Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry Ted Seides – Allocator and Asset Management Expert

Brent Montgomery is the CEO of Wheelhouse Group, a family office where he creates entertainment content and a venture capital fund that invests in businesses to amplify brands around talent. Brent is a media producer and operator whose first hit was Pawn Stars at his first production company, Leftfield Pictures. He later oversaw a host of reality television hits, including HGTV’s Fixer Upper, Netflix’s Queer Eye, A&E’s Duck Dynasty, and Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New Jersey, while running ITV America after he sold Leftfield to ITV.

Our conversation covers Brent’s childhood entrepreneurial efforts, creation of Pawn Stars, vertically integrating and expanding Leftfield’s business, and the sale to ITV. We turn to the flywheel behind Wheelhouse, monetizing talent and intellectual property across production, marketing, merchandising, and events, its partnering with leading investors, and a few investment examples along the way.

 
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On today’s Manager Meeting, Maneesh Gandhi sits down with Avichal Garg. Maneesh is a Partner at Evanston Capital, a $4.5 billion hedge fund of funds, whose CIO Adam Blitz was a past guest on Capital Allocators. Avichal is the Co-Founder of Electric Capital, an early-stage venture firm focused on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies, fintech, and marketplaces. He has been a successful serial entrepreneur with executive experience at Google and Facebook, which acquired his previous company in 2012.

Their conversation covers Avichal’s career as an operator, influence on his investment approach, conviction in crypto, and opportunities in today’s markets. They cover Electric’s investment strategy, differentiated team structure, investment examples, and the future of crypto.


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Sarah Samuels is the Head of Investment Manager Research at NEPC where she oversees teams across public equities, credit, hedge funds, and private markets for the $1.5 trillion investment advisory juggernaut. Prior to joining NEPC three years ago, Sarah worked at the senior level of both a top notch endowment and a public pension fund. She sought to bring the best of both worlds to her role at NEPC.

Our conversation covers Sarah’s early career investing, time in the allocator seat at Mass PRIM and Wellesley College, and decision to join NEPC. We discuss her key investment themes, investment framework blending qualitative and quantitative analysis, second-level thinking, CIO mindset, alignment of interest, private equity allocations, and investment committees. We close discussing Sarah’s work on DE&I and her involvement in Girls Who Invest.
 
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Josh Friedman is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Canyon Partners, a $25 billion multi-strategy firm that specializes in credit-related analysis across distressed securities, securitizations, risk arbitrage, and real estate. Josh founded Canyon in 1990 with Mitch Julis, his roommate from their time at Harvard Law School and Business School.

Our conversation covers Josh’s background at Goldman Sachs and Drexel Burnham with Michael Milken, the founding of Canyon, its investment philosophy, key stages on its path, and structure of the organization. We then turn to Josh’s thoughts on the evolution of credit markets, liquidity, competitive dynamics among creditors, opportunities, and risks. We close with Josh’s advice for investment committees based on his experience as a Trustee at Harvard Management, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and CalTech, among others.
 
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Mario Giannini is the CEO of Hamilton Lane, where he oversees nearly $1 trillion of assets under management and advisement in private capital, making it perhaps the largest investor in private equity in the world. Mario joined Hamilton Lane thirty years ago and has spent the last 21 as its CEO. His breadth of knowledge and experience, alongside at times unconventional views, offers an unparalleled bird’s eye view into this powerful area of investing.

Our conversation covers Mario’s background and a brief history of the private equity industry over the last thirty years. We discuss three characteristics of private equity firms that struggle: decision-making, concentration, and greed, and views on private equity firms across turnover, GP/LP relationships, LP Advisory Boards, and the pricing environment. We then turn to Mario’s perspective on constructing private equity portfolios, data analytics, the middle market, continuation funds, LP appetite, and opportunities across sub-categories and geographies. We close with aspects of Hamilton Lane’s evolution across co-investing, customization, going public, ESG, democratization, and the future of the industry.
 
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Rob Citrone is the Founder of Discovery Capital Management, a $2 billion global hedge fund investing across equities, fixed income, currencies, and rates with a focus on emerging markets. Rob is one of the longest standing managers in the space and the largest investor in his fund. He trained under Julian Robertson in the heyday of Tiger Management in the mid-90s before launching Discovery in 1999. Since then, the firm grew to a peak of $15 billion in assets and despite the subsequent reduction in AUM, he and his team of 42 are still going strong.

Our conversation dives into Rob’s background, lessons he learned from Fidelity, Julian Robertson, and George Soros, and the launch of Discovery. We discuss his investment strategy, research process, perspective on markets around the world, ups and downs in the business, and managing an organization through change.

Rob doesn’t often share his insights in the public forum, so it was a real treat to get inside the mind of one of the best in the business.

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