YouSaid · the spoken record

Marcia Page

lines on the record: 76
first: 2023-12-11
most recent: 2023-12-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I really try to be respectful of the room as much as possible let other people do the talking first because I've seen it a thousand times if not more that the senior person says something and the room just goes completely quiet whatever opposing views depending on the culture of the firm never quite rise to the occasion I relish varied perspectives and people know that about me it's a combination of people knowing that I want to hear dissenting points of view and generally letting other people speak first before I infect the room”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But secondly that people observe what you're doing, what you're saying, what you're not doing, and what you're not saying, you somewhere along the way become a role model, and that it's very important that you be a good representation of a role model for the people around you. Don't hold back.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the end of twenty eleven I was at a pretty low point. We had been fundraising relentlessly in the post GFC period of time, and twenty eleven was a particularly difficult year, if you might remember we were looking to the abyss as to whether the euro was going to completely crash and we had significant exposure in Europe. It was the end of the year and my mom said to me, you know, I think you could really use a coach and some feedback. This coach gathered verbatim feedback from colleagues at Varde together with some friends and family while there was some really nice feedback in there, the practical reality is there was one piece of feedback that has stuck with me ever since that and that was that folks want it to be even more courageous. They would observe that I had something to say and that I might be a bit reticent to actually share it. I wish I'd known that earlier twofold one.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I worked with my dad in the drugstore he was very fond of saying Marcia keep your head up and he meant it both literally and figuratively. He didn't want me looking down when there might be a customer out there that needed help and that you would go out and actually help that customer, but he meant it figuratively. I've taken that very seriously and always look for opportunities, take action and embrace them.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Its launching firms launching Varday, launching empowered capital. I love the business building process and working shoulder to shoulder with incredible talent as we look to build something.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've already mentioned Bob Lumpkin, so he already has gotten status, but of course my co founding partners of our day, George Chicks and Greg McMillan, we were much better as a combined group, and we are still friends today.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My sublime in that is that anybody who's worked for me or works with me knows that I expect that people under promise and over deliver. So when I see folks that are prone to overpromising and under delivering, it's to me another element of arrogance and it makes me crazy.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love to be active. Every day I enjoy getting outside and moving. I don't care if it's biking, walking, my running days might be on their last legs. If I can combine that with travel with people that I love to be with, whether it's family or friends, that's phenomenal. I just got back from a bike trip with two of my three daughters just about a week ago. It's absolutely my favorite thing to do.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I learned a lot from people like Mark Lazar and Bruce Karsh. We basically are peers in the business, they have built phenomenal organizations. I still consider them friends today, but we were really all in it together back in the day. What a remarkable group of talent that assembled in and around these opportunity sets in that period of time.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This would be a group of people. In the early days of the distressed debt business, there really was an openness to sharing information and thinking around valuations and opportunities in the market, and whether it was Wall Street or other peers at that period of time, I learned the business from that group of people, really, and it was a really fun period of time and one that was interesting but highly developmental, and it really was a combination of a core group of people where we learned from each other.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“the person that really hired me at Cargill, still a friend and mentor today, but probably gave me the toughest feedback that I've ever experienced in my life, literally to the point of tears I was presenting a credit and he stopped me midway and said I don't think you're as well prepared or understanding what's happening in the underlying fundamentals of this company and when you're ready we can come back and have this conversation It's important to provide feedback it's important to receive it it's important to have an external mirror on who you are I trusted his advice so it's the importance of an external mirror”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We can create a market for diverse talent in starting their own ferns, launching and scaling their businesses. So to me, success would be that we actually continue to take a leading role. Our thought leadership and what we're actually doing in terms of capital commitment and strategic support shapes the market and creates something that people have never seen before.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would love to believe that we're going to move that 1.4% number, Ted, but it is an 82 trillion dollar denominator. So it's not an easily moved number. The way I'm personally thinking about this is recognizing that this cannot be a fund one and done. It has to be a long term commitment and take a long arc to this business. So that's the first starting point, is taking a long view on this. But I'd like to believe that we're bringing structured solutions to these managers that actually is helping shape the market and ultimately expand the market for diverse talent. Success to me is that we've actually shaped the market. I've been a nascent market before. This one is a relatively nascent market. I can see how it can play out over time, how we can help launch these firms, how we can help scale them, but ultimately how”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Varday also brings a ton of subject matter expertise to bear on those conversations that are quite bespoke and what the manager needs at a given point in time. The other thing that we've done is we've created a lot of external relationships with vendors and outside providers across a range of capabilities that will often extend the pricing and their expertise to these managers. So we are really bringing a multifaceted and very bespoke and consultative approach to that manager depending on what they need. You can imagine if they're in an institutional conversation with an LP, they're reluctant to be a bit vulnerable on the areas they're not necessarily have been exposed to in their prior work experience. So again they're bringing exceptional investment experience to bear, but we're really looking to provide support across those non-investments.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a really good question, and in fact there are some great programs out there that provide, I'd call it the basic playbook. So we've deliberately sought to do much more of a consultative approach really across what we call three pillars, so operational infrastructure, the business development, as well as talent. And the way we're delivering it really is kind of multifold. So we've got that expertise at empowered capital. As part of the founding of empowered capital, I also affiliated with Varden.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're helping someone with their operations, there's a way of doing operations they may not have been exposed to. You can help them with. When you're talking about a network that some of these people may not have had, that's much harder to figure out how do you help. So how do you think about that type of strategic support with the goal of not just committing the capital so they have a chance but helping them succeed”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that there is a deep need for liquid capital and a willingness on our part to basically be provisioning in our GP structured partnerships a combination of working capital of fund one commitment together with strategic support so we recognize that somebody's coming with a very strong investment thesis but are not necessarily going to be fully formed in terms of all the operational and business development sides of their business so I think it's also bringing a willingness to think about how to bring the best strategic support to these managers to help fill in the gaps on the non-investing side and to put them in a position to be on their best front foot so when they are in an institutional quality conversation with an investor that they are bringing their best foot forward together with our capital commitment”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that were operating against classic benchmarking against all talent, to be honest, and expecting a track record that's going to hold up against all of the peer firms out there. And then recognizing that this talent has probably had slightly different challenges in getting to the point of being able to start and launch their own firms. Those barriers have been somewhat structural in nature, but there also been the function of unconscious bias. They probably have been paid less statistically and are not necessarily as part of a privileged network. So we're very conscious of the different barriers. So recognizing this.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the practical reality is we both have a GP and an LP hat going, right? At empowered capital we are basically making commitments as a GP through three transaction types. So prefund direct deals, fund commitments, but also co-invests as well as what we call GP structured partnerships. We're investors full on. We have to be out in the fundraising markets ourselves. It really goes to assessing the quality of that investing talent, that underlying track record, relying heavily on deep diligence in terms of the quality of that track record and deep reference checking. It's not like we're coming in and have a deep understanding of every single one of these individual investing strategies. So it's being clear about what the universe”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But clearly we want to be able to see a long and steady quality track record. In some instances it's attributable, but other instances we are really trying to create that from multiple sources inclusive of understanding the investors who would have otherwise understood the underlying deal and who is responsible for that deal. We will also look to do prefund deals with an individual manager to an effect underwrite shoulder to shoulder with that manager and really see the quality of their underwriting, their ability to think through enterprise value be through a complicated negotiation and bring a deal to fruition. So in some cases it's basically doing a joint underwriting with that manager to really assess their capabilities, their underwriting skills.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's absolutely the case and certainly we are looking for that best in class talent across this universe. So certainly the pedigree and the type of experience and the quality of firm that these groups have been working at, learning from, and being trained in is a critical component piece. It is a trifecta. If we've got somebody who's got investment expertise and has had some exposure to the operating side and the infrastructure side of their organization and has had at least some exposure to the business development or the fundraising side, that is very, very attractive trifective skills. One of the biggest challenges is being able to have an attributable track record. There are instances where this group”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Were really surprised by how deep that addressable market actually was. Now in fairness the average AUM across this universe is about five hundred million dollars. It's pretty small relative to most investment management firms out there. It skews a little smaller by virtue of the fact that roughly half of those funds are venture capital. But even so these tend to be funds one, two, three or four. They're still very much a more emergent part of the market, but they are not first time investors. These folks are coming from exceptional pedigrees from fantastic firms. There is an absolutely interesting addressable market here, and ultimately we decided we wanted to get more capital flowing to this talent, and that's when we decided to found it. empowered capital.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“as we started in effect investing off in my personal balance sheet. Chrissy Priso had been at Exelon and Ebi Heaney had previously been an investment professional at Barday. The two of them joined me and we started making commitments. It was really at that time that we were blown away by the talent that we were seeing and the range of investment opportunities that were in effect kind of becoming clear to us. We went about creating a bottoms up understanding of the actual addressable market. Interesting to me, Ted, that with all of the information that's out there in the financial markets, there wasn't a single source that identified the universe of private alternatives managers that were led by female or other underrepresented talent.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Foundation report that showed that only one point four percent of eighty two trillion in institutionally run assets in the United States are run by diverse owned firms one point four percent. Even for me in this business it was a stunning number. So I personally came to the conclusion that I put my capital dislocation hat on that this was one of the most inefficient markets for capital formation that I had ever seen in my career was a classic dislocation opportunity combined with the opportunity to create alpha by virtue of the performance by diverse teams. This is the precursor for empowered capital that I decided to make a financial commitment and personally commit seventy five million dollars to invest in diverse investment talent. I brought on two people to work.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had a lot of people that were like nodding, nodding, nodding, but the reality is it didn't feel like there was any commercial action that was following on the back of that. So this really caused me to step back and reflect on, wow, maybe there is an actionable commercial opportunity, investment opportunity in this space. I did two more things and went into a second set of researches with several folks at Varday as well, and came to two observations. One that there are numerous research reports that show that diverse managers generate alpha outperformance versus their non diverse peers, so that there was a potential to create alpha by investing in diverse talent. Secondly, for me the real clincher was a night.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was really proud of what we had done and actively involved in all of those efforts as I retired from Varday. People are fond of saying that culture eats strategy for lunch, but I've now suggested that culture is necessary but not even close to sufficient when it comes to achieving diversity in an organization you need to be super superintentional. So I basically said, okay, this has been a remarkable learning experience. We've started to implement these things at Varday. How might I influence the industry more broadly? I went out there and I met with women and men and LPs and GPs. I created convenings and ultimately kind of found myself in a position where there was a lot of agreement, but not a lot of action. So I called it being in a field of bubble.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“so that you amongst very small cumulative changes create a material change in your participation from a diversity standpoint statistically women tend to self rate lower than men so we have dropped self ratings from our promotion process another small example is when you are developing your plan for a hiring approach, generally we do not launch the interview process until we have at least two diverse candidates in our pool. Statistically there's a much higher likelihood that you'll have at least one of those candidates go to the next level of interviews than having just one candidate in that pool. It's akin to kind of the rooney role in the NFL. So we really started building on all of these hardwired, small but effective changes at Varday.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So my natural inclination is to start digging into the data and really understanding why we have this conundrum of lack of senior female leadership really was influenced by a book called What Works by a Harvard Professor by the name of Iris Bonet and really developed a much better understanding that there isn't a silver bullet but rather a combination of key actions that include of course authentic and committed senior leadership that sets the tone at the top you got to walk the walk if that's not happening. This business is filled with smart people and it will be dead on arrival. The book really influenced my thinking on how you can hardwire the organizations to mitigate unconscious bias in your talent management processes from hiring to promote.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that I'm one of the few women to find an alternatives firm that has a long track record that was built to scale. This really resulted in me taking a hard look around the data in our business, both at Varday but within the investment industry at large. There's a ton of data out there on gender in particular, but it became pretty clear that the rate of change in financial services has been nothing short of glacial during my career, particularly among senior leadership in this business. When I looked at Vardet's numbers, I also particularly among our investment professional ranks also noted that our numbers were really right there with the industry averages, and I personally found that a bit humbling. How is that possible given this phenomenal culture that we built, and quite honestly my own female?”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Varday's business grew, in my view we created a business with a really distinctive culture and one that I'm very proud. Being a woman in a male dominated field of alternative investing actually never seemed to hinder my success, and probably because I was always in a position to be able to commit capital. But what I believe happened is I think that success perhaps led me to overlook some of the facts, challenges, and barriers around diversity in the investing business. So it really wasn't until twenty sixteen when I moved from that intense co and co CEO roles into my current role as executive chair now shared with George Hicks that I kind of looked around. It was the first time I had time to really look around and take stock. And I was like, where did everybody go? How is it possible?”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“definitely requires the right kind of fun structure, sometimes it's the mismatch in that funding structure against what you're trying to accomplish over a multi year period of time that can be a challenge. The other piece is recognizing that these opportunities tend to be staged over time. Certainly we've had periods of time where we've had very quick recoveries and it's been a very short instance, but in most cases it requires a patience and a willingness to wait for that motivated seller. Sometimes that can take a lot longer than you think it's going.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“or the nature of the characters involved in the transaction, it is a skill set that's developed, so it requires work effort, it requires an activism, it requires a way of thinking through the whole shape of the trade, from downside to your base case to ways that you can create potential optionality. It's the valuation piece, but it's also being deeply aware of what's happening in the security selection across that capital stack. So it means getting into the details of what your rights are and how and where that's going to play and what the dynamics will be in the right structure. The other thing that might not be quite as obvious is it requires the right fund structure and investor base to have the ability to have the time to do a proper restructuring and or the staying power”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's been the power of the platform and having capabilities across geographic areas, asset types, and various return profiles. It's having tools in the tool shed, for instance, that ability to think about relative value, but also capital structure and relative value within a capital stack. It's being deeply cognizant and having a point of view on enterprise value and where value breaks. There's a litany of skills that are required to be effective in this, and that is a willingness to tackle complexity. One of the things that I have observed in the marketplace is that some of these situations many investors shy away from by virtue of the complexity of the underlying situation, whether it be the valuation, the capital structure, the process of restructuring.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it's been very interesting to watch those developments in this marketplace. You understand why those solutions exist because there are points in time where that transition creates liquidity challenges potentially for that next generation of leaders.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a really good question, Ted. When we develop how partners would retire and how new partners would come in, we did contemplate the concept of a sale of business and developed what that would look like in that event. I can tell you when we started this business personally, the concept of enterprise value was non-existent. Clearly over the last 10 to 15 years there's been a keen development of lots of capabilities and a certain maturing and consolidation in this business no doubt. So there is enterprise value, but we think about it in the context of how that value in effect is transferred amongst the partners over time. We're certainly not contemplating a change in the transition of Varde. We've appreciated being all privately held companies.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's really been a tale that the founding partners have with economics basically reflecting the skin in the game for that year or for that fund. So there isn't a buyout per se for the next generation of partners, but rather a declining interest in the firm and enormous amount of skin in the game as to the underlying economics over that period of time. That's what allows economics to free up such that there is more and more economics over time that's available for the next generation of partners. Over time, our partnership is expanded from the original three to sixteen today.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and the fundraising and business development process. One of the challenges of this business is for the first twenty years most of our investors were exposed to George Hicks, Greg McMillan, and Marcia Page, the cumulative exposure to the founding partners was something that we had to be very deliberate about and begin to build visibility across the next generation of leadership so that there was confidence on the part of the LPs that there was not just a high quality set of talent, but that it would be handled over a multi-year period of time and that all of the operational pieces were well in place.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When we were doing Varde two point zero it was really intended to have the basic elements that were going to allow for that transition to occur. So it was really a combination of extended governance, leadership, development, and ultimately a communication plan with our limited partners. But it also required that we elevated key people in the organization into more senior leadership roles well in advance of when those leadership transitions took place so that by the time we got to those kind of announcements, there was a very clear sense of the next generation of leadership, a real practical part of that was allowing other people in the organization to have more visibility in the”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The two that I had talked about was the personal move to London, I think 2.0. The other thing I would just say is an intentional plan by each of the partners to ultimately, I'm putting air quotes around retire because both George Hicks and I continue to be co-chairs at Varde all these years later, but really being very intentional around how we transition the business and how we communicated that to our stakeholders particularly our investors and other key people around the organization. It's been a very smooth transition from the founding partners to the next generation of leadership and one that required a lot of intentionality and really strong communication skills.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So a really combination of a much more robust investment committee process that was inclusive of everybody from all of those locations together with limits on the more liquid parts of the strategies. We have always had a very robust strategic planning process which meant that we came together as a firm at least once a year. We rotated that across various geographies and we still continued to do that. That allows for each parts of the organization to identify their expectations for the business on a going forward basis and allow for thoughtful planning on what that would mean in terms of likely allocation across the portfolio. So with plenty of flexibility in that you have an upfront plan that you're working around and a regular investment committee process that is bringing those individual deals for first look and final approval.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In some cases they're looking toward a flagship fund that naturally is ebbing and flowing with that relative value. In other instances we're providing targeted exposure for individual investors who are looking for a specific asset type, a specific return profile and or a specific geography, and by having all of these component pieces in the platform, you've got the benefit of creating the flagship that is our best judgment on relative value and or opportunities for our investors to be able to pick and choose and pinpoint their specific areas of interest.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In kind of the classic flagship vehicle. So for instance, our European exposure has been as much as 50% of the overall portfolio, been in the last handful of years our Asian exposure has increased quite dramatically. The liquid versus illiquid strategies have also ebbed and flowed. Sometimes they're fifty fifty at other points in the cycle. The biggest dislocations can often happen earlier, and you're going to be all in on your liquid strategies while you wait for the illiquid markets to turn into motivated sellers that ultimately allow you to shift the portfolio to more liquid strategies. So it ends up being a very flexible platform. The other practical reality, Ted, is that as investors look for more specific kinds of exposure.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What it did really is give us an even wider range of capabilities from a relative value standpoint. So we had on the ground partners in Minneapolis, New York, London, Singapore more recently Mumbai that all had this capability of being able to look across the globe for relative value, look across various asset types, and be able to bring that lens across both liquid and a liquid strategies. So it really gave us a very unique perch as a global firm to be able to evaluate relative value. The practical effect of that is that the portfolio can ebb and flow quite a bit in terms of how and where your exposures are at any given point in time.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“probably need to extend our governance and decision making processes beyond the heads of the founding partners and really made a concerted effort to bring in the next generation of leadership, elevate their capabilities, their leadership development. All of these things happened really in and around the 2012 to 2013 period of time and became a choice point that has set the firm on a direction of highest quality global institutional quality asset management firm.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We moved our thinking from a distressed cyclical investing approach to value investing throughout the cycle. It meant that we extended our capabilities across geographies. We opened an office in Singapore shortly after the global financial crisis. We extended the type of assets that we considered, and then we also looked at a much wider range of return profiles. We also did build out the infrastructure. I mean regulation had also been a meaningful change in the post GFC period of time and required an institutional quality, operational and compliance in a much more elevated way. So we invested in processes and systems. We hired our first COO, we added value added operational capabilities for our portfolio companies. We had to come and reckon with the fact that”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It also coincided with our twentieth anniversary, so we used the 2.0 for both purposes. It was a recognition that our business was at a real inflection point, probably slightly subscale in light of the fact that the alternatives business found itself with the established farms growing in a much faster rate than newcomers, and the fact that LPs were becoming increasingly sophisticated and looking to consolidate the number of their relationships, we had a choice point to become institutional in the way we thought about our business or in effect become a quasi-family office. At that point, we made an intentional decision to build our business and really build it into a world-class global alternative investment management firm.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From an investing point of view, but also understanding the business writ large and being patient and intentional in that training. The second piece that was both a very fun project but one that I think was very instrumental in thinking about Varde was a project that we called Varde two point zero. And the two point zero is kind of this idea of the next generation of thinking about this business as the industry was becoming more institutionalized”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and credit and what they expected to be paid and promoted for in conjunction with that to be beyond my wildest dreams, and particularly coming from the United States where the sophistication in the credit markets has been very high, it was pretty easy to see through some of the statements that were being made. Until I got to a person by the name of Ilfran Carstairs, who had been on the leverage loan desk at Deutsche Bank and ultimately became an absolutely phenomenal fit fast forward to today, he is Varde's current CEO and co-chief investment officer transitioned from the original three founding partners now to the next generation of talent. And being patient and then working with that talent to bring them along.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We made a strategic decision that it was important that a partner actually move into that area and have capital committing authority in the market as opposed to being a satellite which was more typical of what we were seeing in that period of time by our peers. That lent enormous credibility to Varde's entry into that marketplace. My big project was higher team that was going to be in place by the time I left London two thousand five, two thousand six was a pretty frothy time in the market. It was also a pretty frothy time in individuals minds as to their contribution that they were going to make to this effort. What was going to take a few months took nine months of interviews and conversations with folks who saw their capabilities.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It has really been fun. We basically have had this decades long tail wind moving from what has been very much a cottage industry to something institutional industry and private alternatives. There have been a couple specific areas that were very influential to me in thinking about it from a business building standpoint. One was our decision to make our first big geographic move. This was around two thousand five to two thousand six. One of our business partners, Jason Spaith, had gone to London and in effect started to establish our capability across our illiquid strategies in London and across the European continent. Then I moved with our entire family in two thousand five to London with the idea of building out the liquid part of our capabilities.”
2023-12-11 · Capital Allocators · Marcia Page – Corn Capitalist with a Velvet Hammer at Värde and MPowered (EP.355) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source