David Lyon
Head of Capital Solutions, Neuberger Berman. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutivenbcapitalsolutions.com ↗
David Lyon leads Neuberger Berman’s Capital Solutions platform, originating bespoke hybrid capital and structured financing solutions for sponsor-backed companies. Earlier in his career, he worked in M&A at Goldman Sachs and held investment roles at Och-Ziff Capital Management, The Cypress Group, D. E. Shaw, and Ellis Lake Capital.
1shows
1appearances
28statements
6resolved
5supported
1contradicted
83%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything David Lyon said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Lyon: Building a diversified portfolio of 20 distressed companies is impossible
“I don't believe it's possible for any single person to assemble a reasonably diversified portfolio of 20 broken things. You can have an edge in one or two things where you think there's possibility to turn it around. You might know an operating executive or un…”
Lyon: Risk managers are entirely useless in private drawdown funds
“I used to laugh whenever a drawdown private fund has a risk manager. I'm like, well, what does that person do? Because you don't hold cash. You don't hedge. Are they on your investment committee telling you what not to do? Because all of your risk comes from s…”
Lyon: Direct lending growth is driven by asset managers chasing fee-related earnings
“Now what you're seeing is those businesses are attached to a lot of very large alternative asset managers, many of whom trade on FRE. A good way to create FRE is to take several billion dollars of loans and charge one percent on them. That's what you're seeing…”
Lyon: Private equity falsely held 2022 valuations flat despite public market plunges
“If you looked at 2022, the S&P was down 20%. The NASDAQ was down 30%. Let's say private equity lives somewhere between those two worlds. Private equity was flat for the year.”
Lyon: Enforcing contractual liquidity rights on overpriced structured equity fails
“The worst thing possible to do is, well, I think this is overpriced. It makes no sense, but I have a one-five. That's a good way to lose money, because you're going to be misaligned from the get-go, and enforcing liquidity rights that you have in documentation…”
Lyon: Only four structural terms actually matter in credit and hybrid documentation
“There are four things that matter. The ability to put debt on top of you, the ability to take assets away, the ability to take money out of the system, the economic terms of your agreement.”
Lyon: Direct lending will not suffer an implosion
“Do I think there's going to be an implosion in direct lending? No.”
Lyon: Generalist Auction-Driven PE with Max Leverage Fails Long-Term
“Being a generalist, looking at auctions and trying to get as much leverage as possible and do an LBO model, I don't think was a winning recipe for long-term success.”
Lyon: Basing a Private Equity Thesis Solely on Management Is Dangerous
“The final thing that I learned is when your thesis in private equity is a person, So-and-so is amazing. That's very dangerous. It's great to back a person. You have to realize that your thesis is, I'm backing a person. And God forbid something goes wrong, and …”
Lyon: The 'good company, bad balance sheet' distress dynamic no longer exists
“The aphorism, good company, bad balance sheet, by the way, never exists anymore.”
Lyon: Direct lenders now hold $2B per deal, competing with syndicated loans
“Today, direct lending competes with the syndicated loan market. Big players have hundreds of billions of dollars. They will hold two billion dollars in a name, so it's no longer a cottage industry supporting the underbanked. It is a direct competitor to the sy…”
Lyon: Distressed debt investors have rebranded themselves as capital solutions
“More and more distressed guys have pivoted to brand themselves capital solutions. Cap solutions is just hybrid capital. That's all it is. You're don't fit in a box. Traditionally, you're neither just first lien debt or equity.”
Lyon: Top 10 PE firms raise two-thirds of all asset class capital
“The vast majority of capital being raised in private equity, I think the number is two-thirds, is the top 10 firms.”
Lyon: Giving private equity counterparties extra negotiation time guarantees you will lose
“If you give them enough time, you will lose. Every time you will lose, they will take your face and drag you through the mud and make you eat the mud.”
Lyon: Value trap theses based on cost-cutting always perform poorly
“My least favorite theses are value traps. I'm going to fire X, Y, and Z, and I'll be able to create an X multiple. Other people may do this well. In my 31, 32 years of doing this, that's always gone poorly. I will take top line Over terminating people, cutting…”
Lyon: Restructurings fail if senior creditors wipe out sponsor and management equity
“You can't take the majority owner of a company and say, you're a zero. I have all the value at the hold co. Have a nice day. Are you going to manage the business? Are you going to show up at every board meeting? You just told the CEO and his team or her team t…”
Lyon: Many hybrid capital managers pitch downside protection while taking equity risk
“There are too many people in this hybrid space that pitch unrealistic returns that you're only being driven by either buying equity And something has a lot of volatility or taking massive industry or company risk, and you're pitching it as downside protection.…”
Lyon: Evaluate funds on MOIC, duration, and deployed capital, not manipulable IRR
“And then just people that are obsessed with IRR, because in these funds, there are ways to manipulate it. You have to look at multiple of capital and how many years you're stuck and the average amount of capital deployed, and then use that as a litmus test ver…”
Lyon: Risk arbitrage generated 20% returns historically due to market inefficiencies
“Back in the day, risk arb was an amazing business. It wasn't five percent. It was 20%. I was thinking back about, God, I wish I knew what I know now then, because having a market that could produce those rates of return by being one of the few participants is …”
Lyon: Early PE Required Less Investment Depth Due to Favorable LBO Math
“People didn't have his deep investment chops back then because at a time you could buy an asset for eight times EBITDA. You could lever it six. The LBO math did most of the work for you in terms of return.”
Lyon: The real downside of a 6x levered buyout is negative 100%
“And your downside case was 10%. I used to laugh. Your downside case is negative a hundred. If you're a six times lever company, it goes wrong. You're going to lose all your money.”
Lyon: COVID syndicated loan distress lasted 8 days versus 294 in GFC
“During COVID, syndicated loans traded below 80 cents for eight days. During the GFC, 294.”
Lyon: PE buyout market will take years to clear NAV backlog
“The regular buyout business is going to take a couple years for that to get fleshed out. We're addressing the NAV today.”
The other half of the tape: David Lyon's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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Capital Allocators 2
2026 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens David's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Head of Capital Solutions, Neuberger Berman | 1 | 28 | 83% 5/6 | full record on Capital Allocators → |