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Doug Phillips

16 statements across 1 episodes · 1 bullish · 4 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement Feb 24, 2020 by Doug Phillips · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: Doug Phillips's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Everything said about Doug Phillips, oldest first

Feb 24, 2020 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
High EBITDA multiples and $4.4 trillion in dry powder threaten PE returns
“The EBITDA multiples are record high, and there's a 4.4 trillion of uncalled capital out there. All of this is bad for private equity going forward, unless you can find firms that have really superior operational capabilities.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 48:21 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 negative
Disclosure
Rochester's endowment avoids large buyout funds and household-name hedge funds
“We tend not to invest with large firms just at the outset. No bad feelings about any of the large buyout funds. For example, we don't have any of those. We tend not to be in the asset gathering mutual fund Or the larger funds, the hedge funds that are more hou…”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 23:10 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 bearish
Disclosure
Rochester is winding down its real assets allocation after disappointing performance
“Then we have a real asset program, which is real estate, oil and gas, natural resources that is winding down. It's a little less than 10% today. Not much money going into that category. So frankly, it's been our most disappointing area.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 15:24 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Disclosure
Rochester allocates 24% to 25% of net asset value to private equity
“We are about 24 to 25% in the ground invested in net asset value and private equity, including venture, which puts us about in the middle of the larger endowments.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 14:46 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020
Disclosure
Rochester bought 12 VC secondary interests directly after the dot-com crash
“I said, I'd like to buy some of those LP interests, those commitments and sit in, I think we bought 12 of them, Become a limited partner in some of these firms through the secondary purchase, which we did directly, and we also purchased fund to funds.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 52:50 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020
Disclosure
Rochester sources manager ideas from peer endowment visits rather than conferences
“Of the circles, the one that probably has the most weight, the biggest, deepest circle is from the peers. And again, not going to conferences or looking at surveys, but just going around when I'm here in the city, visiting our friends at other endowments.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 20:01 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Disclosure
Rochester's endowment team takes one to two years to hire a manager
“So it's not as if we find a firm and six months later they're in the portfolio. It takes us about a year or two to decide whether we're going to be moving ahead.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 28:00 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Disclosure
Rochester has historically fired managers right before strong periods of performance
“The biggest takeaway from those is that we tend to release managers, at least on the public side or the hedge fund side, right before periods of really good performance.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 33:27 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Disclosure
Rochester's team projects and edits every manager memo sentence-by-sentence
“We never present something that hasn't been thoroughly, what we call group edited. We Sit in one of our conference rooms. We put up a screen and we look at every single sentence in the recommendation and we pick it apart and we take a devil's advocate position…”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 29:44 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 positive
Disclosure
Rochester conducts 20-year decision look-backs before making new investments
“We do an extensive look back on all of the decisions we've made, and now we have 20 years worth of these decisions, and we evaluate these decisions on whether they were a good decision or not. And when we go into a new investment, we have a phrase we call it p…”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 31:39 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Insight
Investment failures often stem from organizational behavior rather than traditional risks
“And the things that, that go wrong with investments are typically not always identified in our risk section. So we look at organizational behavior and just other things that might come into play.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 30:36 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Disclosure
Rochester reduced its manager count from one hundred to the low sixties
“Well, total headcount on manager of the roster is currently in the low sixties. It's going to stay there. That's come down from close to a hundred.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 16:07 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 negative
Insight
Trimming allocations to in-demand managers typically means permanently losing that capacity
“It's almost always the case that when we trim, we can't put that money back.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 35:39 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Opinion
Venture returns depend entirely on access to a handful of elite firms
“That's all that matters. If you don't have access to the best firms, Either create a roster of sort of up and coming firms and hope that a bunch of them do well, but our view in the office is that there are probably only a handful of firms that can operate ven…”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 51:20 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020 neutral
Disclosure
Rochester's investment team receives no individual compensation for sourcing managers
“There's no compensation if you source an interesting manager that gets put in the portfolio.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 25:47 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
Feb 24, 2020
Insight
Endowments overlook asking prospective managers to name and introduce their top competitors
“And what I think the fourth circle is that most endowments don't always think of is we ask firms that we're interviewing who they think are good competitors, and we meet those firms.”
Doug Phillips Feb 24, 2020 ▶ 19:43 Doug Phillips – Middle of the Fairway at the University of Rochester (Capital Allocators, EP.123)
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