Michael Carmen of Wellington Management discusses market conditions following the 2021 SPAC boom while explaining why SeatGeek chose to remain private.
Insight
Placing illiquid private assets in daily liquidity mutual funds is unsustainable
“That, that model of taking illiquid securities and putting them in daily liquidity vehicles maybe was not the best model for the longer term because it's just uncertain.”
Insight
95% of late-stage growth outcomes hinge on idiosyncratic execution, not macro
“When I look at all of the mistakes that we've made in the last eight, nine years, and all the successes that we've had in that same period of time, 95% of the time, if not more, it's idiosyncratic, is did we get the fundamentals right on the companies that we …”
Insight
It is extremely difficult to be a value investor in technology
“One of the things I think I learned was that it's really, really hard to be a value investor in technology”
Disclosure
Wellington sold nearly 90% of its eligible late-stage holdings in 2021
“We ended up selling in 21 close to 90% of everything that came up, and that included selling some secondary stock in companies that weren't even public, and that's all from my experience from the tech bubble.”
Insight
High-growth companies compounding at 50% benefit from delaying their IPO
“So my view is that as long as our companies are compounding at 3040, 50%, if it takes a year or two years or even three years, those companies are going to be two, three times larger, and unless valuations have just gone through the floor, we're probably going…”
Assertion Supported
Average software valuations retraced to six times sales by mid-2023
“What you saw since November of 21 to now is you've now retraced that entire move, and now the average software company is selling for six times sales, which is at the lower end of the range, and so now you're at a point that you can, again, underwrite to much …”