Category: Investment & Business Models
Portfolio Churn — Enemy of Investment Returns
Churn destroys investment return. Strangely, traditional private equity builds itself to churn. Churn reduces investment returns for several reasons such as transaction costs, business disruption, and the difference in tax rates between ordinary income and capital gains. This last difference is the easiest to quantify as… Continue reading
The Mirage and False Hope of an “Exit Strategy”
At best, an exit strategy becomes overrated and a waste of breath. At worst, an exit strategy becomes a destructive mirage of certainty and false hope. I realize that it is conventional wisdom for every entrepreneur to specify their exit strategy. I have even heard… Continue reading
Private Equity Trending Toward Longer Term Models Like Greybull Stewardship
Momentum is growing toward private equity structures with longer term time horizons and movement toward more “permanent capital” — structures that are more similar to Berkshire Hathaway and Greybull Stewardship (my private equity fund focused on companies with $1-3 million in profit). Blackstone private equity… Continue reading
A Business Strategy to Capture More Value
The best entrepreneurs and business owners know that capturing value, not just creating value, is critical to success. The phrase “capturing value” is not meant to convey a zero-sum concept of one person capturing what another person loses. It is a way of saying that… Continue reading
Super Investor, Seth Klarman, on Lessons Learned from Buffett
Seth Klarman has a legendary hedge fund that you may not know, the Baupost Group. His returns in that fund have been Buffett-like. He is a value investor . . . truly, not just someone who likes to say that word. His insights are treasured,… Continue reading
Simple Strategy Lessons: Better before cheaper. Revenue before costs.
Sometimes the best ideas and best advice are the most simple. When I read the following article a while back, I loved it. And believed it. And continue to believe it. Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed from Deloitte Consulting performed a study that began with 25,000 companies… Continue reading
Disparate Data Points: Entrepreneurship Exploding or Dying?
An explosion of young companies that are bootstrapped, or financed outside of traditional venture capital (i.e., Silicon Valley) or traditional bank financing, is what I see every day. I see many companies finding their way to a point of lift-off, stability, and medium-sized revenue and profit… Continue reading
Companies and Founders Deserve Better Financing Options
Business financing and capital raising are full of contradictions. The world is awash in capital, but the availability of capital to businesses is often binary. For some, too much capital is stalking them. For others, the switch to turn on capital flow remains hidden. Size… Continue reading