Was interested and scanning the wiki. Seems like a typical IB -> PE start, a move to Gugg (was this a vanilla PE function before the credit business) for 20 years before founding his investment arm.
Not hating at all (I love the profile), but does this seem atypically successful? Yes 20 years in PE is no mean feat but are most partner’s books big enough at that stage that they can spin out / buy sports teams? Was Gugg (or Whitney before) so big / have such great returns that this was expected?
interested, wondered this myself
He was managing partner of Guggenheim's investment franchise. This is the equivalent of heading MBD or PIA or whatever they now call it at Goldman. That's a wonderful way to generate wealth. Often the smaller franchises have fewer mouths to feed at the top, so you can actually earn more than your titular equivalent at a bigger firm.
He negotiated the ability to buy several of the investments he'd made at Guggenheim from the firm. This is unusual.
The primary asset that powers everything is Security Benefit, a life insurer. The simplest way to explain everything is that it's similar to Berkshire Hathaway. An insurance company is a powerful tool if you have an apt mind for structuring. The float is something you can invest, and you can also create structured products (classic thing for a life insurer is to sell annuities) to attract more capital to your balance sheet.
He used personal capital to create Eldridge the firm. Eldridge seeds a 'business': the low millions of dollars of expense to hire a core team, pay for diligence or operational streams to prove the concept, attach the correct service providers or vendors, get an asset under exclusivity, whatever. Security Benefit then invests in a highly structured way in whatever the 'business' is.
Often the 'business' raises capital simultaneously. So the cap table (if the 'business' is a corporation) or GP ownership (if the 'business' is an investment firm, like CBAM or Maranon or Cain International or anything else I'm not aware of) is X% Eldridge, Y% management, Z% external investor, and sometimes W% Security Benefit. Usually Security Benefit is a lender to the business (if it's a corporation) or an LP in the strategy (if it's a fund).
The end result is that Eldridge now has a sprawling portfolio of growing businesses across an array of industries, some of which it incubated in the manner described above and some of which are investments made with proceeds from the incubated businesses. He has also raised money from a Swiss billionaire (Hans Wyss) at least twice, but when you read the press release it doesn't sound like a typical LP deal, more like a pref structure or a GP stake sale.
Wow, great insight and explanation, thanks!
There’s a capital allocators interview with him that is really good
https://www.capitalallocators.com/podcast/the-next-berkshire-hathaway-a…
What does he discuss?
We are here to have a meal
That’s wild
He got rich by selling his soul
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