Brookfield CEO: Private vs. public markets, investment style and value creation
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Hi everybody, i'm here with the Bruce flax and a is a really, really and to have you here with eight hundred fifty billion dollars of assets, you are to one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world. You've been here for more than twenty years and still going strong. And some people prefer to you as the warm buffet of canada, which is a pretty cool. So please.

sure. Thank you. Thank for having.

Now I wanted to start with a big question. So you have identified three mega trans as a, as a firm, the combination ation, d globalize and digitalization. So if we start them with the d cobenzl, what are the investment opportunities in that field .

look the most the most interesting thing is going on in the world today is that um and put IT in the most simplest terms, the age of um uh gas and well fuel everything。 And what we now need to do is take carbon out of um the energy system and an industrial processes in the world and and really just taking carbon out and it's not you have to have no carbon if you just have to have less.

And the easiest way to do that is to build a instead of using gas points um or thermal uh coal plants is to have um removals. That's a simplest way, but there are many other processes and and we identified early that because we in the renewable business that this was a trend that was happening and therefore, we're investing very large sums of money behind the the transition of the economy. And it's really just the transition of companies to less carbon.

What type of renewable so you're doing.

So we started in the water business, but you can build many water plants anymore. And uh when wind became economic, we uh started building wind around the world. Uh, when solar became economic, uh, seven years ago, we started into solar big with the largest installer builder of solar plants in the world today.

And when you look forward, what do you think is going to be the dominant source?

The winds solar are going to take very large market share, but um uh the wind mostly blows at night and the sun only shines during the day. So there is an intermet cy problem. And what's really important is the batteries become economi C2Be abl e to aug ment whe n you hav e pow er.

And the good news is just like solemn win, the cost of batteries is coming down dramatically and that's going to be a very significant thing um in the world. So a renewables will be dominated by wind, solar um and batteries. But coming on the horizon uh is hydrogen.

And um we own west house electric, uh, the nuclear business. And I think there is no a full transition without new gurr energy around the world. And and the good news is our big plants, uh, the ap one thousand or thousand mego plants, we're coming with a three hundred and we're coming even with a twenty megawatts small battery.

Just expand a bit on the nuclear option because we don't talk so much about that.

It's look, I had a bad reputation for a long period time, I think unfair. We thought what they could have some accidents. Yeah yes yes.

But the the amount of deaths caused by coal uh and amount of desk that have been caused by nuclear are dramatically different calls much higher. But the reputational issues are there. Um but but they're getting safer and safer and safer all the time.

And and because we're building now, we're getting into smaller plants, um it's going to be economic people will build to build them with less risk. And and the the issues with them are now largely behind us. And so I think it's going to be very important for the full transformation of a transition of the energy system for nuclear to um to continue to build out who's going .

to finance the whole energy position.

Look, IT is the good news day. And I think this is this is actually what happened. People say, oh, everyone thought I was a great thing now and we're going to change and all be good and and and have and be Green.

But what really happened is that solar and wind today in almost every country in the world are the lowest cost energy. And that's what happened. That's actually what happened is economic.

Say um if you have a gas plant, a coal plant and you have to build a new one, if it's some cost, that's one thing. But if you ever a got planned or um a core plant and you need to build new renewables, renewable is the lost cost. Almost every country in the world is .

this going to be taking care by companies which are already on the little change or you and more like unlisted look.

I would say yes, some of IT will be companies on the stock change but are uh the pools of money like yorkers uh and that we do with all around the world sovereign institutions? An enormous amount of this money uh, there in these pools is perfect to fund the transition because it's private investment that he earns good returns on a low risk basis and it's doing well.

So so these are companies such as us pension funds, public entities which give you money to finance the Green transition.

So are we started a transition fund three years ago, IT invest in the backbone of the transition. So it's it's buying building uh infrastructure for the transition. And the first um pool of money we race was a fifteen billion dollar fund, were now raising a second fund. It'll be larger than that fifteen billion and its all from institutional investors on a global basis.

And you think you make profits.

not only we're going to make profits, we're going to make very good profits. This is targets fifteen percent returns in the fund ah IT compounds over ten, fifteen years. These are excEllent returns on a lot of spaces. So we're doing we're going to do good, but we're going to do well.

Do you think there is a philosophical question hawing people like yourselves owning large.

Infrastructure projects.

Look, I think .

pride state should has proven to be a highly effective at building an owning of structure around the world. And ah as long as that the uh the groups are responsible, as long as they do a good job and remember, we own some of the most critical infrastructure on the planet. We own all of the gas pipelines in brazil, for example.

We own uh all of the telecom towers of india, sixty percent and all the phone messages go across our telecom towers. So these are are big, large backbone infrastructure pieces. Everyone can tell those, you know, the government and companies make sure that responsible owners have them.

But when we own them, the cost are cost of capital lower than the government. We can run them more efficiently. We can often run them a Better, and we want to put money behind them and grow.

And it's not the government is an important there's a lot of places where government should be involved um but there's a lot of places where private enterprise can uh be involved. I'd say it's a combination. The two are really important. And increasingly more and more um infrastructure investment is going into private hands and that's why infrastructure used to be twenty five years ago and we started talking the institutions of vote infrastructure investments. IT was a one or two percent in their funds or zero uh today brother is probably ten I I think it's going to fifteen and twenty percent um of allegations of funds because these are ideal investments to have .

an institutional account .

why there are very long term their low risk and the compound good returns and as you know, compounding fifteen percent for very long periods of time, you if you if you compound, i'll go back. If you compound north of twelve, you're in a twelve percent return. You compound for thirty five years is very meaningful.

And if I mean we have the fund, you know this fund has compounded between six and seven percent and already that's quite something. And what you say is that the projects you have can compound that twice that rate. yeah.

And you know when as you are compound IT sex and you are a because you need to keep equitius pool, you need to get fixed incomes, so you have a more diversified portfolio. But for a component of that portfolio, if you can compound at twelve percent plus on a relatively low as basis and not and not take hits, know the difference in returns over a longer return are very, very dramatic.

Absolutely oh I can see why they call you the one buffo canada. Uh but hey, moving onto the second uh topic here, the globalization. Why is that?

I make a trend. So um I think what happened, uh what happened in the last little while is the world i'd call IT split and partly do to go IT partly because of the issues with russia, partly due to people just saying I can't have all my production capacity in one place ah and it's almost deglaze ation. IT was A D we .

had to have .

this in h but part of IT, its diversification, they needed diversification, is another d for their supply change where they get goods from, how they shipped, who they are dependent upon. Somebody is I say high and goods are moving back to places like america. Um so high higher electronics, uh uh super high quality uh semicon tor ships were building in tels an intel fab a in arizona.

Um with them farma at the very high end is moving back to countries because people are saying I want my vaccine manufacturing facility um here I don't want IT somewhere else. Um they found that issue when cov IT happened you. But so that's on on high and things.

But part of IT is they're just saying if we're gonna manufacturing capacity, we can have at all in china and it's not they don't want capacity in china. They still want capacity in china important to them, but they want to have resiliency on countries. So they're building india and they're building in india. And probably the biggest one we've seen where the movement is happening in india, there is a big benefit of industrial companies coming into indian calling us with our platform. We have an indian saying to us, can you help us build out manufacturing and real state other things in the country because we need to bring capacity to india .

now it's more expensive to produce close to home. What do you think that does to global inflation, this particular trend?

So here's here's what I say is the um the things are moving to the very expensive places are just the very high and commodities may maybe a little more expensive, but the ira act in the united states is there to help facilitate that. Um so that's that's helping .

where the nation reduction ied F I.

where the goods are going in all other parts of asia， the cost are not that much different than what they are in china today. baLance. So it's inflationary and IT probably puts a little more inflation into the world than you would have otherwise had, although I um you know this Better than I do.

But five years ago, all we talked about was deflation. So a little inflation isn't bad. The fact is for last year and half, we just had too much and that's what the fed has been trying to calm down.

When you look at where to place businesses, how do you as as europe versus do .

s um europe is an excEllent place, is a value market. It's not a growth market. What does that mean? It's a place where you need to understand your entry point. In major, you don't pay too much because growth is not significant.

And why why is europe not growing?

Population IT has A A small h its population growth rate is not significant. There isn't large in migration. And and I think the entrepreneur al ism isn't like america. If I had three if I had to pick .

three to my examples of lack of entrepreneur ism.

I just think IT um the the i'd take the bank laws in the united states are conducive to people being entrepreneur and starting over again and they're not as uh conducive to that in europe .

like you go bus quickly on yes yes .

you um the bank he lies in the united states. You you deal with IT you move on, you come out, you start again and and I am like .

making you can go best and and proper citizen still .

be the present in the states, for instance.

okay. Um very good. Third one digitalization, and that seems a bit of this, but how do you position here?

So the third mega trained huntin zone is really what you have behind your phone. So we we identified the basically infrastructure business is we move we we're behind the scenes of the global economy. We own all the backbone and it's on moving people, goods.

And years ago, we identified, uh, data and how the data that comes on your phone, how does he get there? IT goes by fiber out of this building or in IT, then goes up to a tower and IT gets sorted. Data center and all those things behind the scene have historically been provided by telephone companies, which are now needing funding to uh do this and the big technology businesses.

So we're funding all of those things. We're funding fiber. We're building a fiber. We're building we on the telecom and and we're building enormous amounts of data centers um which originally was for cloud. Um so when you store data of sight versus um at your business today, increasing its for A I and it's for machine learning and artificial intelligence that are models that are learning and that the amount of data center capacity has been being taken globally right now.

So this would be a data center which would run things like .

amazon web services originally was that today is large, which models training and the amount capacity being taken for that is almost unprecedented than anything we seen before. Yeah.

I saw an article saying that I could account for three and half person of world's electricity consumption is dramatic.

The only good news is it's all Green. And so are are renewable businesses providing enormous amount of Green capacity. But ten, ten years ago, most capacity got sold to the grid.

Now most of IT is sold to corporate. A lot of IT to the technology companies that are using IT for Green capacity. Most of the technology businesses have committed in zero. Uh in fact, microsoft committed to not only net zero, they committed to take out all energy usage and make IT Green from when they started well. So they have have a very dramatic movement and and uh and all these companies are taking large amounts of Green a capacity for us.

Are they are they they wants to doing IT because they have so much money that they can afford IT.

Look ah again, I go back to economics. Uh, they're doing IT because they think is the right thing, I believe. But in addition, uh, renewal are the lowest cost generation in virtually every market today in the world.

Economics drive many things. It's nice to say um we're going to do the right thing. But ten years ago, we should try to get people to do the right thing and nobody did. Today is the most economic power and therefore um they're doing IT.

Now you say economic drive a lot of things and you want to say that you are seeing more inflation。 Now how does inflation change your investment outlook gently?

So um look, I would say ah the good news is today, maybe to start off with is the third actually done a very good job bringing inflation down in the global central banks uh have cracked up interest rates, as you know, and they have tempt down inflation. So inflation is more or less um getting under control. So we're not having one thousand nine hundred and seventies like out of control inflation. We might have had that, but we were not going to have that.

You don't .

think we have IT. No, no, I think they've done a very effective job OK of tamping down inflation for many of our businesses. It's actually a positive thing because uh, for example, infrastructure, we get a stream of income and IT gets adjusted by C P I monthly, uh quarterly annually.

C P I is the Price increase.

So um inflation we actually get an inflation adjusted. So if you had fixed great financing, the inter the same uh the revenge are going up because of a of inflation. So many of our businesses actually they're positively disposed to inflation.

but you also a big player in the property market.

and so it's not good for your reality. So what I was going to say is the the place where IT where IT affects us and affects groups, uh, like us, is that higher inflation has meant higher interest rates for the time being and that has affected the values of assets.

The only thing I would say you is first, a lot of um property is financed with long term mortgage, therefore the integrated to the same they were um and secondly, it's the coupon that's that's relevant, not the treasury break. And the coupon is the the combination of both the treasury rate and the spread. And at the bottom of the market, spreads were very high, and today, they are less, less high.

So the all in rate is not that far off. What's more important to real state is good. Real estate today is really great and bad real estate is terrible.

And this time we are sitting is pretty ty, pretty swan kills here. And so this .

office where we are, uh, it's ten million school feet, is one hundred percent LED. In fact, this office right now, you can see it's pretty nice office. We have to move because what we don't have enough space to expand one of our tenants and we're going to give them our space.

But we have thirty million school feet in the city. We don't have another space to go to. So we're struggling right now to figure out where do we put our own offices because .

we're only one thing. We actually have some vaccine. You can take OK no bank. We we own some property s and may have got something we can make a deal later afterwards.

I think the point is high quality space is very highly sought after. Rents are very high, but if you have poor space, poorly located in the wrong spots or in the wrong cities, it's very bad.

So you have a lot of different things. You get property, you got you know, infrastructure projects, you're got all kinds of things. So now i'm going to give you one million dollar. We want to look.

I have been a, we have been a believer universe fiction. You can spread IT out.

You have to put IT into one thing. Where have you put IT now?

Am I? Am my sovereign? An or an individual?

Are you are getting IT as an individual?

I, i'd buy in structure, right? I compound for the next twenty five years .

at fourteen percent the transition energy transition OK. Um moving on a bit more to private markets generally. How do you how have private markets change since you started in this business? The enlist part of a the economy .

look and our businesses most is almost solely private markets. You um a group like us didn't exist twenty five years ago when I started out trying to take. We were an Operator of industrial businesses.

We ran inflecting power plants in real state for ourself. We just invest on on behalf and our business evolve the way to evolve because we decided we needed to grow. We wanted be a national.

And where we get the money, we would introduced partners with us in the deals, and we started that way, and then we created funds. The way we think of IT is we invest our money in these things that we do and we bring along partners with us. So you and one hundred and fifty other partners might come into our inflections fund or a private equity fund or real stay fund. And it's twenty percent our money from our baLanced and eighty percent your money, and we're buying these things.

okay. So we are in the boat together.

We are in the boat together. You you um that did not that industry didn't exist twenty five years ago. And what's what's been created as something really really interesting because now outside of the public markets， you can come with us and you can own private asset in private businesses in a systematic basis with I saw others like us and on those assets and earn greater returns.

And you can in the in the public markets or possibly be a more assured of the outcomes versus the public markets. Why as you know, the public markets, uh the value of businesses is this Price uh and the Price of them goes up and down in the public markets based on information that mayor may not be relevant to each business. Wherein the private markets, when you and we owe something, we control our outcome.

We bought a business. IT generates cash. We're growing IT. We know exactly where we're going.

So do you think this will be sustained going forward as well in higher .

interest ate environ? Yes, yes, this is this is not stopping IT interest strates interest stator still very low. Everyone focuses on their higher than they were two years ago.

Two years ago was a abNormally yeah today, they're moderate interest strates and they're too high. They're going to come back down a little bit, but they're in the range of moderate returns. What we learn in the private markets is on the low end we're in ten, the high end we're in twenty five.

What are some of the things that you can do in the unless the market, which a public list the company couldn't do so for?

For example, when we run a private business, we do not necessarily care what the coral earnings are. What we care about is the long term value, the business, how we create customers, how we build the business, how we grow IT, how we invest into IT. And all of those things sometimes are in contrast to what cordia earnings tell people they should be doing.

So when you're a public company and you miss your quality earnings, sometimes it's terrible in the public markets and and therefore, people make decisions. I'd turn IT around. Um people make decisions when they're the public market, which are not in the best interests of the business.

And when you're in the private market, you are only focused on what's best for the business. How do we build the best business, make the best returns, have the best client service. And if you do that in the fullness of time, that will convert to cash lows and you will grow a the value of your company.

You are not the only one's doing this. You are up against competition. So how do you differentiate yourself against the life of you know blackstone?

And ah so are everyone in business should try to have some way to differently their capital, otherwise it's just capital. And our uh strategy over time has been uh where very global or in thirty five countries are. We built out a system to be be able to invest in places and be value investors around the world.

In and often markets change. U S, vote europe, lier, uh, the united states. They all change at different times. Our size gives us a scale that not too many others can compete with.

And and we came from an Operating background as industrial owners of businesses and therefore, are these are businesses that we run. So when we say we're in a business, often we've in this business for twenty five years, thirty years, forty years and IT just makes us difference. So it's not like we're buying a business being in a for a little while that goes away.

Uh, we've been in the renew business business for forty years and there may be plans that we've own, built, sold, but the business and the people the three thousand people that run our Operations are brookfield, mpl, yees, and they don't go. And so it's our our the way we Operate is just a little bit different. And and where partner to the institutional clients because we put a very size man of money that we built up in our in our holding company um beside our investors. So we um we eat our own coin in there has been .

historically some criticism of lack of transparency in in this industry. How do you applies know what you actually do.

So so what's really interesting is every every quarter, we um give the numbers on each of the businesses. We only with our clients, we take them through IT, and we actually do valuations. So quarterly annually, uh, we do audit and and so we have one hundred and each one of our businesses, each one of our assets, we have the we have one hundred and fifty partners who are looking at the numbers and they're combining IT into their results. So when you're a partner with us um in fund or an investment, um you get the same results we do and you see them every day and you see the full inside details of everything going on. So in fact, it's it's almost the opposite is highly, highly transparent.

This is more transparent than I was just twenty years old.

I think we get I think quite IT is as we get Better all the time, we're learning. Member, we this industry started from nothing twenty five years ago and and we're getting Better every day um providing information to clients.

So an investor in your firm get fully insights into what you do and the value of each part of IT.

Ah each one takes advantage capitalizes on a different but uh some large ones sit on the boards of our companies with us um so they're very.

very involved. What about esg?

So um E S N G are all different. The e is really the transition, I say extremely um important, the governance. Um look, we Operate with the best and most ophite ticad institutional investors in the planet.

Um you know how you apply governance in your fund. Um the funds in the world, they are getting more sophisticated all the time. There are partners we need to have, the highest government we can possibly have.

There is never we can never afford conflicts um we can never afford to um have a situation where they uh there is a transparent information going to them off. We make mistakes from time time. We're going to be very for threat with them. So um I say governance, we Operated the highest standards and everything we do.

What do you think about the efficiency in the boards that you have compared to the list companies?

Look if I look at our a public company we have and a private business we have uh the public companies we have and we try to Operate, uh is close to a private one as we can when you're in a public form. But a lot of its a boat governance and and quarterly results and things that are going on in a private company. All we're doing is how are we driving value and and that's really the difference.

How do we drive value out of a business every day? What are we doing with clients? How do we focus on the business? Are we expanding? Can we grow? What money can we invest in the business?

So do you think these are you think these words are more efficient?

Yes, yes. And there's many things we can do in a private business. And i'll give you example, we're trying to buy a business in australia which has um is in the energy transition and we're going to uh IT today.

IT distributes electricity to two million homes. Its production of electricity is all by thermal uses. Call in natural gas. Over the next ten years our plan is to um buy the company, privatize IT and invest twenty million twenty billion dollars to shut down to build renewables and at the same time shut down the call and gas planes we're going agree in.

It's not possible in a public form that you could have a business that has a six billion doa market cap, invest twenty billion and every year for the next ten years to a two billion doll equity issue IT would just be impossible to do public form because IT doesn't accord to what the public markets want in a security um and therefore in private we can do that. And I think IT will be an exceptional investment for our private clients is something that almost impossible to pull off in the public markets. And I think that's increasingly that's what's happening with private markets. And that's why private markets are really important. That's why they are growing and growing .

and institutional accounts. So Bruce, you work, you is value there perception that fees in this industry is in this industry is very high.

So the the first thing is we we have heard all that we have to um meet. So so we if we take uh capital from a to vester, they get in a percent return uh and and they get that uh no matter what if not if we don't get that, we don't learn anything. Okay, so um in the in the in the case where we only earn eight percent return, which I think the hurdles of your a returns in the funder around eight.

So by investing with us, uh you can earn a we don't get anything if we don't get a after that, we share some of the upside is shared with us and IT depends on transaction uh and uh type of investment. But there is a sharing of IT and only if something comes, only if you are n we are in something and and there there's therefore the close alignment between them after eight. And so I think I IT, it's been structured to be in a situation where you're going to get a minimum and then we're going to share in some of the upside. And and I think on a net basis, the return has been excEllent for those that invest in private markets for a long party time.

Absolutely, absolutely. There's also something call investments, so investors can put in additional uh, investments on on the side, right?

So are um many of our funds are are large, but we have the largest institutions in the world with us in the reason they come into the funds is because we also generate large core investments beside the funds and often we're bringing in those uh clients into direct investments with us. So for example, we just bought a payments company ah in our private equity business and thirty percent of the money went on a fund and seventy percent of IT went directly to um our partners in the fund is co investment and a much less or no fees get charged on those co investments.

Do large investors like us get a Better of east than investors?

Yeah so the the way that uh breaks uh h if you if you're putting small amount of money in a fund, you're gonna charge x uh large investors who put large something get put a drive a much Better terms and .

VISA are the least. What is a good time to enter the private market?

I I think actually two thousand and twenty four will be a great time to invest in a private markets. Uh, two thousand and twenty one would not have in the right time because money was free. Uh, IT was slashing around the world.

And right now, the banks are constrained, transaction activity is lower. Um institutional investors are struggling. Sponsors are struggling to get raise money for institutional investors, in some case because of um constraints on their capital.

Therefore, um that's a time when private markets are the right time to. So um I would say at this point in time ah, the vintages starting right now for the next twenty four months will be excEllent vintages in almost every sector that you invest into. So this is a very good time to be entering in if that if that helps.

Is that something you say every year?

Look, I would say a good question. I would say private markets in general have been people should have been and have been allocating more money to private markets for the past twenty years. I think it's going to keep going for twenty years. So the answer is yes. Although some vintages are Better times, they're just Better time to invest when markets are tougher, when there, uh, banking markets, when credit markets are tougher, you just get Better deals.

A lot of negative articles in media these days, which I always think is a good news.

right? It's good news. And I so I would just say it's, uh, the interest ate chaos, the war like leave aside all the situations that have happened that creates animals, uh, creates confusion out in the markets and people are are are not sure where things are and therefore, capital is less freely available. The banks are constrained because of their financial situations, and that just means valuations are Better. Entry point in investment is extremely important.

Bringing us onto your investment style. So there was an outgoing at times where you say that your guiding principles are to buy cheaply and having patients now buying cheaply is pretty obvious. But tell me about the patients said.

you know, buying cheaply is not exactly obvious because you're never sure what's cheap. And I say that the most important thing of what we do is a business is we're assembling information all the time and trying to figure out a is a different this time or at the same and what information do we have. Um but once you're into an investment, which I can do is give up, you have to have your convictions because often the best investments are ones where they continue to go down and the and the markets are continue to be tougher. But once IT turns, you have to have the conviction to stay and be invested and and IT just takes patients IT takes patients of fortitude and and actually being around uh, I learning investing is one of the few things in life where you get Better if you get older.

Well, you are you more patient now than you were when you were Young?

Yes.

isn't that really od that we are Young and we have we feel we such we are in such a horrid is are in a long time left, we are approaching death and and we suddenly become a very really long term.

What interesting is you in gulf your your score goes down, tennis your score goes down um uh rocket ball your score goes down, everything gets worse as you get older walking, running um whatever IT is IT gets IT gets harder with investing. You've just seen IT and everything isn't the same, but it's similar. And um we what we try to do is have a combination of a coit older uh executives who are around and Younger people that can drive the business. And it's a combination of um having having that a the amount of people with knowledge from the past with Young people that can combine the aggressiveness and drive.

So you became c, you are in your family and now you are no longer in your thirty. So what's the what's the main difference between the Young Bruce flat and today's Bruce flat?

I you know I I I would say I am a similar to be before, but I do different things today. We're training a whole new generation of people that are coming through the business, and they will eventually take over this business. And the day that nobody knows my name and doesn't want to talk to me and wants to talk to them, I will have done my job.

How do you how do you train them .

on the job there in the office all the time? We're working together. We're learning. We're you know we're they're working on deals. They're making mistakes. What type of people do you hire ah we hire people that are passionate about business, want to a work card, of course probably are above average smart, but mostly have a and EQ that allows them to deal with people into uh grow a team and teamwork is probably the most important thing and and we .

q you an emotional just the ability .

to deal with people know that's really, really important, especially in large businesses with large, large groups of people.

You say you're in the office all the time and and you personally really are in the office all the time on you.

Uh, we are we have been in the office all the time. We haven't we have a view that the office is important. It's it's the interactivity of people within the office is important. So that's A A part of our culture.

But I mean you personally also work all the time.

Yeah look, I I have A I have a history of liking to work as something I enjoy. Um and I would say it's different today than I was thirty years ago. yes.

So I was in the office all the time. Uh, today i'm working all the time, but it's different. It's climb management. It's i'm doing .

podcast doing well.

I'm doing i'm a client management. I'm flying to a conference in some country um to be with one of our clients or a number of our clients um those that's working, but it's different. It's really interesting because the the thing that allows you to uh transform a business is about learning and meeting people and uh uh you but you get to do amazing things and that's one of the great luxuries of a having a position like I have.

Why do you work so hard?

It's fun. It's fun. The minute IT isn't fine, now I won't do IT.

Like what is said that makes IT fun?

Are the people's that you deal with everyday, the sophistication of the clients and what they want to do, accomplishing things that others um may not be able to do and building businesses, which some of them are incredible, like some of the things we do and accomplish. And you know we have a business in brazil that delivers water too and takes sAnitation from seventeen million people a day before we were there, they didn't have proper water.

That's an amazing business. We're changing the lives of people. And there they're surviving today greater because they get clean water and they get their sAnitation taken away like when you so there are some amazing businesses that we have and invested in that are changing the lives of people and and that's what's exciting. And we can control the outcomes and grow the businesses and again, do well, but also do really good.

You took about the importance of having a winning culture.

What what is them in? Look, our people people want to be in a successful place and we try to have teamwork uh of people. We had try to have teams of people, but we want them to win and um and we want them to be successful for our clients and we want to our clients to be successful and all of that together is just I A winning uh a winning culture.

How do you spend your .

time changed over the years? Um probably a third of my time is a client relationships could not client in relationships related. I'm proud to solve at a high level for client the things that we can do for them that can make us different and help them out.

The third is people internal things we're doing, people related, I call business related. And a third is uh I sit on all investment committees and i'm the uh final say or once in a while, I actually can involve in the deal. Uh one of our teams the most exciting thing for me is one of our teams call me and say we need help with X, Y, Z company, C, E, O.

We need to come with us. That's an exhilarating thing. I used to do that every day, and now it's fun to do. And sometimes with senior groups around the world where they need my help.

you say somewhere that you think employees should make more mistakes daily. What what does that mean?

Nobody can ever nobodies ever perfect no um and unless you make some mistakes, you're not pushing the edge. Because if you have a culture that teach can make mistakes, what IT means is that you'll never no one will ever take a risk what want what we want people to do here is to take measured risks. Never, never, never bet too much that that measured risk on any business fund investment company will ever harm any one of them. But small risks mean that you're gonna get Better over time. And and I say that because um we want the culture of the place to grow, excel, try things and be Better and by allowing small mistakes and not judging them is important.

You you said that you know, one day when nobody remember who you were, then you have done your job. But but, uh, but you do want to to leave a legacy behind what I suspects. What what kind of legacy would you like to leave?

Look, I thought the we're trying to build profiling is not just me. This is a group of people little bit with me for a long period of time. Um we're trying to build brushing eld into one of the great alternative investment managers on the planet, and we're going to keep doing that.

And the group coming behind us, uh, is going to do the same thing. And the legacy of ours is going to be that the next generation is gonna Better than us. And and if we can make them Better than us, this will be an unbelievable powerful organization for a long period.

What you read, I read business books. I like books on culture. I read a book on crypto currencies recently.

Just get someone, I, I get books. S, I don't if you get this, but I get five books every week sent to me. So I I picked them out and I picked one on.

could I work in the public sector?

So I have to buy them. IT was a really IT was a really good book. black. I like culture of countries and and, and thin and and so I read a lot of box on on uh culture .

and what what part of culture is do you find particular and trial for the time being?

I find look, everything that goes on in the midwest, uh, is, uh, very interesting. You interesting me not be the word that everyone puts to IT, but I read a lot, just, I love to learn about, like i'm in north america. So I understand north america, but I travel, i've travel in my job as a luxury of IT is to travel to most countries in the world, and each one of them has its own distinct culture uh, and environment and I love to learn about them.

Did you talk about culture and you say you are in north th american? I mean, in north amErica and is north of north america. Isn't that canadian different from A U. S. Person or not.

I would say, you know what i've learned over the years. And then I ve lived in many places. I lived in new york for a long time, london, part time, spend time.

All over the world, people are all the same. They are all same that everyone wants the same thing really, in life. They do IT a little differently.

There's cultures a little different. Yes, americans are a little different than canadians, but are at the root, bottom of IT. People want same things. They want their children to be educated, to do well. They want to earn amount of money, someone more, somewhat less, and they just want to be successful.

And what they do know well, but you say everybody's the same. I'm not sure I quite agree with. I think you you have done something really, really special hair, big .

reactions. Thank you.