Josh Friedman

Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Canyon Partners · 1 appearance on the record.

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Josh Friedman co-founded Canyon Partners in 1990, building it into an alternative asset management firm focused on credit and distressed debt. Earlier in his career, he worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and headed capital markets for high yield at Drexel Burnham Lambert.

30statements → 11claims → 6claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 3.8/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 2said about them ↓

3 supported 1 partly supported 2 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 8 assertions · 2 opinions · 17 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Josh argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Friedman: Drexel's 1980s high-yield market fueled massive private equity expansion

“The first three years that I was there, from 1984 to 1987, were a period of exponential growth, exponential creativity. Explosion in the size of the market that we were creating and the characteristics of it, and explosion in the private equity market because …”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 13:00 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

Friedman: Drexel and Milken Created the Original New-Issue High-Yield Bond Market

“There was no such thing as a new issue high yield bond before Mike and Drexel. The only high yield bonds were fallen angels, investment grade bonds that had been downgraded.”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 10:16 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

none yet certainty 3

70% certainty 4

0% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Josh Friedman on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said30 What others said2 Episodes1

Everything Josh Friedman said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight

Friedman: Buy unloved, complex credit assets that will eventually simplify

“So what was complicated today was going to be simple in the future because the bankruptcy process has run its course or because the buyer was going to divest of things and then be a nice, pure play, simple company or whatever. But generally speaking, complex t…”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 18:34 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Insight

Friedman: Predictable Rule of Law and Restructuring Processes Are Critical for Credit Investing

“When you buy mostly credit-oriented securities, predictability of rule of law and of the way in which restructurings are handled when there's an over-leveraged credit, those are critical elements of being able to be a successful investor. That doesn't work equ…”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 24:47 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Insight

Friedman: Financial crises are always caused by leverage and liquidity mismatch

“The entire history of the financial world is one of crises that are born of exactly what you say, where you have a combination of illiquid assets held by a firm that has liquid liabilities, like a bank, and is leveraged. So leveraged and a mismatch is always t…”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 38:57 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Assertion Supported

Friedman: Fed COVID facilities worked mostly through signaling, rarely requiring funding

“Most of the programs that they established to buy securities were never funded at any material degree because the market reacted almost instantaneously and said, ah, the Fed's going to be there to the rescue, so I'm okay.”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 49:29 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Insight

Friedman: Canyon Operates Under the Mantra 'Prepare, Don't Predict'

“We try to prepare ourselves as opposed to predict. That's one of the mantras we repeat often here is prepare, don't predict.”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 53:00 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

Assertion Supported

Friedman: Drexel Under Milken Taught How to Buy Businesses Without Capital

“I worked in the magical world of Mike Milken in 1984 to 1990, which was just an unbelievable place. It was a great place to learn how to buy a business if you didn't have any money, because we were financing people buying businesses who didn't have that much m…”

Josh Friedman Jul 25, 2022 ▶ 6:34 Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)

The other half of the tape: Josh Friedman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on Capital Allocators. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Ted Seides 1 John Barber 1