The Ledger
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Kushner: Biden administration policies drove Affinity to invest globally over US
“We actually like the fact that we're global in that regard because it allowed us over the last years where we were less certain about America given what I saw as like not always rational economic policies put in place by the Biden administration. There was exc…”
Kushner: Affinity Partners' three largest LPs are PIF, Lunate, and QIA
“My three biggest LPs are PIF from Saudi Arabia, Lunait from Abu Dhabi, and QIA from Qatar.”
Kushner: Affinity Partners Won't Raise Capital for the Next Four Years
“So we preemptively tried to avoid any conflicts so we don't have to raise capital for the next four years.”
Kushner: Affinity Partners Received an SEC No-Action Letter After Examination
“We had our first exam from the SEC and we got a no action letter.”
Kushner: Affinity bought 4.9% of Phoenix with options to reach 10%
“We made a big investment in Israel, and we did that in the summertime right before the war in the north. And we invested in a company called Phoenix. We bought 4.9%, and we took a fixed price option, 37 and a half shekels. Today it's trading over 50, and we ha…”
Kushner: Affinity Partners Staff Are Being Recruited into Government
“A lot of our good people are getting recruited into the government now”
Kushner: Entry price matters much less than 5-10 year potential
“I'm less concerned with what the current state of the company is. I'm way more focused on what do I think that company can be in five years, or seven years, or 10 years. And if I have a very strong conviction that it could become that, then you kind of have to…”
Kushner: Affinity Partners Raised $1.5B Extra and Extended Fund to 2029
“They all agreed, and so over the last year, we closed a billion and a half extra capital and extended the investment period of the fund to 2029.”
Kushner: Organizations Should Enable Leaders to Go All-In on Key Opportunities
“I'm a big believer in that work shouldn't be distributed. What you should be doing is when you find either a big problem or an opportunity, then you go all in on that thing. That means you need the right organizational structure to enable you to not be bogged …”
Kushner: Affinity and Mubadala acquired Burger King, Popeyes, Subway, and Starbucks in Brazil
“We bought, in partnership with Mubatala, all of the Burger Kings and Popeyes there, and then, since then, we've bought out of bankruptcy the Subway, and we've bought the Starbucks out of bankruptcy as well.”
Kushner: Affinity's investment with Brad Jacobs is up 70-80% in under a year
“70 or 80% in less than a year, but I'll be honest, working with Brad, I think there's a lot that we can complement what he does, but I'm learning a tremendous amount from him.”
Kushner: Affinity Partners Must Return All Fees with 8% Return Before Taking Profits
“They were saying, you're taking all these fees, but they don't realize that we have to pay back all of our fees with an eight percent interest before we get our profits.”
Kushner: Affinity's Best Investments Were Growing, Cash-Flow-Negative Companies
“We found some amazing companies that were technically cash flow negative, but were growing tremendously, and we thought that with our investments, we could help them turn into profitable companies, and those were some of our best investments that we've made in…”
Kushner: Business press inaccuracies create underappreciated investment opportunities
“I felt like that should probably be the same in the business press. So if you go out and you meet with people and you understand what they're working on, you could find some opportunities that are underappreciated.”
Kushner: Affinity acquired Brazilian restaurant business at just over 5x cash flow
“We bought just over five times cash flow.”
Kushner: AI is much more investable today than a year ago
“The way we're thinking about AI today is much different than how we were thinking about it a year ago. We thought it was a big opportunity a year ago, but it wasn't as investable necessarily as it is today.”
Kushner advocates a 'reverse vacuum' strategy for private equity sourcing
“That's kind of how I think about it is you almost want to create the reverse vacuum where you explain to people What you do, what you are, what you're looking for, what value you could add, why it's in their benefit to be working with you, and it took us a whi…”
Kushner: Kevin Hassett to become Trump's national economic advisor
“Kevin Hassett, who's on our team, is now going to become the national economic advisor for president Trump.”
Kushner: Affinity Partners' job is making three good decisions per year
“And then the more we've gone, the more we basically say, like, our job is to make three good decisions a year. It's basically to, you do a lot of meetings, you travel to a lot of places, you analyze a lot of things, you look at trends, you read a lot, you meet…”
Kushner: Brazilian restaurant portfolio cut food waste by 35% using AI
“Management has figured out how to use AI and cameras and computer vision In order to figure out how to reduce the food waste by 35%, which has actually led to better margins for the company as well.”
Kushner: Most Affinity Partners Deals Are Co-Investments with Other Firms
“Most of the deals we've done have been with other firms where I try to say with affinity that we're competitive to no one, but collaborative with everyone and complimentary. So we work with all the other top tier firms and we co-invest where they bring differe…”
Kushner: Affinity Partners includes the entire team in investment committee meetings
“So we have a very flat team. Like when we do RICs, everyone's at RICs. I want everyone to be learning from our problems. I want everyone to be learning from our opportunities. I want everyone to be learning from our arguments. And I want everyone to see when w…”
Kushner: Work-life balance is about operating at extremes, not even distribution
“I'm able to create the balance that I want to create, which is not like a balanced balance. It's like extreme with them and extreme on my work, but I'm able to make it work in a way that works well.”
Kushner: Phoenix Holdings manages over $150B with BlackRock, Ares, Apollo SMAs
“I mean, they manage over a hundred fifty billion dollars. They're doing SMAs now with BlackRock and Aries and Apollo and many others, and they have a very strong position in the market, phenomenal management team, and several business lines that I think are po…”
Kushner: Affinity is finalizing a preferred equity deal in Mexican infrastructure
“We've been working on this now for about 18 months, doing a participating preferred equity investment in one of the leading infrastructure companies in Mexico.”
Kushner: Affinity portfolio company Dubizzle turned massively cash flow positive
“We made one investment in the UAE where we invest in a company called Dubizzle, which is the leading online classifieds business there. It's a pretty well-known business model throughout the world, a phenomenal business model of the online classifieds, but we …”
Kushner: Defining what you don't want filters deal flow faster
“The more we identify what we're looking for, and more importantly, what we're not looking for, that enables us to throw things out of the boat much quicker.”
Kushner: I refuse to make investment decisions on 50-50 bets
“One of the things that's been very interesting is that I think the few times that I've made mistakes have been when I've made decisions quicker than I was ready to make decisions. And so now I find that I'm tremendously disciplined on if I don't feel comfortab…”