The Flow of Funds podcast, hosted by Glenn Schorr, Senior Managing Director and leading equity analyst at Evercore ISI, looks inside the forces shaping private markets, wealth management and the financial institutions behind them.
In its latest episode, Schorr speaks with ICG’s David Bicarregui, Chief Financial Officer, and Brian Spenner, Head of North American Credit.
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Key moments
Brian Spenner, Head of North American Credit, speaking on the podcast, commented:
“One of the things that really differentiates the firm is that we’ve been very conscious about culture and bringing in the right people. So, we haven’t done acquisitions to build our business. We found the right people and the right teams and built the business organically using the special sauce of ICG.”
David Bicarregui, CFO, said:
“We’re really excited about the future. We’ve got over eight hundred institutional clients on the platform, and although I expect there’ll be more opportunity down the line for wealth management and growing that part of the business, we’re super focused on growing our institutional client base. And that growth can continue on an organic basis.”
Brian Spenner, responding to Glenn Schorr’s question: What are the broadest GPs doing for LPs that that make consolidation [among GPs] happen:
“It does start with the product. You have to have good returns. You have to have a good product or you’re not in that conversation. So, if you look across our portfolio of businesses, the returns have been very strong. But then the conversation with the large investors is: How do we build a partnership? And over the last several years, we’ve built a number of very large partnerships, particularly in the US, with some of the big state pension plans, where they will invest in three, five or nine of our different funds through one consolidated structure. And what they’re looking for, there is a long-term relationship with the GP, very consistent access to our products which have been high performing and then working with us over the very long term to curate that portfolio to where we think the best opportunities are in the market. So that partnership and evolving the investment plan over time makes their job easier.”
David Bicarregui:
“One of the things we’re most excited about is the opportunity in Europe around savings and retirement and how people get proper returns into their pensions. Easy to say, hard to do again, because Europe is incredibly fragmented. The politicians, the regulators all have localised views on some of this, but obviously there’s a big prize there to the extent you can actually put good returning product into the hands of those end clients. And we think, through this partnership [with Amundi], we have a good opportunity to see how that market evolves and actually may influence how that market evolves as well.”
Brian Spenner:
“This wave of redemptions is not impacting us. If anything, it’s creating more opportunities for us as people are retrenching. ICG’s credit business on the private side has been built around institutional funds and draw down funds. And with that, we’re able to be very patient.”
Key topics explored and explained in the podcast
- ICG’s business mix, its model, its growth prospects, where the firm is investing, and where ICG has differentiated investment opportunities that can add long term value for clients
- The ‘secret sauce’ and the ‘north star’ sitting behind ICG’s success and its performance for clients and shareholders
- The structural tailwinds as well as the risks facing private market firms like ICG
- Growth opportunities in ICG’s scaling strategies, in infrastructure, real estate and LP-led secondaries
- The firm’s history and leadership positions in its flagship strategies of structured capital, private credit and GP-led single-asset continuation vehicles
- The fundamentals of private credit: “It is private. It is illiquid. And you need investors who understand that, are accepting of it and then understand the benefits.”
- What are successful, growing general partners (GPs) such as ICG doing for their limited partner clients (LPs) that is leading to consolation in the GP space?
- How does ICG structure multi-strategy allocations for clients?
- Where ICG’s focus sits in terms of either investment excellence and performance or growing assets under management (AUM) and fee-related earnings (FRE)
- How Europe is a very different private credit market to the US and why a firm needs to have a local footprint in each country, speak the language and understand the laws and regulations.
- Is being underweight in software investments hurting or helping ICG right now?
- What about the wealth space? Why isn’t it a major focus for ICG – it makes up only about five per cent of its client capital – and where does its partnership with Europe’s largest asset manager Amundi come into the mix?
Go deeper
- Find out about the $1.9bn final close for Brian Spenner’s latest fund
- ICG’s first office in New York opened almost 20 years ago – check out our US presence
- Dive into our latest financial results
- Listen to other episodes of Evercore’s Flow of Funds podcast
- Hear from LP Secondaries’ portfolio managers in their podcast guest slot on How I Invest
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
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