John Connaughton
Chair, Bain Capital. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutivebaincapital.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Joining Bain Capital in 1989, Connaughton helped grow the alternative asset manager into a global firm overseeing more than $200 billion in assets under management. He is best known for orchestrating large-scale investments across healthcare and media and sits on the board and investor group of the Boston Celtics.
1shows
2appearances
44statements
11resolved
7supported
0contradicted
64%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything John Connaughton said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Connaughton: Investment banks are probably the worst talent pool for PE
“And the rest of the industry was hiring from investment banks, which I think are principles at one level, but at the same time, they're really about getting fees for transactions, not for making returns on investment. So it's probably the worst possible place …”
Connaughton: Founder-dominated private equity firms generally fail after one generation
“Founder-oriented models, generally the ones that didn't survive more than A generation.”
Connaughton: Private partnerships retain talent better than public PE firms
“I think that in terms of attracting and retaining people, I think people who come to a firm where we have a hundred percent of our economics to invest in our people and our partnership versus having 50% of it gone forever, I think that's fundamentally more att…”
Connaughton: Scale correlates with lower returns, but is not causal
“There's this natural tendency to believe or feel like that scale is correlated with lower returns, and it is, by the way, but it doesn't mean it's causal, which is to say, if you can find the selective opportunities at scale where you can generate high perform…”
Connaughton: Going public limits PE firms' ability to incentivize future partners
“If you're A company today that's given away half your equity, you can only give away your equity once. You can't actually give it away twice. And so right now, that's one of the reasons why our generations of partners that are leaders now stayed and are motiva…”
Connaughton: Bain Capital generates average returns of 20% to 25%
“So think about low rates of 1920, and 21, where we raised the capital, and then think about Our average returns being 20 to 25%.”
Connaughton: Private equity narrative remains stuck on 'barbarians at the gate' stereotype
“I think the failures, look, we're 40 years in, the narrative for our industry is still pretty negative. It's not that far away from the barbarians at the gate stereotype that we've been living with from the start, and so I think that we need to turn that aroun…”
Connaughton: Expanding Decision-Making Committees Dilutes Accountability and Dialogue Quality
“Well, I think that there is this concept of adding additional voices and insights and perspectives to the room. It seems like it can only help. So having a larger and larger group of people providing input when they're really smart people, It seems intuitively…”
Connaughton: Buying 'beautiful' businesses in private equity usually means overpaying
“One of the dirty little secrets of private equity is we're already adversely biased against beautiful companies. And if you buy one, you probably overpaid.”
Connaughton: Private equity's inefficiency is differential judgment of return prospects
“It's like there is an inefficiency, ultimately, that remains in our industry, not to get the highest price. They'll get that, but to have the Prospect of returns be judged differently by one sponsor versus another one strategic versus another.”
Connaughton: Quantitative factor analysis eliminated hedge fund arbitrage business models over time
“If you sort of think about all the arbitrage that was being taken out of the market by information and factor analysis and a lot of the quantitative public investors that are out there, that's not our style and certainly never was our style, but it was the sty…”
Connaughton: 15% of all capital invested across Bain Capital is internal partner money
“15% of every dollar is our own capital, and that's multiplied by a very large dollar amount.”
Connaughton: Bain Capital beats PE average by over 1,000 bps historically
“We've earned over a thousand basis points higher than The private equity mean during our history”
Connaughton: Bain Capital Made 25x on Accuride Investment
“I think we bought Accuride. I think it was levered, 8515, or ninety-ten, and had five million of investment, and we made 25 times our money. And that's because we turned the business around, not because it was just financial engineering. We actually took a bus…”
Connaughton: Bain Capital was first to recruit PE talent out of college
“Honestly, we were the first ones to really start recruiting right out of college or certainly right after a couple of years in their first job, and I think getting people in early to really get the mentorship and training From people more experienced over a lo…”
Connaughton: Bain chose democratic partner elections over autocratic control
“We wanted to create a form of governance that allowed for the broad number of partners that remained to elect the group that could lead, but they would be accountable to the broad partnership for that leadership. And that structure, I think, worked pretty well…”
Connaughton: Bain Capital started eight new businesses internally since 2015
“Starting businesses, we've started eight new businesses since 2015, and it's all with our people, and I think the opportunity to do that not by having a brand, And capital, but by having people who have decided they really wanted to really pursue an opportunit…”
Connaughton: Winning top-price bids requires operational repositioning beyond seller forecasts
“The only reason you can do that is to create some form of inflection, some form of strategic repositioning, some form of asymmetric upside in the operating outcomes, some M&A. And so everything we do is to say, okay, we're going to buy a business based on what…”
Connaughton: Bain turned a 0.65x marked-down fund into over 2x return
“We had 250 people. Two thirds of those people were working inside the companies and we call it getting across the icy river. We got across the icy river, which was probably in some ways we'll never get rewarded for it, but it was probably one of our finest mom…”
Connaughton: PE leaders must remain active deal practitioners to maintain credibility
“We are an industry of practitioners who also need to take leadership roles, and I think that type of credibility of having people who have been doing deals making an impact in companies and then putting them in leadership, that's been part of how we've grown o…”
Connaughton: Promoting top dealmakers to leadership is a common PE firm mistake
“There are incredibly successful Dealmakers and portfolio folks would not be great leaders or don't want to be. And so I think that's a common mistake that firms make is they put their best dealmakers who don't either have the interest or capabilities leaders, …”
Connaughton: Alternative asset management success depends 100% on talent
“It's a hundred percent people. Look, I do think the all asset space, there's a long time between when the active management public space went from being a really people driven business to becoming a more distribution business and more commoditized. I think in …”
Connaughton: Bain Capital generates a 1,000 basis point premium over public equities
“Our ability to generate consistent differentiated thousand basis points of premium over our public equity return reference points”
The other half of the tape: John Connaughton's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
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Capital Allocators 1
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens John'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 | Chair, Bain Capital | 2 | 44 | 64% 7/11 | full record on Capital Allocators → |