This week, we speak with David Conrod, who is co-founder and chief executive officer of FocusPoint Private Capital Group. The firm raises capital for private equity, credit, real estate, real assets, and direct transactions in developed and emerging markets. Prior to co-founding FocusPoint, Conrod was a senior managing director at Guggenheim Partners, where he established its private fund group, raising more than $7 billion of fund allocations for general partnerships external to the firm.
We discuss how Private Equity is different than Venture Capital, where rather than betting on moonshots, PE uses financial engineering to purchase reliable streams of income in areas too small for public markets, but too small for merchant banks. He explains how successor funds work in the PE world, where additional capital goes to new but similar investments, and enlarges the pool of assets in another investment vehicle (rather than a subsequent round into the same assets).
He explains how music catalogs and royalties have become an investable asset, along with Film and TV royalties as well; both are described as “Self-liquidating mezzanine debt, with low mid-teens return to investors in a zero interest rate environment.” Recent artist catalog sales have included Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, The Beach Boys, Neil Young, Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks, Ryan Tedder, ZZ Top, John Legend, and others. Conrod has assisted on several music catalog purchases as well as movie and tv sales.
A list of his favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here.
You can stream and download our full conversation, including the podcast extras on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, Bloomberg, and Acast. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Rebecca Patterson, Director of Investment Research at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, where she is also a member of the firm’s investment committee. Previously, she was Chief Investment Officer at Bessemer Trust, managing $85 billion of client assets.
David Conway’s Favorite Books
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race by Tim Fernholz
