Earnest Sweat 00:13
on today’s episode. We’re blessed to have Jason Howard. He’s the founder and Managing Partner of new catalyst, a firm focused on economic interest and minority ownership and next generation private market firms. This conversation will explore the state of GP seeding and secondary markets, challenges and opportunities facing emerging managers, and how a new catalyst is positioning itself for the long term impact. And with that, we say, Welcome to Jason.

Jason Howard 00:43

Earnest Sweat 00:52
how did you get to this point? Like, how did you get into this world of being an allocator in private markets?

Jason Howard 01:17
Yeah, so sure, first, with many people in the industry. My story probably starts with SEO. So I was an undergrad student at Emory, had a desire to work in investment banking and finance, and someone that I respected the class ahead of me was in the SEO program. And so I said I wanted to do what she did, because I respected her and the things that she did. And so I applied to the SEO program as a sophomore, was thankfully accepted and had a chance to be placed at Goldman Sachs in the financial institutions group in investment banking. And that’s when my career started. So I had a chance to work for two summers at Goldman financial institutions, mergers and acquisitions, and then went back to Goldman after graduating at Emory, and then spent two years in New York, a year in Los Angeles as a third year analyst. And then my wife and I have been together since high school, but we were apart those years for college and also while I was at Goldman. So we finally got back together again in Atlanta. So I worked at Turner Broadcasting for a year, and then moved to California to work at the Walt Disney film studio to do film investing and talent deals and deal structuring, et cetera. So I worked there for two years, had a great time, worked on some great projects, but then Goldman asked me to come back to the firm. So I went back to Goldman, and then it was after being there for a few years where I found the role that I had for almost 14 years at that was focused on the allocation part, which was investing in emerging managers, primarily primary funds, co-investing at Credit Suisse, in the group that was called the customized fund investment group. It was led by Kelly Williams and Mike Karpy, and they did something pretty extraordinary, where they identified a need in the marketplace that institutional investors had to focus on parts of the portfolio that were hard or difficult or complicated for them to do, and they were early leaders in identifying separate accounts as a way to help institutional investors access parts of the portfolio that they believe could deliver alpha. And so I started working in that group in 2009 and worked in that same group until it was acquired by GCM Grosvenor. And worked in that group through the beginning of 2023 so it was a long run. I had a great time. And by the way, kudos to people like Mike RP and Kelly Williams for creating a group like that. But not just that, the leaders who have come out of that group, I think, help to demonstrate the quality of the training, the quality of the opportunities that people had, and I learned a lot from that, and I was extraordinarily blessed.

Alexa Binns 04:27
I have so many questions specifically about how that got set up and what the lessons were learned. But I’m also curious. I am also a Disney Studios alum, and I’m curious if there are any overlap you see when you’re drafting up contracts on behalf of talent and when you’re working with managers, like some of these VC managers, etc, feel very there’s a little bit of a Hollywood vacation of who’s who in in VC. And I’m curious if there’s any parallel. Was easy

Jason Howard 05:00
there. Well, you know, it’s interesting. I often say I actually learned a lot about finance from working at Disney. And one it’s in terms of the complexity of the deals that you often have, but I think more importantly, the lack of alignment that you often see in a lot of deals in Hollywood, and that’s not specific to Disney. Disney was an amazing place to work, but in general, the actor gets a different pay structure than the director, than the producer, than others, and as a result, people win at different times, so that can lead to a different or just different alignment, where people aren’t necessarily rowing in the same direction, or people win at different points, and that’s why someone can win at one point, but it takes someone else three or four years to reach profitability on a film, and that’s a different result for people. So I think the lesson in what we do is search for alignment in what we do and find ways to support people, because things tend to work out better there. The other thing that I also appreciated was studios, in a lot of ways, are large investors, and in many ways, are the investors for the film industry. People bring great projects to the studios, look for financing, and the studios finance on that. So actually being a great place for talent, where talent is welcome to appreciate it, where you want to be the first stop and be the chosen or the preferred player, that comes a lot down to brand.

Alexa Binns 06:51
partner, awesome. I feel exactly the same way my friends who are producers are reading scripts all day, and we’re seeing pitches all day. So similar.

Earnest Sweat 07:01
is there anything from your experience in entertainment that hasn’t been applied, that you think should be applied, or lessons learned to being a fund manager in Private Markets?

Jason Howard 07:58
Nothing that I can think of immediately, I actually thought you were going to go a different direction with that question, and maybe it sparked an idea in my mind. Because I think the cross fertilization of ideas is really important, and actually is a large driver of how I thought about launching new catalysts. So I lived in LA or in Southern California for 20 years, and I’ll use a very la example, which is there’s a large shopping mall development in the center of LA called the grove. Many people have been to it, etc, but particularly when it first started, it was a trendsetter in a lot of ways, because it didn’t feel like a mall, but it was a mall. But the reason, as I got to know the team that developed it, Caruso and his team, one of the reasons that it was so different and it felt different, is because the people who developed it developed resorts. They had a totally different way of doing the standard things that you would do in a mall. And so that’s why, when you go and you experience it, there are elements that make it feel more like a luxury resort than just a mall. And so one of the things that I learned was, how do you take ideas cross pollinate and take a view or an approach or a way of thinking that can be applied in other areas. And that’s exactly what we’re looking to do in private equity

Alexa Binns 10:01
managers. That’s a perfect segue. Can you give us the 411, on the new catalyst?

Jason Howard 10:05
I spoke about my time at GCM Grosvenor, which is an amazing platform, great people, great training, and great, I great place to be to understand how to work with emerging managers, understand the often successes of emerging managers and why they make sense, and people’s portfolios and the type of alpha that they can generate when done the right way. And you’ll hear me talk about emerging managers that also include diverse managers. My experience has been working with a lot of great emerging managers who happen to be diverse and have the ability to generate strong performance. So when you hear me talk about emerging managers or next generation, diverse managers are inclusive of that as we have the conversation, but having a chance to work at GCM Grosvenor with people like Derek Jones, who recently retired, but was a mentor and was such a great leader and a visionary in terms of being an advocate for allocating Capital and giving people an opportunity who deserved an opportunity. It was great training, but it was also a great vantage point to see some of the things that were lacking in the marketplace, and what were some of those things. Number one, I increasingly heard GPS come and say, Jason, we love what you’re doing, investing in managers, but if you could actually invest a larger amount of capital, that would be catalytic. And what they meant by that is particularly investing in buyout funds, special situations, growth and others. If you could write a check that was over $50 million and be early in someone’s fund, be a first close, first fund investor, that would be catalytic. So that’s one of the things that I heard. The second thing that I heard is that a number of people were open to having a strategic partner, but they went out, spoke to existing players in the marketplace, and they didn’t feel necessarily that the terms were aligned in terms of long term support and long term help. So when I saw good managers, great investors were willing to have a partner, but they just didn’t find the right one that was the right fit for them. So that’s what I heard from GPS, but I also heard from LPS that they liked investing in emerging managers, but they looked for a different way of doing it and hopefully generating better returns from that approach. But then finally, I had a number of large managers approach me about building something in this space, and that’s interesting when you see larger managers recognize that there is an opportunity, and they want to go after it, but they wanted to find the right person to help lead them in that effort. So I put all of that together to create a new catalyst, which I’ll talk about in a minute. But based on all of that feedback, I developed the idea for a new catalyst, and I actually took it to Vern Perry, who is one of the leaders of Blackstone’s Strategic Partners Group, and Vern was amazing. I can’t thank him enough for his support and his mentorship along the way, Vern actually introduced me to the people at Apollo. And long story short, Apollo ended up supporting us in launching a new catalyst. AEarnest Sweat 14:31
What are you all doing in the market? Place today,

Jason Howard 15:00
What we’re focusing on are three very simple things. Number one, we invest in seeding managers. So we will provide the first capital. We’ll provide working capital. We will work with them to build a business very similar to what a venture capitalist would do with a founder who’s launching a business in any other area. So we will see managers in that respect. We can be the first check. We can come in in the middle of the fund. We can come in at the end of the fund. We can be flexible, but seating managers typically on fund one, we can also so that’s the first thing that we do. The second thing that we do is we will invest in managers who are on fund two or three or four or five. So we’re not just limited to working on fund ones, and we can provide LP capital or working capital or work to help them launch new strategies or help in a number of instances, on working through both opportunities and challenges that they may have. And sometimes people ask, Well, why are you focusing on managers on fund four or fund five? Haven’t they developed to the point where they don’t need capital or support or strategic partners? And what we often say is, from my experience, when managers get to funds 345, that’s oftentimes when there might be a change in team, or they’re looking to launch a new strategy, or they no longer qualify for an emerging manager program, and they’re looking to transition out of that. It’s a point in time where strategic capital can actually be very helpful. And so we’re thoughtful about that. So that’s the second thing that we’ll do. The third thing that we focus on is CO investing with our with managers in the marketplace, particularly in today’s market, when fundraising has been challenging and LPS want GPS to show up ready in business with deal flow, etc, many managers are pursuing SPV and deals as independent sponsors, first on their way to raising a co mingled fund, and we wanted to be part of the solution in that area. It also gives us a chance to get to know managers who we could potentially help by providing seed capital and get started.

Alexa Binns 17:15
What are some of the gaps in the market that you’re looking to address?

Jason Howard 17:25
We’re looking to create a win, win, win for GP. So what are we looking to accomplish? One, we want to provide scalable capital, as I mentioned. Number two, we want to we’re willing to be early and provide early capital for GPS. Because I think many people in the industry know one of the hardest things in the world is to find LPS who are willing to go first. And so that’s one of the things that we thought we could step into that void and take that approach. The other thing that I also think and this is where the Apollo relationship and our partnership with Apollo totally makes sense, because I think most people, when they think about the Apollo brand, they think about a willingness to lean into complexity. And so I think working with emerging managers is more complex, oftentimes, than a typical LP underwrite for a fund, 456, we lean into that because we see opportunity that’s often overlooked, and we think that that can be a positive thing for investors in the marketplace. So the other thing that we’re looking to accomplish and address in the marketplace is there are many great managers who are willing to launch a fund, but sometimes they’re looking for two things. Number one, they want help de-risking that launch. So I often say, many times, people don’t fully appreciate how much it costs to launch an institutional scale, private markets, firm and based on our data, again, depends on the strategy. But if you take a typical buyout fund, let’s say it can cost five to $10 million of capital to launch that in terms of working capital, so that can be a real hindrance to great investors, launching new firms and going on an entrepreneurial journey. So one of the gaps that we’re seeking to address is providing capital to talented, experienced investors who are looking to take that next step. Sometimes I refer to it as we are looking for world class heart surgeons who happen to be part of 100 Doctor practice, and are looking for capital to go and start a five Doctor practice, because they want to focus more on their patients and spend more time on patients, etc, that’s what we’re looking for, and we want to provide capital where we think. Risk adjusted returns are attractive for the opportunity. The other thing that we’re looking to solve for is we want to help GPS transition from being great investors to also being great fund managers, and those are totally different things. And so there’s so much more that goes into managing a firm and scaling a firm where we believe our team have seen best practices and also what good looks like in the industry, and we want to develop opportunities to help translate more of that onto the GPS in the marketplace. So those are the gaps that we’re looking to fill.

Earnest Sweat 20:43
What is GP seeding? And what are some watch outs or opportunities that GP should consider when going down that route?

Jason Howard 21:47
A a high level, GP seeding is providing capital to help a manager launch a new firm, new strategy, etc. So it typically takes the form of an A firm, a family office, a wealthy individual, someone providing capital for working capital to launch a new firm and or LP capital to also start investing in someone’s fund, typically in exchange for that seed or receive some type of preferred economics. So lower management fee, lower carry, as well as oftentimes, some type of long term economics in the fund so or in the manager so, that’s usually a revenue share or a profit interest in the firm. That’s what’s typically GP seeding. What typically happens is, and what I’ve seen historically happen is sometimes that is a fun mostly a financial transaction. So it’s earnest here, here’s the capital that you need to start. In exchange, I’ll receive X percent ownership in your firm, and hope it goes well, right? And what we thought again, going back to being new and being catalytic, but also being strategic partners. What we thought is, in addition to doing that, what if, again, cross pollinating from what other firms are doing, what if we took the approach that many other firms in our industry take, which is, well, what if we then surrounded our managers with operating talent to help them as they were building and scaling those firms. And so what we wanted to really focus on is, how do you evolve the seeding model such that we could provide value creation support, operating support advice as managers were looking to launch and scale their firms and do so in a hopefully operationally intensive way.

Earnest Sweat 23:45
Now we’re going to take a quick break to speak with our sponsor.

Jeremy Rich 23:49
Hi, I’m Jeremy Rich, senior vice president on the catalyst 2045 team at SBB, a division of First Citizens Bank. For over four decades, SBB has been the financial partner of choice for the innovation economy. We understand the unique needs of founders, fund managers and investors building in fast moving, high growth sectors, because we’ve been there every step of the way through the catalyst 2045 team. We work closely with venture firms and institutional investors to help them grow their platforms, raise capital more efficiently and unlock new opportunities across the venture landscape. When you work with SBB, you’re not just getting a bank, you’re gaining a partner with deep sector knowledge, extensive networks and tools to help you scale. We’re proud to support swimming with allocators and the people shaping the future of venture.

Alexa Binns 24:36
And now back to our LP interview, and what are some of the archetypes or areas that GPs are building that you’re interested in investing in? Sure,

Jason Howard 24:50
So one has started with an archetype for the type of manager that we look for, and then where they are investing. So typically, the. Managers have experience investing capital on behalf of institutions or large family offices or families, so they have an institutional track record of doing what they would like to do going forward. The other thing that we’re looking for are people who have a clear differentiation in the marketplace, where they have a point of view or a differentiation in terms of sourcing or driving value creation that we believe has a potential to drive opportunities for excess returns. So those are the types of managers. But we’re also looking for people who we believe have a vision for building a business that’s sustainable and that can endure the challenges that firms endure over decades, and so we’re excited about having a chance to find those managers. Now, if you look at particular areas where we’re focused, the typical areas where we’re focused are within private equity, we will lean more toward buyout special situations and growth, but technically, we can look at any opportunities in private markets. Venture is an interesting area in terms of the opportunity set, because we clearly see an opportunity. One of the things that we’re still exploring and figuring out is, how do we apply our model to venture? Because our goal is to invest $50 to $75 million per manager. And what we’ve seen is that’s not necessarily the right approach for venture, given oftentimes the size of funds that are being raised, etc. And also ventures can have a longer time in terms of distributions, etc. So we have not figured that out yet in terms of how you apply the model to venture. That’s one of the reasons why we’re starting in other asset classes, within private markets. But it’s something that’s on our minds, and it’s something that we hope to have more development on in the

Alexa Binns 26:56
future.

Earnest Sweat 27:09
ould you talk a little bit about the best ways for managers to interact with you all for CO invest and what you’re looking for in that check size and

Jason Howard 27:30
Typically, we are investing $10 to $20 million per transaction. We’re looking for managers who have identified an opportunity where they have a clear value creation plan, they have a clear line of sight to being able to improve the operations of the business. They’re hopefully buying that asset well, they’re being reasonable about leverage on the asset, and it’s one where they’ll be prudent about seeking exits or distributions on that asset in a way that’s attractive for LPS. That’s what we’re looking for from a co-investment standpoint. We also want to partner with people where there’s a sustainable or viable platform that they are operating from, and ones who we believe have long term potential in our industry. So those are the areas that we’re focusing on from a co investment standpoint.

Alexa Binns 28:29
And in the case of some of these fund four or fund fives, where they’re looking to launch new strategies, are there? Can you give us some examples of what are some of those trends you’re seeing? Which strategies are looking more interesting today? Yeah,

Jason Howard 28:43
We have a number of people who may have built an existing platform where, let’s say they’re in the buyout space, and there’s an opportunity to build a strategy. Maybe their strategy has scaled up, and there’s an opportunity to create a new strategy at a lower entry point in terms of company size, etc. So same type of strategy, same areas where they’re seeing deal flow, but their current fund is just too large to pursue those types of opportunities. So that’s an area that can be interesting for us. We’re also seeing opportunities where managers say, Hey, we’re doing this in this area, but there are adjacencies to what we’re doing that tend to make sense for creating a special product to pursue those types of opportunities. So you could have a manager who’s doing lots of opportunities in the buyout space, but then there’s an opportunity that’s adjacent to that. Let’s feel a little bit more like infrastructure, but there are commonalities in terms of what is consistent and when that manager is pursuing and their original strategy. We’re looking for those natural linkages, but we can also see opportunities like that. The one that people often talk about is, hey, I have a firm I want to launch a credit platform to pursue opportunities in that same industry. I’m sure there’ll be opportunities for those in the future as well, but that’s a key topic for people in the industry. Those are the types of opportunities that we’re seeing

Earnest Sweat 30:20
In all private markets, we’ve seen a lot more competition, which I think has also created more complexity for even allocators. How do you approach that? More competition and trying to find true alpha without respect to any asset class, because we have a lot of allocators that are also listening in, and they’re always looking for kind of like, what are the best and brightest thinking?

Jason Howard 30:47
Yeah, so you’re right. There’s been a proliferation of choice for El for LPS, and in that environment, particularly when you combine that with slower distributions in terms of capital coming back to LPs, and you also combine that with some of the externalities that are impacting many LPS in terms of their organizations, their decision making, what their capital needs are in the future, that can be really hard. And so what it’s leading, I think, a lot of LPs to do is monitor situations for longer where they may have committed faster, historically, and they’re also thinking more about which of the relationships that are truly differentiated and potentially up scaling and up increasing the quality of the managers that they have within their portfolio. So that’s what we’re seeing. Do I have a magic bullet in terms of like, success for a recommendation for allocators? No, but I think what allocators are doing today is figuring out where do they really believe they’ve received performance historically, then going down more deeply, looking at the managers and seeing, hey, was this manager in an industry where essentially the rising tide lifted all boats, and was there a real differentiation for this manager? So you could start to do analysis on how this manager performed, not relative to the overall benchmarks, but relative to the benchmarks of managers who had their strategy, did they outperform relative to those strategies? Also, it’s very typical for LPS to really focus on how managers generate their returns. Was that more for margin expansion or for multiple expansion or on debt pay down, otherwise, really focusing on how managers generated their returns is super important, and then stepping back and saying where we are today with the team that they have today. Because, by the way, sometimes the people who created that performance in the past are no longer at those firms. But based on where the managers are today, is it likely that performance is likely to persist? That’s what we’re really focusing on, and we think other LPs are doing the same.

Alexa Binns 33:13
I’d love to circle back to the conversation about GP seeding, and what’s so valuable about that first partnership, that first check

Jason Howard 33:22
So many GPs are historically, what we found is LP capital alone isn’t always sufficient to help a manager scale. And what I think GPs are looking for is, is there an opportunity to de risk their fund raised, particularly in this marketplace. Is there a desire? Is there an ability to help provide working capital, to provide staying power, to withstand, to withstand the 18 to 24 plus months that it takes to raise the capital and build a team and start doing deals and pay the fees and costs on deals, particularly if deals don’t consummate, having the capital to be able to do that is critical, and so that’s what GPs are looking for. But they’re also looking for a real strategic partner who can be a thoughtful advisor for them as they are building. So sometimes, their questions that GPS had, they don’t necessarily want to go to the ELPAC because their ideas aren’t yet formulated, or they’re just trying to brainstorm. And a lot of times, GPS feels like once they go to the ELPAC, it needs to be buttoned up, ready to go, etc. And oftentimes GPs are looking for someone who can help in that way. So that’s one of the areas that we really want to lean into and be supportive of GPS and help us think through opportunities. And to be honest, I’ve worked with many managers. Managers who are now managing multiple billion dollars of capital, and the success wasn’t always linear. Doesn’t look like that externally, but I know that based on a number of the situations that came up and the things that the managers had to deal with. But that’s okay, and being able to have a partner that you can speak to and can help navigate or can help give advice on how other managers have dealt with situations that were the same, more serious, less serious, etc, I think can be helpful in the marketplace today. Again, going back to the gaps that we want to fill in the marketplace. That’s what we really want to do. And a lot of times, LP business models are not typically set up to do that for managers. And that’s not a negative on LPS. LPS are busy. They have a focus on deploying capital in a way that’s efficient and monitoring those investment opportunities. What we’re looking to bring to the marketplace is something a little different, which is working and advising these managers in a more active way, to help them as they’re building and scaling these firms.

Earnest Sweat 36:13
What are some specifics that you know go into that being a strategic partner, I know you, and from your experience, you’ve seen a lot of different managers and a lot of different spaces. But what are the three things you always want to make sure that you offer managers you’re partnering with?

Jason Howard 36:30
Well, it honestly depends on where a manager is on their maturity. What first first time funds may seek is oftentimes different from what a fund three or fund four may seek the fund one, they may have more of a focus on operational infrastructure and getting that set up and identifying a great talent to attract To the team or LP introductions, or helping them think through how to position their initial product in the right way. Those are the types of pain points that we commonly saw working with with GPS. When a manager gets to fund 234, at that point, they’re having a different conversation, which is, again, do I need help launching a new strategy where I see opportunities but they just don’t have enough time to go and develop that idea more fully? Is it they need to reposition their LP base because a lot of their LPs were emerging manager LPs, and they may not continue with them going forward? Are they trying to figure out succession at that point, because succession and transition ownership to the next generation, and is that something where we can be helpful? Those are the types of things that arise at various points on the maturity for a manager, and we want to be thoughtful and figure out ways to be helpful to managers at each stage of the process

Alexa Binns 38:03
and you’ve shared with us the benefits of seating for the GPS, if you’re an LP I’m curious, what are the benefits of having somebody doing some seating on your behalf? Yeah, so

Jason Howard 38:15
It’s a great point, and I think having seating as a part of a LPS portfolio can provide an attractive complement to other parts of the portfolio. I think the key opportunity is, if you are seating a manager, it has a potential of doing two things. One, it has a potential of providing some downside mitigation, because in addition to the LP return, you’ll receive some type of economics in the manager that can help buttress whatever the return is. And so on the downside, that can be positive and an additive to an LPS portfolio. On the upside, also, if a manager is successful, and you also have some economics in the manager that can also provide some upside performance relative to whatever the base return is from that underlying LP commitment. And so there’s a potential opportunity for generating alpha, for doing the same thing that many LPS do anyway, which is make LP commitments, but the requirement for doing this is being able to write large checks, being able to be early, being able to have resources to support managers. And those are the things that I think are critical. One of the things as in terms of advice I would give for GPs who are considering this is identify partners who they really believe can provide more than capital, because there are a lot of providers out there, good sources of capital that are mostly financial in some ways, and that can be a fit for some GPS, but other GPS may look for something different. So. So that’s where, again, we think that we’re bringing something to the marketplace that’s additive. And by the way, there are a number of great firms that are doing amazing work in seeding. We appreciate that, because when you have smart investors and when you have well regarded firms seeing the same opportunity and going after it that helps to validate the market need. And the other thing, I think, and you all see this a lot in venture, I think that there is a real opportunity to partner together with other seeders who are doing really great and innovative things, because that hopefully is better for the GP. In that sense, the GP gets the same thing that a great founder gets, and when they have a great company and 234, great venture firms surround them with ideas and network and thoughtfulness about building businesses and product market fit, etc, that’s the same opportunity that we see when great seeders work together and help to come alongside a manager and help them build something special.

Earnest Sweat 41:05
One thing we haven’t spoken about during this conversation is secondaries, and how do you think about secondaries, and especially in this context of GP stakes?

Jason Howard 41:17
I think on the secondary side, it makes a lot of sense for many LPs, because historically, 10 years, 15 years ago, people often thought, Why would an LP be considered a secondary cause they are in distress? Are they having problems? Could they not meet their LP commitments? And there is a component of the secondaries market that addresses that need. But as we now understand, secondaries is much broader in terms of LP opportunities, GP led opportunities, CIOs and investment teams leveraging the secondary marketplace to secure liquidity where they’re comfortable with a return, or to help provide liquidity in parts of the portfolio where it makes sense, or to skim down their position based on targeted exposure desires, et cetera. So there’s a need that the secondary market is addressing, and that’s a huge opportunity that I think will only continue to grow across the different asset classes. So I think the players in the secondary market are being thoughtful about that. And if you think about the stresses in the current marketplace, where there’s a stressor on GPS to return more money to GPS to LPs, then the you’re only likely going to see more GP led secondary opportunities, both as they GP seek to return capital back to LPs, but also as GPS seek to retain ownership in what they believe are some of their best assets. So that’s where we see the opportunity continuing. We have not yet seen a lot of secondary activity on the GP seeding side, at least that’s been my experience. And I’ll frame it this way if we think about the exit path that you see for people who own seeding opportunities, or who own ownership interest in emerging managers and established managers. What we expect to happen over time is the larger GP stakes firms are exploring and executing on ways to exit their portfolio, whether that’s through continuation fund vehicles or strip sales, etc. We think the technology, if you will, that’s developed longer term at the larger end of the market, at the GP stakes market, will eventually be applied to the earlier stage managers, and working with emerging managers, all of that being said, oftentimes we will own an ownership interest, or some type of economics in the managers that we partner with, we actually think the managers are the most likely buyers of that ownership interest back, and we think that’s a success, if the manager is able to secure that back. So one of the things is, we think is an attractive element of the seeding market is that the managers are the most likely buyers of that ownership interest, and if not, if we have done a good job in terms of identifying great and great investment managers who have where we have ownership interest in their businesses, there should be many opportunities to Continue to exit those whether that’s to GP stakes firms in the future, or to family offices who are looking for yield or insurance companies or secondary players at that time, once the portfolios of seeding firms that are out there, once those portfolios are more developed, then that could be an opportunity. Be on that could present some interesting investment ideas for others within the private markets ecosystem. Well,

Earnest Sweat 45:08
Jason, this has been phenomenal. Thank you for sharing, just like your perspective, your journey, and you’ve had a ton of success already, and I can already see there’s going to be even more success. How can people get in touch with you,

Jason Howard 45:25
sure? So they can reach out to our website. There are ways for contacting us on the website. We have a LinkedIn page, and people should definitely follow us on LinkedIn and reach out if they have any questions. But we’re excited about partnering with people. We often say we can’t necessarily invest in everyone, but we try to be helpful to as many people as we can. So we’re excited about being a real partner for people in the industry, and being a demonstration of what’s possible when you can combine the right types of capital, the right types of operating support and a desire to help people build something special in the industry.

Speaker 1 46:08
I believe it. I believe it. Thank you so much. Jason,

Jason Howard 46:11
Thank you all. I appreciate it.