Blackstone

"Risley also held investments through his controlling stake in Northern Private Capital (NPC), a US $ 250-million venture fund he started in 2018 with Andrew Lapham, a former Blackstone executive and son-in-law of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. CFFI is the biggest contributor to NPC, which like CFFI itself has investments in a wide range of companies, in allotments from $ 10–40 million. Among them: Aspire Food Group, which makes protein from insects, including crickets. The company was building what Risley said would be “the world’s largest and most efficient protein producing plant,” in London, ON; Taiga Motors, a Montréal startup that makes electric snowmobiles and personal watercraft (basically an electric Sea-Doo); Loop Industries, which says its technology can turn polyethylene terephthalate plastic and polyester fibre—which cannot be conventionally recycled—into high-value materials; MicroSintesis, a PEI company developing technology to help replace the use of antibiotics in pork and poultry production."

"We formulated a clear set of expectations, which I laid out in a welcome speech to our new analysts. It boiled down to two words: excellence and integrity. If we delivered excellent performance for our investors and maintained a pristine reputation, we would have the opportunity to grow and pursue ever more interesting and rewarding work. If we invested poorly or compromised our integrity, we would fail. To ensure my message got through, I defined excellence in narrow, practical terms: It meant 100 percent on everything. No mistakes. That is different from school or college, where you can get an A with 95 percent. At Blackstone, that 5 percent of underperformance can mean a massive loss for our investors. It is a lot of pressure, but I suggested two ways to relieve it. The first was focus. If you ever felt overwhelmed by work, I said, pass on some of your work to others. It might not feel natural. High achievers tend to want to volunteer for more responsibility, not give up some of what they have taken on. But all that anyone higher up in the firm cares about is that the work is done well. There is nothing heroic or commendable about taking on too much and then screwing it up. Far better to focus on what you can do, do it well, and share the rest. The second way to maximize your chances of achieving excellence was to ask for help when needed. Blackstone is full of people who have worked on a lot of deals. If you are spending all night trying to solve a problem, chances are there is someone a few offices away with more experience who could solve it in far less time. Don’t waste your time trying to reinvent the wheel, I advised. There were plenty of wheels all around you, ready-made, just waiting for you to spin them faster, further, and in new directions."

"When we first thought of adding business lines to Blackstone, our idea wasn’t to enter just any area. We wanted to build businesses that were great in their own right but also made our whole firm smarter. We believed that the more we learned from different lines of business, the better we would become at everything."

"Putnam gave me a lesson in raising money that would stay with me throughout my career as I raised fund after fund at Blackstone. Investors are always looking for great investments. The easier you make it for them, the better for everyone."

"Historically, engineers have held the power in Swedish industrial companies, focusing on product development and staying at the forefront technologically. That’s how companies like Ericsson, SKF, and Alfa Laval conquered the world. When financial markets became more international in the 1980s and 1990s, demands on listed companies’ profitability increased, and the status of economists was gradually strengthened. The spotlight shifted instead to sales, marketing, and how best to utilize company capital. It was in this environment that the Swedish venture capital market emerged, with role models such as Permira in the UK and KKR and Blackstone in the USA."

"However, the decisive argument is monetary: Berggruen has been able to win over Blackstone as a partner. The Metro Group is seeking roughly two billion euros for its Kaufhof chain – an entirely different price range compared to Karstadt."

"The deals came fast and furiously, but as I was looking at assets in central Europe, a lot of new faces started to appear among potential buyers. Instead of other lone capitalist raiders like me and one or two native banks, some of private equity’s biggest names, including the likes of KKR and Blackstone, were beginning to crop up. Auctions were getting crowded. Instead of four or five people bidding for an asset, there were now often as many as 14 or 15. It was becoming too competitive. Assets were going for the wrong prices and it was time to sell, rather than buy. So I began offloading businesses, selling the telecoms companies and the Bulgarian bank in 2007 for fantastic prices. We made a profit of €400 million alone on the sale of the Bulgarian telecoms assets to the equity arm of AIG, a US insurance group. And I started to look for a way out of the Icelandic assets."