YouSaid · the spoken record
Jeff Aronson
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- 2025-08-19
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- 2025-08-19
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2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Aside the personal stuff of my ever-expanding family, I would say it's what we just talked about. And thinking about it from a business perspective, what's happening in our neck of the woods in the alternative space? It is changing so, so rapidly, and I can't wait to see what the next few years are going to bring. It's just going to be way different than what people expect. And I think”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have a growing family here in New York City, so I take my wife and I take immense pleasure in that. We like the outdoors. We like the outdoors.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From a business perspective, as John Angela and Michael Gordon, by far, they gave me a chance and then they let me run with the ball.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From Michael Gordon. It wasn't advice, but it was just something that always stuck with me. We as an investor manager, we get paid the sweat. And I think that's whether you're in the alternatives business, you're in the traditional asset management business, people trust us with their money.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Resorts International, a casino in Atlantic City. Oh, you're laughing, owned by Merv Griffin. It was a Drexel deal. It wasn't the prettiest deal in the world. And again, a bunch of characters. Carl Icon was in it. Ober Ross was in it. Lot of colorful people”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, so we like to end these sessions with a lightning round. So, we're going to run through a couple of questions, just get a quick answer. Could be one word, could be a few more. So let's start So, what was your very first investment?”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Giving it out is as much fun as making it. And so regarding Hopkins, it's kind of, again, who I am. And I've been a longtime volunteer and I've been on the board of trustees for a thousand years and I used to chair the board and two of our children went there. It's been a big part of my life and to help others is like, it's a privilege.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, my dad was an educator. My dad started off as a high school gym teacher, and then he went to a state university in Massachusetts where he taught physical education and was a coach. So I understood the value of education. And I went to Johns Hopkins because I got a big scholarship and I couldn't have afforded to have gone otherwise. And the same thing at NYU. And it sounds corny, but I really believe in giving back. And it sounds equally corny. This is a great country for all the stuff going on. This is the great country. I think about myself. It's like Horatio Alger, like American Dream. It's like, look what we did. And so I really deeply feel this obligation to give back, particularly to work in this field, really fortunate. You know, you can create a lot of wealth”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but I just think it's the right thing for the firm and for our clients and for our people. So I feel great about it.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I feel great about it. I didn't want to be one of those people hanging around. And it's just not me. And we have a long runway and everyone knows it's coming. Again, there's no drama. There's no nothing. And it's smooth. And we studied a lot of these transitions. And I think they're hard. And I understand why they're hard, because particularly as a founder, the firm becomes part of you.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What about me? And I told people that I'm going to do this for another five to ten years, and that's that. And I've had to put a number on it somewhere in the middle. I wasn't going to do a rolling five-year thing, that it's five years from whenever I speak. And earlier this year, I wrote a letter to our clients that one of my younger colleagues, Matt K. Baker, who you know, my plan is that when I step back, Matt is going to be the next managing partner of the firm.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was something that Mark and I talked about day one. So when we started the firm, we left the firm because we both wanted a chance, as I said, to drive the bus. And we said that when we're ready to step back, that we were going to afford that opportunity to someone else. So Mark retired December of 2020. We telegraphed that years in advance to our clients. So it became a running joke when he left us like, finally, all right, enough already. And it was incredibly smooth, both internally, externally, with two constituents, our counterparties, like Goldman and our clients. So it's utterly seamless. There was no drama. There was no nothing like that. At that time, so this was now four and a half years ago, I told people, because I know. What's on everyone's mind? Well, what about me?”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The moment, right? Bob Rubin, who I love to quote, he once said never judge a decision by its outcome. You make a decision. And I will do this with young people. So when young people join us, maybe I'll do a lunch and I'll offer hypothetical. So here's a hypothetical on investment. You can invest $100. There's a four out of five chance you're going to double your money. One out of five, you're going to get a zero. You make the investment. You get a zero. Good decision or bad decision. Now, the right answer is it was a good decision. But sometimes younger people say, well, it's a bad decision you lost all your money. So that's what I mean by compartmentalizing. I don't get emotional about stuff at all.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you make a mistake, you have to learn from it, but you don't need anyone saying, well, I would have done that, or you should have done that, or you could have done that because I find that is just culturally corrosive. And I have no tolerance for it. And unfortunately, I think it's widespread on Wall Street generally because there are a lot of ambitious aggressive people, and I just have no patience for that. So I'm able to compartmentalize a loss.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I am, again, I think maybe having a trading background in the 80s and 90s has helped me. Not everything works. And I'm not a yeller, I never raised my voice or anything like that. The only time I will get agitated is when people do the shoulda, woulda, could, could, could, coulda game, second guessing, Monday morning quarterbacking. And I tell people, because it's true, I'm the oldest person at my firm. I have the longest list of mistakes. People make mistakes. And if you're a professional,”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think they would say, I'm a pretty even keeled person because my background was in markets. I prize optionality. So I will tend to wait and observe. I think they would say I'm a really good listener. And I usually speak last at meetings because I know if I speak, people will tend to gravitate towards my point of view And I think they would also say, I'm good at compartmentalizing.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who wants that chance to spread their wings, so to speak. So we've made a lot of changes over the last five years. We've gotten into different businesses and we've grown as a result of that. And I will tell you as much as I love investing and I love investing. It's like doing puzzles. Growing and building is equally rewarding. And I don't mean financially, just like intellectually.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I also think that business has changed. I mean, I think about the alternatives business, and I've been in it since the 1980s. It's just an absolute sea change. And one of the learnings along the way at Centerbridge, so for years, Mark and I, why should we grow? This is a great thing where, you know, our investors are happy. We're happy. It's profitable. It's all good. And it was a few years ago realizing, you know what, we really have to grow. Because the industry is changing. And you also have to give, I think part of this was also getting older, have to give opportunities for younger people.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Real estate, no real estate. But we were investing in real estate from day one, but we didn't raise a dedicated real estate fund until 2018. So if there was a real estate investment and had a private equity bent, it went into the private equity fund, conversely credit went into the credit fund. I think it's hard to start a multi-strategy firm from scratch these days. I mean, I think it's possible, but I think it's really hard.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's completely different. And the fact that I've been doing private equity for 20 years, I have a much finer appreciation of how businesses work. And it's about the people. And I think credit investors, it's almost like the people at the company, it's almost an abstraction. It's like, I'm looking at the balance sheet. How am I going to whack this up and do this? And first, it's more interesting when you get into the company and you get to understand it and the people. But you also have an appreciation that people are working there. So you have to be mindful of that as opposed to like this on everything.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And it's also fine. We'll make it work. The other thing I think about in dealing with these companies, and again, I think this is, I've become much more sensitized to this since we started Centerbridge than in my previous career where I was just doing credit. I think the beauty of our firm is that we deeply understand the businesses that we lend to or that we buy the credit of. If you think about credit investors, you think about a company's balance sheet, you know, the T, credit investors, I said this earlier, they're alphas on the right-hand side. Credit investors, and I deeply believe this, they just don't understand the operations of a business, how a business operates, how to grow it, how to value it, how to evaluate management, as well as a private equity investor, which is logical because they don't own companies”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're 100% right. And to be pretty aggressive, and I'm not like that. I mean, I'm not a wallflower. If you're a wallflower in this business, you're going to be run over. But I always leave the last nickel on the table. Always.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we have a partnership with Wells Fargo. And so we are there exclusive direct lending provider for their middle market businesses, you know, the family-owned business in Cleveland that has nothing to do with Wall Street, nothing to do with our world, but they're looking for some financing that a traditional bank is just not willing to provide because regulatory is a non-past credit and things like that. But it's very interesting looking for those companies when you deal with them. So as a sponsor, we want to borrow as much as we can prudently because we're trying to enhance our equity IRR. If your family owned business, there's no equity IRR. They're not selling their company. They want to borrow as little. As they can. So we found that to be a pretty interesting niche.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that's only a very small percentage of companies in the United States, how about penetrating the rest? So we're trying to look for areas which are not well-trodden, where there's less competition, and we can do something different.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And while that loan necessarily won't be cheap per se because it's often some type of unusual situation, there's some complexity associated with it, it's far cheaper than selling equity. Same thing, real estate. I think real estate credit is an interesting space. And the last thing we're doing, again, also in credit is from a lending perspective, trying to lend to companies which are not owned by private equity sponsors, which are most company United States trying to penetrate that market. Because if you look at direct lending specifically, and you know this, better than anyone, the vast majority of direct lending capital is devoted to financing sponsored buyouts. Right.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Many, many years ago. So that's been a good strategy today. Related to that, it's like a hybrid strategy, which is something that we're thinking a lot about, that maybe it's not structured equity per se. Maybe there's no governance, but it's neither credit either. Maybe there's no maturity or something like that. So I think some type of hybrid strategy is something that we're working hard on, on developing it, because there's not a lot of capital in that space. There's an enormous amount of capital in the buyout world, an enormous amount of capital in the private credit direct lending world. There's not a lot of capital or investors, for that matter, in the middle. There are a handful, but not a lot. So that's one thing we're thinking about. In our opportunistic credit business, again, this notion of lending. So maybe we go to the sponsor which is looking for liquidity, but they don't want to part with equity. It's too expensive. We'll make them a loan.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Vis the original equity provider. But from the original equity provider's perspective, that seniority sleeves off their vest because it's not a troubled company. So they ask themselves, what's the likelihood that Centerbridge, for example, is ever going to have to avail themselves of that structural protection? It's nil. And I think we've been doing structured equity since we started the firm, so in nearly 20 years, and we've done dozens of deals in structured equity, we've availed ourselves of that structural protection exactly once.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, this notion of being a solution provider, and I think about it both from a private equity, private credit, and real estate perspective is what we've been focused on. And private equity, we're trying to do what we call structured equity transactions, where we'll inject equity into a business, a business that we believe in at a good price, not a crazy price, but we're not trying to, it's not bottom fishing exercise. At a good price for the sponsor, it creates capital for the sponsor to reinvest. What do we get? We don't get control, but we get some semblance of governance. And what we also get is some type of seniority.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think this is going to sound like a cliche, but in today's world, particularly in the alternatives world, you want to be a solution provider. Because people, and you read about this in media, there's lack of liquidity and lack of transactions and things like that. And why is that? I mean, in the private equity world, a lot of deals were done a few years ago. The rate environment was different. Everything was different. How do you exit those? Similar dynamic in the real estate world. So how can you help free things up? How can you create liquidity? Particularly because owners of assets want to sell at the old price. Buyers of assets want to buy the new price.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, that's the smart thing to do. Yep, and that's why I wanted Goldman as representing a gigantic financial institution. And Bloomberg, which wasn't a financial institution, but just integral to our network, so to speak. So it's been terrific.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In our industry, like tens and tens of thousands. And so we started it and it's been a great success and it's been a huge win for these students. It's been great for New York City. And it's been smart business It's been good business of philanthropy”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That no one's thinking about. Now, the problem is you've got all these students, you've got employers on the other side, all right? How do you create that bridge? How do you get rid of the gunk acuny and bureaucracy and things like that? And so I call John Waldron, President Goldman. I call Mike Bloomberg, and I said, I have an idea. Why don't we all invest in CUNY? And ultimately, the three firms we collectively invested millions of dollars in CUNY to build out the infrastructure, to build the bridge, to take these kids who just want a chance and build the bridge to get them a great job. And it doesn't have to be a job as a banker, as an investor. There's so many great, well-paying jobs.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Zero. They had grit. Most of them worked their way through school. And so we started hiring them. And all they wanted, it reminded me a little, like when I started, I just want a chance. Give me a chance, and we started hiring these kids, and they were great. And so this is before COVID. And I said, you know, there's got to be something to do here because the financial services industry, which is the biggest economic driver of New York City, is always, we're all falling all over ourselves. Small firms, medium-sized firms, giant firms looking for talent. In the meantime, there's this huge pool of talent right in our own backyard, the undiscovered jewel.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did not. Mind-boggling number. Huge. And a huge engine of social mobility here in New York City. And I had met some of these kids, and they were. They were. There was no millennial stuff or.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I didn't do any of that stuff. So we're all scrambling and tripping over ourselves looking for the same people. And I thought about it and we had done, my wife and I had done some private philanthropy with city university. So city university of New York CUNY is the largest urban university in the United States. There are 275,000 students there. When I tell people that, it's like,”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right in our backyard. Yep, that is true. So we, like all firms, we're always looking for talent. And we talked about this earlier. Young, hard-working, driven, and we all recruit from the same places. You know, I joke with people. I couldn't get a job at my own firm. None of us could. I didn't go to Naive School. I didn't graduate Phi Beta Kappa. I don't speak six languages. I didn't discover the cure for cancer when I was 19.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But what we saw with CIT was it was wide and it became wider through a lot of structural enhancements. So it became, rather than using a diploma to protect yourself, it became an offensive tool as well.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Veteran possession. So it's a loan to a company which is in a chapter 11 proceeding and a bankruptcy proceeding. And the virtue of a dip, debtor in possession loan, it gets paid Before anyone. So, what's the common problem with restructuring? There's never enough to go around. That's why it's a restructuring. It's pretty simple. And so it's a limited pie for that DIP loan provider. That lender gets paid before anyone. So historically, the spread on that loan was tight because it was very low risk because you were first in the waterfall.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was I think it was three or four billion dollars. And it in and of itself was hugely lucrative. And not just because of the spread, because of what we designed with make holes and call protection and things like that, that when CIT worked itself out and we converted debt to equity and it was a great home run, but that diploan also became a huge profit generator for us and the other participants in it. And I think it was a moment that everyone, whoa, maybe there's another way to make money in these restructurings rather than the old-fashioned way of buying a bond in the market at 70 cents and hoping it's worth par, maybe we can proactively originate a new loan at 100, but through bells and whistles and structure, turn that into a really profitable unto itself. So it was like a change in the... Industry.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In my world, in the private credit world, and this is probably 2009, it was rare that we did a primary financing. And if we did, we often did it to protect our existing position in a different part of the capital structure to play defense or maybe to enhance it. But that loan in and of itself wasn't really to make a lot of money. It was more to prevent someone from doing something bad to us. Are enhancing our position. And what happened in CIT, and I think it was the first time it was done, it was an enormous debtor in possession financing”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Financial company. And Goldman was a very large investor in this situation. And the world was ending and CIT was basically, it was a non-bank bank. They didn't have deposits. They financed themselves through the markets, issuing notes and things like that, and everything dried up. But they had ongoing maturities. So they were in trouble. But they had a book of loans, which were excellent. They were principally an asset-based lender. They were lending on inventory and receivables as opposed to enterprise value. So the loans were, the assets themselves were bulletproof, but the capital structure was just like off. And a lot of investors, including ourselves, we were loading up on the bonds as much as we could do. And again, that was in the secondary market, and we were buying something at 60 because we thought it was worth $100. That kind of old school way of doing it. Up to that point, people in”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say less pivotal for me and more pivotal for our firm and even what I'll call the private credit industry. So this was an investment in a finance company called CIT, which you'll probably remember. And it was around the time of the GFC”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's like all the mistakes that you would look for. We fancy office in Mayfair, check. Hire a bunch of people quickly check. Raise a lot of money. Check. And, you know, and that was, it was the same thing. We were almost a victim of our own success. And we made some mistakes. Now, what did we do? We stop, stop, stop, stop. And we had to really look hard at the portfolio. We looked hard at the people. We made some difficult changes. And it was the right decision.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In 2011. You and for the firm. Yep. We had always invested in Europe. Mark had it at Blackstone. I had it Angelo Gordon. And even when we started Centerbridge, we had invested in Europe. I think to be able to invest in another jurisdiction, you need people on the ground. You just can't do it from Park Avenue in New York City. That would be a mistake. And so we did that, but again, I think our eyes were bigger than our stomach.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we spread it really broadly. And it's easy to say that, well, but if only 5% of the economics are allocated to a different team, are you really aligned? No, it's substantial.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's actually curious, but it's not someone I only want to do private equity. Or, I only want to do private credit. It's someone who wants to do both.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And a completely different set of people focus on private credit financial services investments. We said, just do both. Just do both. The result of that is the people who want to join us, young people, it's self-selecting. It's people who”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, of course I talk to you. But because we operate, the way we operate the firm is a bit differently. So we have three strategies. We have private equity, private credit, and real estate. The standard operating model for firms, and you know this incredibly well, you have different investment teams. And again, hearkening back to my original experience with Mark, where we partnered with Blackstone, and it was the same people. We took a different approach. We said, for example, if you're going to invest in financial services at Centerbridge, you're going to invest up and down the cap stack within financial services as opposed to having one team of investors.”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, right? Now, what I'm saying in my inflection is I'm trying to encourage you to say yes. I want someone on comparing notes. No, I do my own work. So I'm trying to look for people who, and not many people, if you're being interviewed by me, are going to, because you heard the inflection in my voice. And what I'm trying to encourage Who will have the gumption to say,”
2025-08-19 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Paid to Sweat: Centerbridge's Jeff Aronson on the Growth of Private Markets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT