Michael Rees, co-president of Blue Owl and head of Dyal Capital, evaluates whether scale erodes returns in private equity on Capital Allocators.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rees: Vast majority of GP stakes capital funds GP commitments, not cash-outs
“As these firms did get bigger, they were using up a lot of capital, and that's been the major use case for almost all the capital that's gone in the ground over the last decade. There are secondary use cases. Of course, there are times when we're buying out a …”
Insight
Rees: Management fees generate immense profits, defying the lights-on myth
“Well, it's not something we like to shout from the rooftops, and I guess here I am shouting it from the rooftops, but these businesses can be extremely profitable. I think the old adage that the management fees keep the lights on, I think that's a good motto. …”
Disclosure
Rees: Dyal operates permanent capital funds with zero investor redemption rights
“We look like a private equity fund on the way in, we get commitments from investors, we call capital to do deals, but we never plan on selling a partnership or ending a partnership, and we really don't ever have a way for investors to elect to redeem. There's …”
Insight
Rees: Traditional LP fund portfolios rarely outperform GP stakes portfolios
“It's hard to model a portfolio of LP interests, investing in funds, that will outperform a portfolio of investing in stakes.”
Disclosure
Rees: Dyal underwrites GP stakes purely on cash flow, not exit sales
“From an underwriting perspective, we still use that original lens of cash on cash returns. We certainly don't get the type of cash on cash returns that we got back then in the hedge fund space with 25% yields, but we really think about it from an underwriting …”
Assertion Partly supported
Rees: Bain's $1B fund commitment sparked industry-wide GP skin-in-the-game standard
“In just shortly after the financial crisis, there were questions around skin in the game from the perspective of investors and investors were saying, yeah, your performance in the industry hasn't been that good through this cycle. And so how do I know you're i…”