Nov 13, 2017 · 56m · capital-allocators
Meredith Jenkins – A Path to Trinity (Capital Allocators, EP.31)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Capital Allocators, host Ted Seides interviews Meredith Jenkins, Chief Investment Officer of Trinity Wall Street, who shares insights on multi-asset endowment management, manager alignment, international due diligence, and building mission-driven investment offices.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Ted holds 20.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Ted as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 4.1 Guest disagreement 1.1 Ted pushing back 1.6
speaking balance: gold is Ted, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 49:03 Refusing Ted's Warren Buffett wager framing
Meredith openly rebuffs Ted's proposition to take a bet against Warren Buffett, playfully noting she would never take that bet and highlighting her fatalistic investing perspective.
Hardest push from Ted ▶ 46:56 Pressing on co-investment adverse selection and cycle timingTed pushes back on Meredith's co-investment thesis to ask whether the underperformance is purely macro timing or driven by adverse deal selection by general partners.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 22:23 Revealing what fly-by due diligence misses in AsiaMeredith explains the blind spots of visiting US allocators, illustrating how critical local intelligence and past crisis behavior only surface through informal local networks.
Ted holds their own ▶ 48:54 Ted invoking his own S&P 500 benchmark betTed displays his insider expertise and industry notoriety by putting Meredith on the spot regarding hedge fund fee structures versus public equity returns over a 10-year horizon.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Ted as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Ted pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Career Lessons at Goldman Sachs and Bernstein | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Ted facilitates a reflective discussion on Meredith's early career at Goldman Sachs and Sanford Bernstein. The dialogue is collegial with Ted interjecting shared allocator cultural references. | |
| Transitioning to Multi-Asset Allocation and Carnegie Corporation | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Ted probes whether portfolio-level allocation differs fundamentally from single-stock picking. Meredith explains the difference between evaluating steel companies and assessing investment management teams. | |
| Manager Alignment and Conviction During Challenging Periods | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Ted explores decision-making frameworks around backing troubled managers and overcoming style dogmatism. Meredith shares lessons learned from Ellen Shuman at Carnegie. | |
| Navigating Manager Due Diligence in Asian Markets | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Ted brings in his own allocator experience with 'jet lag due diligence' in Asia. Meredith explains how on-the-ground presence uncovered reputational histories that transient allocators missed. | |
| Sponsor Message: Ridgeline Investment Management Platform | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Following an ad read, Ted explores the co-CIO governance model at Carnegie. Meredith outlines the deliberate division of asset classes and built-in devil's advocate mechanism. | |
| Joining Trinity Wall Street and Real Estate Context | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Ted asks about the catalyst behind Trinity Wall Street's endowment creation. Meredith details the monetization of commercial real estate in Hudson Square into a diversified fund. | |
| Portfolio Construction, Resiliency, and Church Governance Dynamics | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Ted and Meredith discuss endowment governance, committee education, and the unique reputational sensitivities of managing a historic church endowment. | |
| Market Views on Co-Investments, Crypto, and Leverage | 7 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Ted challenges Meredith on co-investments, hidden leverage in private equity, and hedge funds outperforming the S&P 500, invoking his famous public bet with Warren Buffett. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Jenkins: IPOs are priced for sellers, not value buyers
“When you're taking something public, it's probably not a value option, a value play, right? You're taking, you're trying to take advantage of getting a good price in the market For the person who's selling their equity, not buying it.”
Jenkins: Back managers who sacrifice their own economics for LPs
“And the other circumstances, you know, that, that tended to work out back to sort of the alignment is the, when we could point to examples of when a manager did something that was either personally or economically painful to them in their firm to do right by t…”
Jenkins: Allocators in Asia must underwrite entire teams due to high turnover
“You had to go into it assuming there would be turnover, and so you'd have to take the extra time to really make sure you felt comfortable with everyone on the team so that you could make, because you would inevitably at some point probably have to make an asse…”
Jenkins: Fly-in diligence trips to Asia miss critical historical manager risks
“There were so many bodies that were buried that I, you know, I just,
I know I never saw before when I would fly in for those weeks, and I, it's almost impossible. The stuff you heard about over lunch, just sort of randomly, you weren't even necessarily doing d…”
Jenkins: Investing in Asia requires personal trust over legal structuring
“Versus, I feel like sometimes in the U.S. You might be more willing to, okay, we can structure this in a way that will be protected if it doesn't, and it's, and we know how it would play out sort of in a U.S. Legal system and all of that sort of, in terms of k…”
Jenkins: Co-CIO models carry inherent instability as leaders prove themselves
“There's, in contrast to the strengths that can be in that model, there's also, there can be a natural instability in that model. And, you know, each person's trying to maybe trying to prove themselves and whatever the case may be.”
Jenkins: Carnegie's co-CIO structure built in a senior devil's advocate
“Then the other person between Kim and I would be the secondary. And so the secondary's role was a built-in devil's advocate. And so the secondary, you know, anytime anything new or re-up or we were just sort of re-examining a manager for some reason, the secon…”
Trinity Wall Street netted $1.7B selling real estate stake to Norges
“They ultimately put together 11 of their core commercial buildings, and
Put it into a joint venture, sold 48%, 48% stake to Norges and one percent stake to Heinz to come in and manage it on a day to day basis.
And so that produced about 1.7 billion for the por…”
Jenkins: Real estate represents two-thirds of Trinity Wall Street's portfolio
“So if you take into account the real estate, we still have two thirds of our exposure.”
Jenkins: Governance structures are the institutional investment industry's Achilles heel
“And my own personal opinion, the governance structure is the Achilles heel of this industry, frankly, that some of the biggest mistakes that some of our peers have made have been because of the governance structures, and because the governance structure has pa…”
Jenkins: Top allocators succeed by managing stakeholder anxiety during crises
“The people who've had the most success have not only been good investors, but they've been able to manage those dynamics so that they are in a position to do really interesting stuff when real interesting stuff happens. Which tends to be when people are most a…”
Jenkins: Private equity co-investments are pro-cyclical and historically underperform
“The historical data on co-investments is, they are pro-cyclical,
And they don't turn out well.”
Jenkins: Trinity targets high single-digit net returns on hedge funds
“For what we'll do in hedge funds, I hope, we're looking for high single digits.
Net, actually.
High single digits net, so somewhere low double digits gross.”
Jenkins: PE subscription lines create unpriced, hidden market leverage
“I think there's more leverage in the market than people realize, and we just, no one has yet sort of cogently spoken about it, but there's, it's a lot of little things that actually together add up to a lot, and so, you know, like all this stuff with the, with…”