Opinion
Clarke argues institutional asset management has surprisingly low barriers to entry
“The barriers to this industry in institutional asset management are so low. Anybody can start a fund. They can call up whomever it is, pension fund, and try and get meetings.”
Insight
Clarke argues immense scale generates alpha in alternative asset management
“I used to think that you had to be small in the alternative space to generate alpha. But I've found that there's alpha in scale. There's relevancy in scale. When you're large, you command a tremendous amount of attention from people. You can't do that if you'r…”
Insight
Clarke reveals institutional fundraising requires a 15-to-1 conversation-to-ask ratio
“The conversation to ask ratio is about 15 to one. 15 conversations to one ask.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Clarke notes alternative asset management is consolidating like traditional managers did
“A lot of things I see them do are things that the alternative industry is going towards because the alternative industry is scaling quickly. The consolidation of relationships is happening. It's very much following the blueprint of what things were like back i…”
Insight
Clarke: Manager selection is a third-derivative decision for institutional asset allocators
“When people are doing this strategic asset allocation, you're about the third derivative from choice. Their first thing is, what's our funding ratio? What's our actual rate of return? What should the portfolio look like? How should we populate it? And then who…”
Insight
Clarke notes massive asset managers rarely share economics compared to smaller firms
“It's very tough to do that, to give away those economics when you're half a trillion dollars, but when you're small and scrappy, You'll do it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Clarke observes performance dispersion across direct lending managers is currently tight
“Sometimes when you get in an area like direct lending, recently the performance dispersion has been very tight.”
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2030
Clarke predicts Australia's superannuation industry will become the world's second-largest
“The Australian superannuation industry is going to be the second largest in the world.”
Assertion Supported
Clarke observes US pension funds shifting toward a total portfolio allocation approach
“A lot of the US pensions now, some of them are considering this total portfolio approach. They've been very public about it. Moving strategic allocation to total portfolio approach. There are organizations that have done that globally for years.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Clarke notes direct lending was viewed as episodic, $50M mandates in 2017
“At the time, direct lending was considered more of a strategic allocation. It was an allocation that people did episodically. There was dislocation spreads. They tapped into a fund, and then they got out when there was a normalization. You never saw these big …”
Assertion Supported
Clarke reveals Blue Owl serves approximately 900 institutional clients globally
“And the institutional, well, I think we got 900 of them.”
Assertion Supported
Blue Owl covers 750 private equity sponsors to guarantee deal flow
“To be relevant to private equity sponsors, and we cover 750 of them, to regularly see that deal flow, to be very judicious about the loans you do, you have to be big.”
Disclosure
Clarke states Blue Owl manages roughly 5,000 bespoke global institutional situations
“We deal on the institutional side with about four or 5000 idiosyncratic situations globally.”
Assertion Partly supported
Clarke notes Blue Owl Capital now manages $260 billion in assets
“But now they're part of a two hundred and sixty billion dollar organization.”
Disclosure
Clarke admits he under-resourced Blue Owl's early international expansion efforts
“The other thing that I made a mistake on was I probably didn't add resources as quickly as I should have. An organization should never become bloated, but I probably over-indexed that I had to play catch up for a little bit. Not perfect, but I think we got the…”
Assertion Partly supported
Clarke reveals 90 percent of Blue Owl's capital is permanent
“We're in an envious position that 90% of our capital is permanent.”
Assertion Supported
Clarke secured billions for PIMCO from Howard Bicker after persistent outreach
“One day in August, he called up and he said, look, we've had an issue with one of the managers and we're going to give PIMCO, I can't remember the amount, but it was in seven figures, billions.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Clarke notes the majority of early Owl Rock employees were back-office
“He'd also put a tremendous amount of resources in a back office. That was when I got there, the majority of the employees.”
