you happy to deal with? What type of counterparties are you happy to deal with? Have you had a good relationship with in the past? What type of sector may they be in? What commodity might be there if you're talking about beef, for example, can be highly cyclical, might stay away at this time of the cyclone, come back later on. And that fundamental expertise in whatever you're doing, whether it be from equity or debt or role perspective, is the cornerstone of making that informed decision.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Entry, but also to exit potentially if that catalyst has come and gone and your thesis hasn't played out. The fourth step is the edge, and that is to say if the market's typically efficient, what is the market missing? What insights do we believe that we have that the market is missing? And by forcing our team to actually address that, it makes us better investors to be wide-eyed as to what the opportunity, but also what the risks are. When we're talking about that first call on the street, it's wrapped within that. You let that ball go through to the keeper or a baseball analogy, you might not swing at that one, but it allows you to have high conviction and lean into those opportunities where the planets align and you've got a strong fundamental position as well as being the first call on street.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As an equity investor, we're a fundamental stocker, bottom up. There's not a company, certainly domestically and increasingly from a global perspective that we don't have a view on. We go through a four-step selection process. We start with the valuation of the company and the valuation is the cornerstone of our investment papers that we write up. The second one is to understand the macro environment in which that company sits in, what are the macro headwinds or tailwinds that might be unique to that company and the sector they operate within. Thirdly, we look to see, well, what is the catalyst? And by forcing ourselves to identify a catalyst, it forces us to be clear eyed as to when to time the investment.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not a syndicate of a large debt package that, let's say, the private equity firms have put together here in Australia. We're originating those opportunities ourselves. Finally, you think about from an agricultural perspective and water, we are the dominant provider of that owner of those water rights. If someone wanted to set up a farm in Australia of scale, They're not thinking so much as their first question about where they set that farm up, so much as how do I access and secure my water. That means a conversation with Regal as to how do I secure those water rights. Alpha is intrinsically linked to being that first call on the street and that origination capability.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really important. I use that term the original equipment manufacturer. Regal's edge in providing investors, not just in Australia but around the world, access to the best of Australia's alternative investment strategies inherently or necessarily means that we need to be originating those opportunities. If I think about the equity perspective, that means the first call on the street to opportunities to be able to deploy capital to new events. IPOs, ECM activity, whatever it may be. That first call on the street means that we're in a position to typically influence the pricing around where some of those transactions get done. That puts us in an important position at Alpha. As a large provider of debt capital to the agricultural sector to increasingly corporate in Australia, it puts us in a better position to command pricing. We're simply not”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Strategies, whether they be hedge funds, credit, royalties or growth equity. So it's a great first start for any offshore investor.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The best of Regal can be accessed via our multi strategy solutions. We have been running a multi-strategy capability within Regal since 2019. We listed a permanent capital vehicle on the ASX. Subsequent to that, we have launched strategies that provide access to get access to the best of our ingredients, often represents the first foray for those offshore investors to get access to the best of Regal's alternative investment capability. It explicitly targets high teen returns with high single digit volatility. And in that way is a great entree for any investor to first get access to the best of Regal and therefore the best of alternative investments in Australia, they can then broaden that relationship. And we often find old subsequently dive into some of the individual”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You've developed this range of strategies and capabilities across alternative assets, all focused in Australia. As an investor comes to you and they're interested in getting exposure to the benefits of the Australian economy, the wave of AI derivative, how do you advise them of where to plug in?”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As the driest continent on Earth, and there's a lot less water compared to land. So water is a better way to pay the agricultural exposure.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Farming and things like that, i.e. dairy prices are typically low profit margins and a soldier settler block is typically a subscale for what a modern farming enterprise would look like. We're finding that those farms are being transformed into larger farms and they're typically migrating from dairy farming to higher value use product, table grapes, almonds, avocados. The importance of that from a water price perspective is those products, that usage have higher profit margins and those therefore can sustain higher prices as the owner of those water rights when we're leasing that water out to farmers. We're enjoying the higher lease return from being able to lease that water out to those farmers as well as the capital appreciation that sits behind an increasingly scarce asset in Australia.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Companies globally from an asset management perspective that have the breadth of that capability. The other area which is uniquely Australia is I'd call natural assets in Australia. Natural assets in Australia encompass everything from not only the equities, public and private in agriculture in Australia, the debt. We're one of the largest providers outside the big four banks of agricultural debt to the Australian agricultural market. One of the adjacencies to that is where the largest owner of water rights outside the Commonwealth government in Australia to explain water rights is water in Australia as it relates to large-scale farming operations operates under economic cap and trade system. You own a farm, that farm historically may be soldier settler blocks given to soldiers returning from World War II and over the generations have done a bit of dairy.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That the debt provider is getting for the next three years, they've just locked in a 12% return for something that I'd be happy to own the equity of anyway, that relative risk returns it. The more interesting aspect, though, is ultimately on a sector analysis. When I sit back and think about the businesses, I think more about the coming together of the capabilities that we have, the ability to say, I can provide for any resource company globally, an equity solution, a debt solution, or a royalty solution because I've got the technical expertise to truly assess the mine risks, the nature of the resource they're mining, and inform view of what the future prospects for that particular commodity might be, a view as to the sovereign risk we might take as to what country that mine is in. That is a unique expertise. We might be one of three.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Couple of the Types of strategies that you pursue. How you think about how they themselves and how they benefit from having Strategies under the umbrella. There are two ways to answer that. One is the four asset classes I talk about, whether it be long, short equities, cred and royalties, real and natural assets and growth equities just across that lens. You can talk about being able to make better investment decisions because by being a proficient equity investor and understanding the risks and rewards of being long or short a company through your fundamental analysis You inevitably need to understand the position of the debt provider in that balance sheet and the relative returns they're earning vis-a-vis your position as equity owner by being able to say okay well geef I think the equity is undervalued and I might be attracted to buy that or I think the equities are overvalued but have a look at the return”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Growth equity side was that dominant position. We started that strategy in November 2016. We had always been a large provider of capital. That last institutional capital raise about 18 months to two years before a company IPO. We decided to create a dedicated strategy around it. It's probably a strategy we've got about half a billion dollars in now as one of the largest and longest standing providers of capital to that part of the market in Australia. That company has seen some wonderful investments that have ultimately gone on to create big businesses in the States. You may be familiar with the spine out pay later thematic that developed and companies like Zip and QuadPay. They were small technology financial institutions that sprung out of Australia are now very large businesses. It puts us at a ground floor advantage being able to be early investors in some of those great opportunities. I'd love to dive into”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Establish properties. We're looking to provide debt to agricultural opportunities or to the development of infrastructure, those opportunities that have a unique and perhaps complicated edge to them that we can actually do good due diligence and good structuring to generate returns. And it goes back to that mantra of being that original equipment manufacturer. We're not simply intermediary for someone else's originated opportunity where we're clipping the ticket. We're going out finding those opportunities and backing ourselves with the conviction that if that opportunity wobbles and we need to stabilize it, we've got the investment capability to step into that situation, stabilize it, turn around, sell it. How about on the growth equity side?”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd say looking for an edge in what we're doing that often leads you to be a contrarian. I'll give you a good example. Paul Moore, who leads our global long short equity capability, he has been running that strategy since 1998 by having a well-defined investment process and a capability that lends you to look for opportunities that are off the beaten path. That's been the essence of whether it's been equities within debt. The debt's probably an easy one to explain. The Australian market has a voracious appetite for the providing of debt to property. Australians love property, big property investors. When we're talking about deploying debt to a lending opportunity, we have no competitive advantage trying to compete against everyone else, trying to provide debt to”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've never worked in a place where there has been such energy and enthusiasm for the business to succeed. Everyone at Regal, from investment perspective, has a buzz, a drive around achieving. This goes back to the origins of the business, a founder-led business. That same DNA is things achieved by hard work, resilience, laying awake at night, worrying about what could go wrong, getting up early, making sure that those little things that you're concerned about are done, as opposed to measuring or rewarding effort. As a founder-led business, we concentrate and focus on rewarding achievement as opposed to the effort that can just go on in a large business. The unifying DNA Investment strategies that”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Through our regular town hall meetings, we're really holding this up. These are great examples of Regal's ability to harness the best of what we do across the range of the business for the benefit of our clients. What have you found is special? The investment teams”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Syner To There's no easy answer to that, particularly where it may have been acquired capability or brought in place. We try and instill a culture where the individual wins, where the team wins. And that's a great mantra to have as it relates to an individual conversation one-on-one, it can sometimes break down because they're laser focused on their own performance. Being able to structure remuneration outcomes, being able to structure a collaborative environment where staff within the bounds of protecting public, private assets and information barriers between the two sides of business are encouraged to hand off opportunities. Hey, you just had a look at this company. I'm going to pass from an equi perspective, but I'm happy to provide an introduction if they want to have a chat to the debt side, for example. When we can highlight those to staff,”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Improve your risk adjusted returns in some instances taking more risk for a given return series, whatever it may be. The other key hire that I've made in the last three years, which has been enormously powerful in generating that collaborative team achievement focus direction is a HR director, having that constant and consistent message around communication values standards as to how we interact with our employees has been helpful to me and the business in advancing that culture.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Touches upon two key roles as part of the leadership team that I have brought on board over the last. That point in particular, we need to be expert risk managers to do what we're doing, not just because of the hedge funds and leverage strategies, but the origination of unique products and capabilities and protecting ourselves against the downside that can occur, making sure we're maximizing the investment returns coming out of those opportunities. Risk management needs to be a key capability for the business overall. Three years ago, I hired our very first dedicated chief risk officer. They've been on board now. They lead a team of five people across the business that are working not only with the portfolio managers to assess their risk, but their key objective is to improve risk adjusted returns. We didn't need someone to come in and say, hey, you're outside or near risk parameters. We need someone to say, how do we actually...”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the benefits of the asset management industry. It's ruthless in its objectivity It's hard to fudge whether you've performed or underperformed the scoreboard doesn't lie. Performance is best viewed through a risk-adjusted lens and over the long term. I find that managing people's egos around their performance can be challenging, but making an objective call as to whether they have performed or not is one of the easier aspects of the role. Whether they acknowledge it or not, I think it's pretty clear.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whatever it may be, that's a great pool of talent to come back to Australia. Early in their career, while we are probably at risk of losing them because they want to travel and go overseas and compete with the biggest in the world, we've got a privileged position to being the first call on the street for talent when they're returning to Australia to say, hey, I really enjoyed my time at some of the biggest companies in the US. That's similar to what you guys are doing back here. I'd like to do that here in Regal, Australia, and develop my career.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Australia has developed an explosive financial services sector over the last 30, 40 years. Basically, the bulk of my career. You've probably seen a diaspora of Australians around the US, Europe, certainly in London, going off in Hong Kong, Singapore, wanting to go and apply their trade and learn and hope to succeed at some of the world's largest financial institutions. One of the nice things about Australia is that it's a long way away from the rest of the world, which is a tyranny of distance at times, but it certainly means that people can return to Australia in a very safe environment, a long way away from some of the conflict that's existing elsewhere in the world. And frankly, it's just a beautiful place to live. We've got lovely beaches, nice weather, good rule of law, etc. We often find that when that diaspora is returning because perhaps they're married, they want to start kids, their kids are at our age where they want to go to high school, university.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One technology team that supports the business, and then that has been key to making sure that we're approaching opportunities, but also risks with the same lens and therefore fixing things if they need to be fixed once as opposed to multiple times. You're trying to do that all at the same time as leaving the essence of what made the investment capability you're acquiring, you're leaving that intact. And you're trying to put that on a pedestal to develop that to grow.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“After a period of extensive growth over the last three and a half years, in particular since we became listed, that has been an increasing focus as we bring what I'd call that common platform behind each of the investment capabilities. We now operate with one distribution and marketing team right across the business, whether we have people selling hotels or royalties or debt strategies or equity strategies, they all operate under the one distribution team. That means we can be coordinated, we can communicate well, we can share information, we're not falling over each other, walking into a client when the other person's just walking out of that client. Basic, but it's the element of doing those little things really well. We've also got the common technology and finance and risk and governance platform behind it all. We've got one compliance team, one risk team, one finance team.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be able to buy into that common goal of regal partners overall as opposed to just their own P&L Single answer to your question is people, their motivations, once you've been able to demonstrate that they truly do have a proven edge in what they're doing, they haven't just been lucky.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Asset management businesses are inherently people businesses. That sounds simple and trite to say that I found that the motivations of the key investment professionals, in particular the founders of that business, are the essence as to whether it's going to be a good acquisition or not. At its very simplest level, I seeking great investment either individuals, teams or businesses that have a proven edge in what they're doing. Then I look to explore as to whether the partnership between them and ourselves can be a one plus one equals three or five scenario. That means that they need to be up for the journey. They need to be moving from a founder-led mentality where they were answerable to themselves to, hey, I'm now an employee working as part of an ASX listed business with all the governance that goes with that.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One foot in front of the other. It certainly hasn't been a straight line, our growth has been three limbs to it. Strong net flows through a coordinated sales effort. That has been helped by what has been great investment performance across a range of strategies. And so obviously that has helped take FAM up further. The third aspect is a number of key acquisitions. We have acquired additional investment capability to help expand and develop that capability we have”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The ability to be able to see pricing in public markets and in private markets, the ability to see pricing in debt markets relative to equity markets, in pricing of royalties puts us in a better position to make an informed investment decision for any given investment opportunity. There'll be opportunities where we say, I'm not a buyer of the equity at that price. But hey, I could structure a royalty. It won't be dilutive to you. And I won't put the same onerous terms around it from a debt package perspective and provide that to them instead. That is increasingly a virtuous circle. The more businesses that we see, the more we can have informed conversations about whether we're a debt provider, equity provider, or a royalty provider. And then that leads to better returns. That makes us more relevant to companies. They come back and it's a virtuous circle from there.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We had about a billion dollars Aussie in long short equity strategies back in late 2016 when I joined. We're now about 21 billion Aussie. We're diversified across long short equities, Creden royalties, real and natural assets, including things like water, agriculture, carbon, and growth equity, the fourth category, which is we're the largest pre-IPO investor for companies in Australia. There's been a significant diversification of investment capability and Little bit like a diversified equi portfolio that is inherently more valuable today than it was when I started as a monoline long short equity provider.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that puts us in a great position as what I call the original equipment manufacturer, the OEM, to originate those best opportunities across the capital structure.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Investors have largely been passive and the resource sector takes some real technical expertise. We find it's an area that we can add value that others struggle to identify value in. And that has been a self-fulfilling prophecy because if you think about the 200 staff that Rehul has now, thereabouts, half of those what I'd call portfolio managers and analysts, so front office people, we would have 25 of those dedicated to a resources strategy in some shape or form, whether it be in debt markets, whether it be equities or royalties, we have a team of five mining engineers, five geologists. We have surveyors. We have staff that have worked at some of the largest mining companies in the world, and they're actually picking the stocks, making the investment decisions from a debt perspective, originating royalty.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Australia has been blessed with an abundance of resources and minerals, including critical minerals. The world needs energy more so today than any other time in its past. Energy is the critical input to the large AI thematic that is driving a huge amount of Catholic spendage across the world. Australia is really well placed to be a beneficiary riding that wave of increased spending. You've seen some of that in terms of some of the deals announced between Australia and the US in terms of getting access to rare critical minerals without resource capabilities, the technical capability between mining engineers, geologists, I'd say we would be the first call on the street as being the Australian experts to understand which companies are going to be the winners from a resource perspective. We have been very constructive on the resource sector for a long period of time now because the demand”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Population. But because it's its pension system roots, it doesn't have the same construct as, let's say, the asset management industry in the US or Europe. There are three key things that have shaped the pension system in Australia. There is a multi-decade trend to internalize asset management capability rather than using third-party providers. There's an acceleration of a pre-existing trend around passive and ETF fund investing. Obviously, that's been a good trade for them, but it misses out on some of the positive aspects of active management. It also means there's been a slower adoption to alternative investment strategies, which is really regal sweet spot.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Structural elements to the Australian market. Australia is an interesting miracle in this regard. Some of those micro and macroeconomic reforms that the government introduced in the late 1980s translated into the introduction of a superannuation guarantee levy in 1992 it first started where 3% of everyone's salary was put aside as pension savings. That rate is now 12% of everyone's salaries. Within a 36-year period, Australia has accumulated $4 trillion of supernation savings, meaning it's the fourth largest pension system in the world, yet our population is something like the 50th largest in the world, that $4 trillion, if it was a country, it would be equivalent to something like Italy in terms of GDP. You look at that and you say, what an enormous amount of savings for that.”
2026-02-05 · Capital Allocators · Brendan O'Connor – Alpha Opportunities in Australia at Regal Partners (EP.485) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source