Steve, welcome.
You've been in private equity for some time now.
How's the industry changed in all those years?
Yeah, I'm one of the original people in the field.
I came to New York in 1981 when the 10-year treasury was 15.8%,
and there were only 20 private equity firms today.
There are 5,000 private equity firms owning 30,000 companies.
But it's really evolved from a form of finance into a form of
business, where a good private equity firm is really all about
building businesses and the way to manage them.
How do private equity firms succeed, really succeed, in
today's environment?
Yeah, the key is, you know, our, our firm has always said one
thing, New Mountain has said one thing: building great
businesses.
And I think that's true of other good firms as well where, you
know, you have big advantages, you own a company privately like
a family business set of shareholders would do.
But you have all the strength and scale of a large organization.
We employ 100,000 people at our companies.
We have 250 people at our firm.
So, we can find a good safe mid-market company in a
noncyclical industry and really build it and help the management
build it.
And that's the key to making money rather than 25 basis
points of interest rate one way or the other.
What gains have the workforce made the gains of the workforce.
You know, we've tracked our, our social record ever since 2008
and published on our website.
We've added or created over 68,000 jobs at our companies,
net of any job losses, pay way more than the national average.
And it's just because we're growing businesses. And if
businesses grow and they're in good industries, they hire
people, they pay well.
It just kind of happens naturally.
Yeah.
Where do you think the next shift will happen in this
industry--in financing to building?
Where next?
Well, you know, I think it's just getting better and better
at building companies.
I mean, my own firm, you know, I started it with no team.
We're now up to, again, 250 members.
You can add skills, get better in industries, and get stronger.
It's a continuous improvement process.
And you know, my firm, when they say, "Who are you competing with?"
I say, "We're competing with ourselves last year."
And I think that's hopefully how the whole field should be, that
everyone's just trying to get better at actually owning and
building business.
Steve, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, Georgie.