Opinion
Freno: Mutual ownership is among the best asset management structures
“I think it is one of the best, if not the best, ownership structures.”
Insight
Freno: Specialist sales forces make operating leverage impossible in global asset management
“We run a general sales force, which I believe is the right way to really get proper scale. We challenge ourselves all the time. Is having a specialist sales force the right way to go? Just very difficult to get operating leverage in that scale if you're doing …”
Insight
Freno: Business models dictate scale more than AUM dollar amounts
“My approach to that is I think business model dictates what the definition of scale is more than AUM and dollar amount. You could have a trillion dollars and that's not enough scale, or you could have fifty billion and have plenty of scale. So your business mo…”
Disclosure
Freno: Barings rejects the star portfolio manager model across all products
“We run everything as a team-based approach. We have investment committees for all of our products. We don't have the star portfolio manager that a business is built solely around.”
Insight
Freno: Asset management has discounted the importance of technology and operations
“I think one thing that asset management as an industry has discounted is the importance of building up your operations, investing in your technology, making sure the plumbing works all the time.”
Insight
Freno: Lack of organizational transparency breeds anxiety and degrades trust
“I always felt early in my career, I would rather know something and know I don't like it than not know something and think I don't like it. And that just breeds anxiety into the organization. It reduces trust. And we want to give people information. If you can…”
Insight
Freno: Advancing leaders must stop previous tasks and make fewer, bigger decisions
“Every time you move up in a new role is the things that you used to do, you should stop doing. And the reality is I should model what I expect other people to do. And I should make fewer and fewer decisions as I move up the organization. I should make bigger d…”
Disclosure
Freno: CEOs must support direct reports even when they disagree
“I would tell people when they first would report to me, if I had a new report, you're going to make 10 decisions in a year. Nine of those decisions, I'll agree with a hundred percent. One of them I may actually hate, but guess what? That's your decision to mak…”
Insight
Freno: Origination sweet spot is capturing complexity premium without extra credit risk
“If you can find ways to get premium from either illiquidity or premium from complexity on assets that you're originating without taking additional credit risk, that's the sweet spot.”
Assertion Supported
Freno: Large-scale direct lending is encroaching on syndicated lending
“The large scale direct lending is really starting to bump in a little bit more towards The syndicated lending spot of things.”
Insight
Freno: Credit yields continuous returns around the clock if losses are minimized
“One of the things I learned pretty early on when I started looking at credit is credit is one of the asset classes that works for you. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You're accruing a coupon all the time. So if done correctly and minimizing losses, there's…”
Insight
Freno: Stressed executives instinctively retreat to their functional domain expertise
“When you come from a certain line of business and everyone comes from somewhere where their skills are probably more skewed and stronger than others, is you have a tendency to gravitate back towards those when you're uncomfortable.”
Insight
Freno: Insurance capital provides a stable long-term growth base for asset managers
“Insurance companies have an existential need for asset management capabilities. So there is a symbiotic relationship between the two because they take their premiums in and they need to invest those prudently to be able to not only meet the claims, but hopeful…”
Disclosure
Barings is expanding into directly originated assets and portfolio finance
“Portfolio finance side, where we're doing GP lending and NAV lending, those are originated things. That's where we're investing dollars, and that's where we're going to see expanding anything that can be directly originated and is unique product for our client…”
Assertion Supported
Freno: Insurance balance sheets remain predominantly liquid despite private asset growth
“Despite how much the exposure, I will say, on an insurance company's balance sheet to private assets, it's still largely liquid assets.”
Disclosure
Freno: Expect Barings to make a significantly large acquisition by 2029
“And I would say in the next five years, I would probably be disappointed if we hadn't done something that was significantly increased the size of bearings.”
Insight
Freno: Leaders take too long making obvious hard decisions
“I think leaders in general, and I at times too, take too long to make the actual decision that we know what the answer is.”
Insight
Freno: Leadership must look five years ahead while PMs execute daily
“I've always viewed management's job. So my job now to really live in the future. What is going to allow us five years from now to be as well positioned as we are today. But what we're doing today in the success we're having today was really a result of what wa…”
