YouSaid · the spoken record

Mike Freno

lines on the record: 69
first: 2025-01-23
most recent: 2025-01-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah, I think what I would say is what I knew back then or thought I knew back then that fundamentals ultimately are key. You lose track of that sometimes when you see euphoria and you see bubbles and you start to get away from really long-term cash flows of things or what really matters over time. So I think it's not what I wish I knew then. It was what I had wish I hadn't forgotten over time because mistakes are made really when you lose sight of the fundamentals of things. And so I would encourage folks that long term valuations should be based off an expectation of growth, an expectation that that sooner or later will turn into earnings, which will ultimately turn into cash flows. And keeping that in mind that that's the fundamental for all investments and what investments that are paper are made and ultimately valuations.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, first, it's a great industry. I love it. And there's a lot of aspects of financial services. And this is somewhat timely. I've got a sophomore in college now who I'm somewhat counseling on, although he listens less to me and more to other people. But I've always advised when we bring in two-year analysts out of college, we have a two-year analyst program when I'm fortunate enough to speak with them. It's take it all in. You don't know exactly what. How great you think the industry is, the prestige of it, you just won't be happy long term. And I think I was, again, fortunate. I loved public accounting, but I couldn't see myself doing that forever. I enjoyed it. And I was fortunate to find myself in a situation like this. So if you're not where you are with who you want to be with, doing what you want, it'd be time to move on.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, never, okay. Well, we'll put that on the list. I haven't read it yet, but I'll put that on the list. And a good writer is so gifted. I mean, it's amazing what they can do with stories. So I've enjoyed reading those.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'm just finishing up the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson. He's fantastic. Before that, I read the Musk book and then actually read a book by him called Codebreakers, which was out about the mRNA technology. So I get most, I read mostly nonfiction when it comes to that. So I'm going through those kind of juggle books at the same time. I just also finished 1776 by David McCullough. So that's really what I'm reasoning. But most of the stuff is nonfiction.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm gone and I'm a steward of it currently at this, but my job is to bring other people along. And so therefore it has to be a team.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was an admirable trait. Certainly. And then another one was a coach of youth sports was really one who taught me that the individual will never be above the team. And no matter how valuable someone is, no matter how important capabilities or skill set are, if they don't fit within the strategy of a team or the approach in philosophy of a team, it won't matter. It will be destructive. And so learning those on really, again, and I think my skill set, my personality fits well within a team-based structure, which is to your earlier question about how did I stay it or how have I stayed at bearings for so long, it was a fit. And so I recognizing that always made me understand, and again, I think it pointed out to having some self-awareness that these companies, and part of my job as a steward of the company right now. But Mass Mutual, as I mentioned, has been around for 175 years as long as it owns bearings. It's going to be around many, many years after.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I've used these two, and these two are really pivotal. One was my second boss at PricewaterhouseCoopers. What he taught me was really the caring nature of business and how people should view others and treat others. And it was an interesting, I worked for them for only two years. And ever since I've left, I still get a call on my birthday. Without fail, I talk to him other times, but without fail, I get a call on my birthday, and that's always resonated. I mean, working for someone for two years, but then for decades afterwards, they continue to remember something that is, you know, it's birthdays become come and go every year, but it was important enough, or I was important enough to him as a person to make that call. So that's something I've tried to take away and be conscious of, that people care about those things.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is sci-fi. It's on Apple. It's entertainment for sure. I watched three body problem a while ago as well. So good. So good. I'm waiting and anxious for the second and third season of that to come up. So I get my fiction when I watch and I mostly read nonfiction. I'm in the just at the end.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, in terms of streaming, I've just finished or almost finished with season two of Silo. Oh, really? Yeah. It's an interesting one.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quite yet. Look, the technology is getting better to go out and find unstructured data and bring it in, but it's still a ways away. The public markets have done an incredible job of bringing things together and having it to be able to mine that information. But really, the private data that exists out there is so large and it's in many cases, certainly the historical data is very unstructured.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And inform business decisions. But if it's not in a structure that works, it's not in a structure that can be accessible. It's of no value.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is going to impact for sure. And so, what we've created, we have an innovation team that really focuses on this because I think the use cases for AI and for all of these technologies is going to come throughout every one of our teammates. It's not necessarily going to be me sitting at the top of the organization saying, this is how we should use it. The applications are yet to be determined exactly how the art of the possible is here. I think one of the things we're finding is the data, especially in the private markets, has become so, so important. And right now, a lot of it is unstructured data from historical. Everyone's doing a better job of cataloging that data today, but the ability to use these machines to make decisions really depends on the access to data. In our data on private companies and others' data on private companies is very, very valuable to help inform investment decisions.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's really strategic. I think we have looked at where we love the portfolio of capabilities that we have, and we're willing to expand on those both organically and inorganically. We've had a history of building out teams. I referenced earlier we started building our mental market team”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Private public. Yes. And so I think when people originally, even as early as last year, when you have said direct lending or private credit, everyone would have moved to middle market corporate direct lending. And that's what was in everyone's mind. And that was a component of it. It's a component of it, but it's actually one of the smaller components of it, candidly. When you expand to all the other types of lending that can be done and has traditionally been done by banks and has now been done by is being done by asset managers and insurance companies, the opportunities are vast. And so I think that's going to be an area that continues to grow and continues to offer investors on the institutional side. And I suspect it will start to gravitate more and more towards the individual and wealth side of it business as well.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we've canvassed a lot of it. I mean, I think there's a lot, but I do think the private investment grade side of the market is really going to be the area where it's going to grow. And when people talk about...”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It becomes more and more accepted to have a portion of your portfolio in illiquid assets. And I don't think it's just for insurance companies. I think insurance companies are well equipped to do that because their liabilities are fairly well known. But pensions also have a bucket for things that are illiquid. And I think historically they've used them for higher yielding things. But I suspect going forward and where a number of our conversations are taking place is around the IG portion of their portfolio, the investment grade portion of their portfolio, that if I can pick up an additional 100 to 150 basis points of spread or yield in a private market, I don't need all of my assets in my portfolio to be on the liquid side. That's usually the bucket I use for liquidity is on my investment grade and government bond side of things. But maybe I move a little bit into illiquid assets and pick up additional yield for that portion because I don't need 5% I can sacrifice for.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's becoming more and more popular. I think it's really on the asset-based side of things. So there's a lot of different things that can fall into that category. And if you're talking about origination platforms, whether it's a mortgage origination platform or someone will take all the mortgages originated by that and package it into something. So as more and more”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As much as the investing side of it was there, it was really the business side of it, I think, which has helped me in my current role.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so one of the things that came out of it is I was a part of a US loan group originally, so a syndicated loan group was where I first started at Babson. We then made the decision of, you know, these are similar two sides to the same coin, high-yield bonds and leveraged loans are often in the same capital structure. One just comes with a fixed coupon, one's just got a QSip, one's more private, but often it's the same company. So we decided to combine those two businesses together. Then we went and said, you know what? What's unique about us is we've got great capabilities in Europe and we've got great capabilities in US. And so in 2009, we said, let's create a global high yield platform, which was really one of the first of its kind. And so that experience and perspective said to me, this is really something that's here. Clients will value our global perspective. They'll still may want to only allocate to one region or another or one asset or another. But who those who are interested, let's take a look at that.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's strategic, and that's just the view that we take. We want to have global capabilities for what we do. And so if we do direct lending in the U.S., we do direct lending in Europe and we do direct lending in Asia Pac. And it's basically saying to companies, if you have the desire for a global portfolio, if you have the desire for us to determine where the best relative value is, we can do that capability. You don't need to select three different managers to cover three different parts of the globe. Equally, we've done that with the liquid and illiquid side. And so if folks come and say, I want to leverage finance product, I want something that's below investment grade, but I know at times high yields more attractive, at times leveraged loans are attract more attractive, and at times direct lending is more attractive, you determine where that best relative value is. And I think that's been a hallmark of how we viewed it. Let's do what we do well, and let's make sure we do it globally and we have deep enough capabilities to service all those needs.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And I think probably everyone is looking for fewer relationships. They have to deal with a lot of relationships and a lot of partners. So the more you can have a robust or a broad sense of capabilities, the more value you are to be. And I think what's interesting for what we've tried to build and how we've kind of gone through acquisitions and how we've gone through organic growth is to really make sure we cover all of that. And so we've, if you look at our acquisitions over time, if you look at what we've grown, we've tried to be global. And so we make acquisitions of things that are adjacent or tangential to our current strategies.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's that great. It's that white space in between that evolves in there that you've got. And so there'll have to be either New Deal volume, as I said, or the private markets will have to take market share, continue to take market share from the public markets.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Club deals will have to, club deals being you give four or five lenders together and they take down a $4 billion deal and say it's a club of us rather than one person doing it on a bilateral level.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's big because in theory you can start taking market share from the public side. And that's where I think some are direct lending business is really purely in the middle market space. And so think of us looking at companies with 75 million of EBITDA in below.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Longer to originate, to close, and to move on. And so the reaction time is slightly there. And if it's a brief correction in the market, maybe the private markets get it right and the public markets just had a period of inefficiency. But over time, those two should converge, and you should be getting a premium if you're moving into private assets. There's nothing to suggest that you should be getting tighter spreads in a private market, giving up your liquidity. And there's some liquidity, but nearly the case of the public markets. If you're giving that up, you should be getting a premium. So over time, there needs to be a premium given into the private markets over the public markets, which would also suggest that over time, companies who are looking to as much as possible reduce their cost of capital will gravitate to where the financing is most appropriate to them. And that may be in the publics and maybe in the private.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whether its valuation or whether it spreads on yields going wider or going tighter, that's effectively real time. It takes longer in the private markets because these deals take a long time”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think one of the distinct differences is obviously the quickness or the rapidness at which a public market changes price, whether it's valuation.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The capital markets in general is it's efficient and if there's a way for people to get excess returns, capital will flow into that and over time if spreads become compressed there, they'll move to other areas, which I think is overall healthy for a market.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think the ability for companies to stay private longer is a good thing, right? And I think it's actually, there's definitely a need for the public markets. We don't want to lose those all together and we don't want it to only be for the trillion dollar market cap companies. I think it's healthy to have a moving market because people at times will want some sort of monetization event. They will want some sort of liquidity. And you can get some of that in private markets, but it's not nearly the way you can get it in the public markets. But I go back to using the leveraged loan and your example is exactly right. When I started out in the business, a broadly syndicated leverage loan deal could have been $500 million. A bank would have brought that deal and 10 people would have owned it and traded it. Now that's not the case. You got to be moving up. And so I think it is an evolution of things. And I think banking regulations have changed. Some of the banks' ability to do some of this type of lending. We'll see if that changes in the future. But the good thing about...”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“from nav lending but it's it is lending to GPs and lending to portfolios it's a growing business highly customized highly bespoke structures that take a lot of heavy lifting to do but I think more and more we're going to see that as people try to find and I described it earlier possibly take getting more Higher yields, higher returns, but not taking more risk, but picking that up through either complexity premium or an illiquidity premium.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Time you'll see that it's in the asset based finance space, the securitization space, things that were always somewhat in the private space but didn't come out into the public markets through QSIP actually coming off a bank's balance sheet. So I think that's going to continue. And you've seen any numbers of three trillion to five trillion of how big the market can be. Really anything that's in a public market from a debt standpoint can really operate in the private market. And so it just depends on what borrowers are candidly looking for. Are they looking for some sort of certainty of execution? Can I get that better in the public market? Can I get it better in the private market? What terms can I get in each? Do I want my information in the public market? Perhaps I prefer to keep, I'm a closely held company. Maybe I'd prefer to keep my information amongst a private and small group of lenders. So that's moving. You see new things like portfolio.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's clearly a growth into what folks are calling private assets. I think that's definitely going to continue to be the trend. I also think in some of the more established private assets, there's a blurring of lines between public and private and what was in leveraged loan, the leverage loan market is a pretty good market for that. You've got deals that are several billion which are going to private credit firms. You've got deals that were started in the middle market space, which would have been 500 million. Like I said, now they're several billion. And so is that a syndicated market or is that a private market? So you're seeing the ebbs and flows of that. And I think that makes sense. There's relative values that change between public and private markets over the time. But also more and more what you're seeing is kind of an emergence of more private asset classes being purchased by individuals and probably more by institutionals, less by individuals at this time.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thank you for asking that. I use it a lot. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but I love it and I think it describes how we operate at Barrington's. It goes back to the element of having some self-awareness. And I think understanding, we need to be confident in what we do. We make big decisions, whether we're on the investment team, making decisions for clients' portfolios, or whether we're in management or any other part of the business. We have to be confident in the decisions that we make. And we have to rebound from mistakes at times. But at the same time, recognizing with an element of humility, which I think is a gift for people to have, that we don't have all the answers all the time in seeking counsel and seeking partnerships and seeking people to do that isn't necessarily a sign of not knowing things. It's a sign of just saying, hey, I need a little bit of help here. So I use the phrase very frequently. I love it.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was very insightful for me. I had some knowledge of the insurance industry and really just how it touched the asset management industry, but it does give me a bigger perspective on the industry as a whole. And I think more and more as you see, and certainly there are really deep cases of this where alternative asset managers, whether it's with reinsurers or insurance companies, have become one. We have a front row seat to how the two are managed. And so I think it's just given us a much better perspective. And I also think it's made bearings, and hopefully myself, as a better partner to some of our other clients, is recognizing and have a better understanding of that.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What folks are starting to see, and this is certainly the case with us, we have always recognized that we would be happy to pick up additional returns for an illiquidity premium without taking additional risk. And that's really what I think insurance companies have the flexibility to do is to take that illiquidity premium because they have a much better idea of what their liabilities look like and matching those up.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, as with most fixed, all fixed income investing candidly, you want to get your return. You get your coupon, and then you get paid back at the end of the day. So it really is. And then how things are measured in terms of duration, in terms of tenor and all those things. Really, that's something that we don't do as much. The parent company handles all the asset liability management side of things. They give us asset allocations. We go ahead and invest those dollars so we're the security selectors, if you will. But yeah, when you look at the liabilities of a number of insurance companies out there and you think of whether there's the life business, it could be term or it could be whole life, you also then look at the annuities, the pension risk transfer, all of those have a set, pension risk transfer longer, much longer dated set of liabilities. But it creates an interesting opportunity in different asset classes to provide excess returns. And I think”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ago and seeing that a captive, which is what we started as an captive asset manager for an insurance company, can also be a great service provider to other clients as well. And that's really in 2000 when we started this focus of making what was Babson and the other brands more focused on third-party as well as the parent company.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there's also an alignment. I mean, Mass Mutual is alongside our investors on almost everything we do. They're in the same strategies and varying sizes and scale. So there is a complete alignment from where we're investing our parent company's capital as well as where we're investing our third parties. But it does help to have a parent company like this who allows us to seed investments, allows us to grow things. And you've seen more and more frequently now the tie-ups of what we'll call alternative managers with insurance companies because there is a need on the asset side as well as the liability side. So the liabilities coming from the insurance company, those assets or those liabilities, the cash that comes with those needs to be invested in assets that provide a return, that meet that liability. And so there's naturally this move. Now, we did this 20 years ago. And so we're seeing a lot of this happen now, but this is something that we had done a long, long time ago.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With equity kickers, all sorts of things that fit within that slightly unique. And that will come more than likely with higher returns. It's a little heavier lift to be able to do, a little bit different analysis that goes along with it, but it's a higher returning profile.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You think it's all of the above for us, it's more along the trucks and rails and towers, wireless towers, things of that nature that fits within their data centers can fall to either one of those type things. So that's the real assets. But we do have the capabilities, again. We own trailers. We own an aircraft leasing business. And so those things that are longer term, more stable type cash flows. Capital solutions is really encompasses all of it, to be honest. It's more of a unique solution, a more bespoke solution for a client when it comes to it's not something that would, and certainly when we originate things in all of our private assets, there's some level of customization for those clients. But when you get into capital solutions, it's really a unique solution to a client who has a financing need of some sort. It can be a preferred equity piece. It can be an equity or a debt piece.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In most of our strategies, it's that. And so I would say real assets for us is broadly defined as real estate and infrastructure. And even infrastructure and real estate.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously skewed more towards higher rated assets just given the rating of the company as a AA entity. But that being said, our business has other things further down the risk spectrum that allows us to grow and service other clients”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Assets really forever. I mean, it's back in Mass Media's almost 175 years old, 175 years ago. There wasn't a lot of public bonds that were trading outside of government bonds. So they've been in this space for a long period of time. And now we're just somewhat showing it to other parties. So”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“on behalf of our clients, but we make investments in the business, which is equally important for the longevity and sustainability of our company. We have a longer-term horizon. We're not necessarily worried about quarterly earnings or even annual earnings. We're fiduciaries of what we've been given, but we can take a long-term look. And in fact, our middle market direct lending business, we started building that in 2013, well ahead of a lot of the conversations that had, knowing we may be a little bit early in terms of the acceptance from LP is to move into middle market direct lending of the size and scale it is, but we took a view that long term we think this is going to be a valuable place to be. We also knew that mass mutual had an interest in the asset class, which helps us start new strategies. And so I think it's a good blend of that. And as we move further and further, insurance companies have been buying private or illiquid assets.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and so I would say not many of our clients want to swing for the fences, and usually we're not the ones to hire to do that. We are more very much focused on fundamental long-term type investing. We do it all up and down and we do it within fixed income. We do it within real assets, and we do it within what we call capital solutions. But insurance companies, and I will say this, mass mutual obviously is a mutual company. And you mentioned a long-term horizon, I think is one of the best ownership structures we could have because they are owned by their policyholders who have a very, very long time horizon at the current time. I think our oldest policyholder has owned a policy for 80 years. And that's a long-term horizon. That policyholder would love to see us pay dividends and then wants us to be there to pay the benefits to their descendants. So it's really taking a long-term horizon, which allows us not only will we make investments.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's through some RIA relationships we have and then internationally we go through wealth as well through some of the larger banks. But we're definitely more skewed towards what we would consider an institutional or intermediary type relationship. But it's going to make up the full spectrum of that. Obviously, insurance is a big component of what we do, just given our heritage and our DNA. That's a large component of our third-party business, but also sovereign wealth funds, family offices, pensions, really across the spectrum in terms of where any institutional client, really globally. And that's one of the benefits we have. We do have client base that's split relatively easy amongst the three regions. I'll say with the Americas, EMEA, and then Asia Pack and Australia.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so Mass Mutual makes up roughly half of our assets, and that's for the general account. And then outside of that, we are predominantly an institutional manager at this time. We do have some penetration into the, we'll say, wealth and retail channel globally.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things you can't share, obviously, but to provide that level of clarity to people, I think provides some level of ease and it makes them feel more that they're a part of what we're doing. And candidly they are. They're a part of the solution. They're a part of the growth and they're a part of the success.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Semi virtual at that point, we had invested in some technology. It was amazing how quickly the technology took over at that point in time. But we did have regional heads that were able to continue to stay engaged with our teammates. And I think the communications was the big part. It was really making sure that you're constantly and consistently out there telling everyone what's going on in full transparency. And one of the things we've really tried to do throughout the company, and it's something that I've appreciated as I've worked my way up to my career, is as much transparency as we can. I have always had this belief and the folks at Bearings have heard me say this many, many, many times. I would rather know what's going on and know I don't like it than not know what's going on and think I don't like it. And I think it just creates a level of anxiety when people suspect something. And so when you're going through tough periods like that, having transparency as much as you can.”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say communications was key, and it was much more regular speaking to the entire company as opposed to episodic and we would do town halls on a, I would say, an infrequent basis, but you very much every week you needed to be out there speaking to the company. You know, one of the things that was fortunate, we were global to begin with, so we had an operating model that didn't have us fully face-to-face all the time. So semi-”
2025-01-23 · Masters in Business · From Managing Portfolios to Running an Organization with Mike Freno · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source