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David, welcome.

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Just talk to me about some of
the biggest investment trends

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we're seeing in North America at
the moment.

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Of course. So we're focused on
opportunistic credit, Special

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Situations and private equity.

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And first off, people are just
sometimes surprised by the

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amount of opportunity that we're
seeing in North America right

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now.

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We like the complex stuff.

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We invest in businesses and
transformation companies going

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through cycles, even buying
businesses out of bankruptcy.

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There's a lot more of that going
on than people expect for a

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world where USGDP growth is
positive.

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Equity markets are at all time
highs. And what we're finding is

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the economic cycle we have in
the US, solidly in plus

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territory,

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It's been uneven.

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The benefit across the economy
hasn't been the same. Sectors

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like real estate, construction,
manufacturing.

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It's almost 30% of the economy,
and it's it's not doing as well

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as you think from the headlines.

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At the same time, in the credit
world, we're finding 5% interest

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rates.

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Of course, for the first time in
15 years.

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Companies, capital structures,
they just weren't built for a 5%

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world.

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So more of them are defaulting,
more of them are fixing their

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debt outside of a court and that
creates opportunities for a firm

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like ours.

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So we've bought 5 businesses in
the last few years here in North

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America, all in these kinds of
different interesting Special

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Situations. Good companies,
market leaders who are growing,

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but they're in some kind of a
jam.

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And we've been able to come into
those situations and help those

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companies out by making this
kind of an opportunistic

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investment.

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At the same time, there have
been a lot of loans.

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There's been distressed debt
buys too.

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And it's all yielded an
interesting cycle of opportunity

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for us.

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How do you adapt your investment
strategy to changing market

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conditions?

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Yeah.

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And so we do two things.

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We go to where the opportunity
is.

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And for us, that's a broad
geographic reach.

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About half of our firm is based
in Western Europe, about half

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here in North America.

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It's a broad strategy
reach—everything from buying

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into public credit to making
private loans to buying

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businesses and helping them
through the turn around.

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And we also go across asset
classes, many investors in our

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space, they're all corporates or
they're all real estate.

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We do a real mix of those, of
corporate businesses and real

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and hard asset classes and that
lets us go to where the

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opportunity is at different
points in the cycle.

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There's always a cycle going on
somewhere, you know, if you know

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how to find it and if you have
some of the resources available

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to actually go and take
advantage of it.

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Where do you see the key
opportunities over the next few

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years for the asset management
industry?

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Yeah, it's OK.

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I think of it in terms of
industries and I think of it in

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terms of that credit cycle we
were talking about.

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And so, look, with that credit
cycle, this 5% interest rate

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world, it's something all of
private equity has to adapt to.

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It's something all of the credit
world has to adapt to, and it

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spins off all kinds of different
interesting opportunities.

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You know, private equity funds
are under more pressure than

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we've seen here in 10 years,
right?

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They're portfolio companies.
Again, they just weren't made

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for a 5% type world and they
didn't all get the growth that

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they had bargained for.

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And so we see a lot of
opportunity in buying businesses

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from them that need a little bit
of capital, need a little bit of

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tender, loving, care.

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And we see opportunities on the
credit side to help out with

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these different types of
creative re-financings. Lending

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into something with a complex
structure, lending into a

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business where that economic
cycle hasn't been so easy on

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them.

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David, thank you so much.

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Thank you.