Lower Middle Market Private Equity Reimagined
Interview on the Talking Billions Podcast
What a pleasure it was to have the microphone turned around on me to discuss my investing career with Bogumil Baranowski on the Talking Billions podcast. Bogumil is an excellent interviewer because he is so genuine and his demeanor puts everyone at ease. I also appreciated his thoughtful questions about what Shahzad M. Khan and I are building at Devonshire Partners.
In this interview, we covered a lot, including:
Influences from my childhood that put me on a path to becoming an investor;
The foundational principles that are guiding Devonshire today—and why I decided to put them on paper;
The structural market changes and investing silos that make us so excited about the opportunities in US microcap today;
The value of doing things that are both different from the crowd and perceived to be too hard;
How we are trying to mitigate all of the risk factors associated with Devonshire’s microcap strategy; and
What I learn from both podcasting and teaching
Please enjoy the interview here:
I know that everyone reading this has far too many podcasts to listen to them all. However, if you want to get a sense for how we are tackling the microcap opportunity, that part of the conversation starts at about 43 minutes in. I have quite frankly thought really deeply about the reasons why other people shy away from doing what we are doing, the challenges we are facing (and how to get around them), and the potential returns available to us if we are successful. I had a few moments of clarity during the discussion and the abovementioned section of the podcast I think does a pretty good job describing the opportunity holistically.
Stealing from my friend Meb Faber, if you love it or hate it, please share your feedback. I am always interested in hearing about where I can get better. (In the case of this podcast, my delivery could most certainly have been better.)
Happy Sunday,
Ben Claremon