The Ledger
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why aren't all 65 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
GPs selling strong assets cheaply to boost DPI is a red flag
“And we've often said that the GPs who are selling good assets, probably at a low valuation just to get the DPI up, that's a red flag.”
Underwriting continuation vehicles requires interrogating why assets aren't sold naturally
“We always start by asking, why isn't this company being sold right now? What's preventing this company from being sold in the normal operations of the fund? And is there a reason to hold it? And is this GP the right GP to be holding this asset at this point, a…”
Anduril will not be the only major winner in defense tech
“We have a nice exposure to Enduro, and we have a couple of others that we're really excited about, and Enduro's not going to be the only winner in that space.”
India's demographic profile is far superior to China's
“It's hard to compare India to China for many reasons, but the demographics are far superior. I think 50% of Indians are under 30 years old. I think it's 32% of Chinese.”
Dietrich Foundation's unfunded India commitments roughly equal its China commitments
“India's exciting theme for us, so we have probably as much unfunded commitment there as we do in China.”
Dietrich Foundation targets seed and Series A funds to move the needle
“We are most excited about the truly early stage in the seed in NA, and as our size is relatively modest, at a 1,000,000,006, we can actually get access that's meaningful, and some of these smaller funds that can move the needle for us.”
Grefenstette: SaaS valuation multiples have dropped 50% since the 2021 peak
“The SAS multiples have gone down by 50% since they were last priced in a price round.”
Hillman Company anchored Kleiner Perkins Fund 1 and KKR Fund 1
“The 19 seventies venture finally began to take form, and Henry Hillman and my father were anchor investors in Kleiner Perkins Fund One, and a few years later in KKR Fund One.”
Bill Dietrich funded The Dietrich Foundation with $170M in 1997
“So before he sold the company, he put all the stock of Dietrich Industries into a trust. So he had made the commitment there that the proceeds would go into the trust designed to fund the foundation upon his death And that's what he did. So he started with a h…”
Dietrich Foundation's private equity portfolio averages 7.1 years in age
“If you look at the dollar weighted average age of all of the partnerships we're in, it's about 7.1 years old. So we are as a portfolio out of the J curve.”
Dietrich Foundation distributes 3% of NAV annually under 509(a) structure
“We are not a private foundation, but structured as a five oh nine a supporting organization under the code. As such, we don't have to comply with that five percent payout otherwise required, and we can pay out three percent of our NAV each year”
Dietrich Foundation holds roughly 32 co-investments totaling 5-6% of NAV
“So I think we've done about 32 in the total portfolio, and it only amounts to
On a cost basis, maybe about five, six percent of the total NAV.”
Dietrich Foundation's unfunded private equity commitments represent 19% of NAV
“Today, that unfunded as a percentage of NAV for us is about 19%.”
Energy companies made up 24% of the S&P 500 in the 1970s
“Energy stocks, six of the top 10 market cap companies in the world in the seventies were energy stocks, and they were 24% of the S&P 500 versus four percent today.”
Dietrich Foundation pairs established core venture GPs with independent satellite managers
“We also try to have a core venture portfolio exposure through some of our more established and broader mandated GPs, and then look to have some satellite opportunities around that, that we also put into that category, like Sean, they're a little higher risk, h…”
Grefenstette's early micro-market buyout fund delivered a 2x net return
“We got two X net for our investors, but what we discovered in investing, and we were targeting the micro market, so control transactions of industrial companies, one to three million in EBITDA.”
Carnegie Mellon transitioned its endowment from Cambridge Associates to internal staff
“It was a great opportunity because they wanted to move the program from consultant-centric to staff-centric. So we were relying on Cambridge. We moved away from them. I hired Chuck Kennedy, who is now the current CIO at CMU, as my number two, and we built out …”