Opinion
Whalen: Mega private equity funds act as misaligned coupon clippers
“The large, huge funds that are raising that are, we call them the coupon clippers that are raising, sure, I'm going to offend some people, but too much money, and it's misaligned”
Insight
Whelan: Percentage-based private market targets cause pro-cyclical over-allocation
“Early days at Yale, we were targeting market value as a percentage. And so when you're in a bubble, it tells you to over allocate at the top and under allocate when you're in the bottom. So we changed that to grow every client's portfolio by their expected ret…”
Insight
Whalen: Majority-ownership diversity rules disadvantage female fund founders
“The other issue that happens that we see is there's these pockets of money that you have to be majority owned by a woman, and I think that also just kind of is hurting the women who are leading firms, but maybe had to take outside capital to get started becaus…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Whelan: Retail concentration in mega-funds starves mid-sized managers
“Most of that is going into the big funds, the brand names. You even see in real estate where the mid-sized funds can't raise capital. So you have a big gap and a weird inefficiency in the lower end because a lot of institutional capital now can't reach it.”
Opinion
Whelan: Operationally-focused private equity is inherently less risky than public markets
“I tell my clients at a certain size of wealth, I view what we're doing in the private space as inherently less risky than the public markets. Because if we can back smaller back groups that have depth on the operational side and the financial side, you're actu…”
Opinion
Whalen: Traditional long/short hedge funds are too big to short effectively
“A lot of those funds are too big to short. It just doesn't work anymore.”
Opinion
Whalen: Private markets are less risky than public equities
“I would argue it's less risky than the public markets. Like, if you asked me to put another dollar today, In the public markets or with our private managers, and I love our public managers, but it would definitely be in the private markets.”
Insight
Whalen: Fiduciaries cannot invest in crypto without fundamental frameworks
“We're fiduciaries, so we have to hang our, I always say we have to hang our hat on being able to evaluate why we're doing, is it fundamental value, and have kind of a framework around it, and I just think it's crypto in that regard. We don't want to put our he…”
Disclosure
Whalen: Migrated Long/Short Equity Portfolio Almost Entirely to Non-US Markets
“We decided probably five years ago to start migrating the whole portfolio with the exception of maybe one manager to non U S just with this idea again, that people kind of looked at us a little weird, but we said just inefficiency, where is it less efficient?”
Opinion
Whalen: Japan Is a Wonderful Market for Long/Short Equity
“I think, like, Japan is a wonderful long short market.”
Opinion
Whalen: Retaining fund managers for 20 years likely yields poor results
“I think, you know, if you're still invested with the managers you were invested with 20 years ago, I'm not sure you've had a great experience.”
Insight
Whelan: Co-investments complicate commitment modeling through lumpy, single-event exits
“The more co-invest you do, though, the harder the model gets, because you have to assume a sale of that co-invest, and it removes itself completely, unlike a private equity fund where you're calling down over time and you're distributing over time.”
Opinion
Casey Whelan: Non-US markets offer rare alpha and beta combination
“Alpha, you've always had to some degree in the non-US markets because they're inefficient. That's why we've always liked them, but you now have the beta. You have the valuation piece, and so you can get those two pieces like Brett said together. It's compellin…”
Opinion
Whelan: Non-US container ship leasing offers huge upside with scrap-metal downside
“For example, we're doing a thing on container ships. A lot of them are not coming to the US. It's within non-US ports. Your downside is scrap metal, which is actually pretty compelling. Your upside is huge. So there's a lot of niche opportunities we're finding…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Whelan: Software switching costs will fall, making data architecture paramount
“What's most important actually is your data and your data architecture, because the switching costs are going to be Going down, down, and down.”
Insight
Whalen: Venture co-investors fail unless they do enough deals to build pseudo-funds
“If you're going to do it, be prolific because you want to actually create your own pseudo venture fund. And what we've found where they haven't had success on it is when you're doing one a year or two a year.”
Insight
Whalen: Toe-dipping investments build conviction to size up during dislocations
“When you dip your toe in, when you're invested in something, you just learn more. You pay more attention. You live it and breathe it, right? The ups and the downs. And so for me, and I think by being invested in it, you then get greater conviction if there is …”
Disclosure
Whalen: Firm avoids buyouts due to insane valuations and leverage
“We're not doing a lot of buyouts right now because the valuations we think are insane and the leverage multiples are really high.”
Opinion
Whalen: Scarcity of senior women leads to fierce competitive poaching
“There's now so few women at the top that they're all getting taken away from firms, right? Competitively. So it's an even bigger problem for people who've maybe even tried to do it.”
