Put everyone in a round of applause for our panel number one.
All right. Morning, everyone. We'll all be moderating today our first panel of the day. So I think
the exciting part is we're going to start off with one of those panels where you're going to learn
a little bit more about investment allocation opportunities, and that makes your networking more
targeted for the rest of the day and a little bit easier to navigate.
We'll just do a quick sort of round intros with a very specific sort of name firm and your
investment thesis and what you're allocating to at this point in time as a priority. And Jody,
we'll start with you. Okay. I actually graduated with an MBA from this school.
I'm not sure it really helped me very much, but I did. I think I learned a couple of things,
two years. So I formed my family office in 2021.
I come from three different industries. One was real estate. I was a partner in a REIT,
which owned 10,000 apartments, and we sold to Sam Zell. And I think it was probably one of the
clients that Tom was just talking about that didn't leave a lot of money for his kids, based in
Chicago. And I continued in real estate. I still do real estate today.
We sold to him in 2002.
1999, I bought a pharmaceutical company. We made tablets and capsules,
and I paid $18 million for the company and sold out in 2021 for $358 million.
So I became a big shot then, thought I knew a lot, and started the family office.
And in 2012, I bought my first insurance company. I thought I would copy Warren Buffett.
i bought one for 150 million which was a lot of money for me and and i bought a second one that was
a 50 state property and casualty homeowner's company i bought it cheap and in 14 i bought a garbage
insurance company so we insured wait you know garbage dumps and landfills and just bought that one
for 100 million and sold them both in 17 and made a lot of money on that company So I really have
been a cash flow buyer. I look for cash flowing niche companies.
It's been very difficult the last several years to buy anything with a good return.
I sold my last company off for $350 million with cash flow, and I'm not going to be a buyer at what
I sold them for. And it was sold to private equity. They probably took the investment 50% in debt,
50% in equity. Rates have gone up significantly. When interest rates were zero,
they borrowed half, and that's come up a lot, and they're not willing to unload at a loss.
That company is probably worth 25% less than what I sold it for.
So right now, so what I'm trying to focus on, it's just been impossible to buy the kind of
companies that I bought and sold. So I'm looking at secondary,
finding secondary interest in limited partnerships. It's a big opportunity.
The big guys, the Blackstones, the Neuberger Bermans of the world are capitalizing on that.
I can't compete with those guys. smaller partnerships and you know people want to clean out their
estates and they're really looking to they'll take a discount so I'm in the discount business I'm
not I'm not in the premium I'm not paying premiums for any companies unless it's really special so
I'm looking at buying out secondary interest I'm looking at continuation funds what do I mean by a
continuation fund a lot of private equity promised they their investors they'd be out in five to
seven years so when i sold my my last pharmaceutical company it's now going on five years it'll be
five years in december so um investors want to get out the sponsors don't want to sell the
companies and um i'm here with my checkbook so if you know of anybody you know please let me know
And the last thing I'm really focusing on, again, I've been hitting my head against the wall for
the last three or four years. I made my money when I was a poor kid, went to Pace University,
and now I have money. So I thought I'd become really,
really, really rich. And like I said, it's been difficult. So I think one of the problems I've had
is that private credit has gone in and they're lending people money at 15%.
And I'm not sure how much due diligence. It's impossible to do all the due diligence on the
companies that they've owned. So I think it's probably much better now to look at the public
markets. than the private markets. Because if you look at a Blue Owl, which has been a significant
investor in private credit, their stock has gone down 50%. And I'd rather own their stock at $10
when it was $20 at a discount than try to pay a premium to buy the same private companies that
they're lending to. So those are really the opportunities that I'm seeing right now. And I've
looked at a couple of... sports situations i've tried to buy nfl football clubs i'm looking at some
racing if anybody wants to join my 4 30 meeting today as long as they're willing to write a hundred
million dollar check come and join the meeting but that's what i have been looking at lately thank
you thanks judy so make money on the buy that's the key takeaway great join the family office club
by visiting familyoffices.com We look forward to seeing you at our next live event.