The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Saviano: Consultant-driven portfolios will not reach top-decile returns
“And it's the natural thing of a consultant driven pool. You're not going to be top decile. What you're really trying to avoid is you're helping them avoid being bottom quartile. You're helping them really be good stewards of the capital because you're focused …”
Saviano's only disastrous fund investment was an established franchise fund
“The only disaster fund, really, truly disaster fund I ever invested in was not an emerging manager. It was a high Roman numeral fund that had a murderous row of great LPs invested in it.”
Saviano: Evaluating fund managers requires analyzing portfolio company fundamentals directly
“When it goes down to spending time with a fund manager, you go to the assets, you go to the companies to get down to the fundamentals and you start there and you build your understanding up from there.”
Saviano: Diversify Portfolios by Asset Behavior, Not Asset Class Labels
“How something behaves is far more important than what it's called. And so when you build an asset allocation, you describe the behaviors that you expect out of that asset, and you build a portfolio, you diversify a portfolio of different behaviors rather than …”
Saviano: Public endowments cannot afford top allocator hires and must cultivate internally
“Because again, on a place like Cal, you can't go out and hire the tip top best real assets allocator in the marketplace because you don't have that kind of money. You got to really cultivate, grow people from within. And this was one way of adding leverage to …”
Saviano: UC Berkeley Allocated One-Third of Capital to Emerging Managers
“About a third of our capital across different and different parts of the portfolio went to firms that would really reasonably be considered emerging.”
Saviano: LPs pull back on blind pools but always fund great deals
“Blind pool, committed capital is incredibly scarce right now because there's so many other things that are taking LPs time and attention, but people always say yes to a great deal in an environment where there are lots of things going on. If you've got an extr…”
Saviano: Emerging fund managers should lean into co-investments
“The idea is for a lot of fund managers, To take some lessons from a fundless sponsor, leaning into taking more co-investments so your fund dollars go longer, you're buying yourself more time of capital deployment, while at the same time, you're also increasing…”
Saviano: Peer comparison among universities is an enormous distraction for CIOs
“So one thing that comes up a lot for CIOs is I would say the peer comparison. This is especially true for colleges and universities where there's just such a football game approach to it and whose school is beating whose. And I think it's an enormous distracti…”
Saviano: Some endowment CIOs have compensation benchmarked against rival schools
“You have CIOs that have compensation that is benchmarked against how they did versus their rival schools.”
Saviano: Governance quality is the top determinant of long-term fund success
“The most important determinant of long-term success for any pool of capital is the quality of its governance. And that starts with the investment committee chair.”
Saviano: A founder's key test is recruiting talent with better options
“One of the early markers is, can you compel someone to join your team who's had better options than taking a risk on your startup idea or your new firm? That's a great marker. You're telling people that are experienced and have other options, something that th…”