The Distribution by Juniper Square
00:26:51 · David Wachter, Brandon Sedloff
And in terms of scale, the alts platform of BNP Paribas Asset Management today is about €300,000,000,000. I say dollars, but we're in Europe right now. Yeah. So it's about €300,000,000,000. That includes private credit, real estate, and private equity. So we have a huge amount of scale, and we have a huge amount of data and relationships to leverage to be a leading player and at the scale that we would like to in in continuous liquidity journey for private equity GPs. [00:27:28] S1: So I'm gonna come back and talk a little bit about what you're excited about because, clearly, you're part of a big organization with a lot of capital to deploy and resources globally to support you. There's a lot of founders of firms probably similar to W Capital when you found AXA and and subsequently BNP who are thinking about what's next. Just any advice you can give to them as they're thinking about finding a a great potential fit as they're looking to to sell their business, merge their business, find another partner to support future future growth? Because you've you've been through this with one of the world's largest asset managers. I'm just curious kinda the lessons that you've learned throughout this process.
00:28:03 · David Wachter
[00:28:03] S0: Yeah. Two things. And and it was... I benefited from a lot of good friends in New York finance who have had similar growth journeys. And those that did strategic transactions were very helpful at some of the the largest and most successful firms in the world. And I think a few things resonated. The first and foremost was don't look for a transaction. Look for a partnership. And that was first and foremost. And that is what we accomplished. And we do come into this as true partners with our colleagues across BNP Asset Management. And I think our colleagues across the organization would recognize that this small acquired firm is treating this as a scalable synergistic opportunity for everybody involved. And secondly, before we closed, I was having dinner with, I call him my boss. He calls me his partner. And I said, I'm not doing this unless we're gonna have fun. And that is the rule of thumb every day. And we do. We're innovating. We're scaling. And the challenges of growth, we embrace. So a lot of integration going on. It's a large company. It's a complex company, but we're taking all of this as the opportunity we can now have with our scale and market position and colleagues and resources is extremely powerful. And it allows us to... My partners and I and and our entire team to fulfill the the journey and our mission to really be the pioneer, but the solution provider, doing this very specialized solution in the market.
00:29:56 · Brandon Sedloff
[00:29:56] S1: So the first twenty years independent, now together with BNP through through the AXA IM. Mhmm. What are you excited about about the next ten, twenty years? Kind of, you know, you've... You you were a pioneer of this business. You've seen it mature. You've seen it evolve. What what's coming down the pike that you're you're focusing your energy on that BNP is focusing its energy on together to support you? Kind of what... What's next?
00:30:22 · David Wachter
[00:30:22] S0: So let's take this. We're sitting here together talking about the future of private equity and the future of direct secondaries. Something that I wrote about 20 ago, and here you and I are. You've got hundreds of thousands of followers. You've got a great podcast, And I get to talk about our view of the private equity market and where we see it going. And then we have the capital and the platform to actually deliver on that. So, it's pretty fun. And I just met with a... One of the largest families in Europe and the patriarch of the family asked the same question. And I answered his question with a question. So his question was, David, why are you still doing this? And I said to him, why are you still doing this? So he paused and he smiled. And he's like, because I get to meet interesting people and be challenged. And I smiled back at him because he answered my question with his answer. So that's where we are. For us as an organization, we're growing our team. We have... When we're asked what is the size of our team, to start with, we have about 25 people in New York. But I answer it differently, which is we're about a 150 people because the private equity business that is, BNP Paribas Asset Management private equity is about a 150 people. So they're all our colleagues. And then, of course, there's thousands of people in the alts division and across BNP. So we have a lot of colleagues, and we're not really just 25 people. We're thousands of people.
00:32:03 · Brandon Sedloff
[00:32:03] S1: So I'd be remiss not to ask you just about kind of market fundamentals. We're recording this at IPEM September 2026. AI's in the headline every day. There's amazing new companies that are being created literally every minute using the tools technology. I'm sure you've seen kind of different waves and cycles of innovation. As you think about kind of the fundamentals of the market, you know, I guess two part question. You can start with kinda what are you watching in terms of any areas of concern or potential kind of, you know, places where you should yield? And then what what is get... You know, what are you watching in terms of things that are exciting as kind of the fundamentals of the market develop?
00:32:41 · David Wachter
[00:32:41] S0: So to start with, we're deliberately building a portfolio that is, what I would say, pick and shovels and not, you know, getting in front of the freight train. So we're not investing in AI only businesses. Of course, we all know which ones would have been the right ones to pick today. But will they be the right ones? The right ones today, will they be the right ones five years from now? So it is a massive amount of capital and a massive arms race. And I've been investing for a long time. So I started this firm after the tech bubble and then the telecom bubble. So while we're we're not in... We are we are... AI is a incredible... Will be a life changing technology for all of us. Picking the horse is not something that we're intending to do. So our business is about risk adjusted returns by providing that liquidity. And what we say is we invest halfway through the horse race. So by providing liquidity to other GPs and participating in the final leg of growth of those businesses before exit, our strategy is about midlife risk adjusted investments and exiting in a three to five year time frame. So we love our strategy. We love the alpha it generates. So where do we see back to the macros? I think that salesforce.com is probably the best example, which is the market took the view that it's all over. It's not. It's not. There are millions of people who have spent decades putting data into those databases and practicing with those tools. And the ability to now overlay an LLM inside of Salesforce is where the power is and where the future is. So it's not the end of software, but it is a phase where the productivity that we'll all get out of our software tools is gonna be extraordinary. So you're you're dragging me back into my engineering and tech bias. But at the end of the day, we're building a balanced portfolio. So our views on tech are important. But like I said, we're not trying to get in front of the freight train. But but where are we today? I think we're in a period of growth and expansion. But I do think the most important thing in private equity, with a strong bias is that there's too many private equity assets and too much capital in the asset class. And it needs to figure out how to grease the wheels of return capital back to your investors so they have enough capital to give you capital again to go do new deals.