Distressed PE Investor, previously BB IB DM for partnerships! Page sponsored by: https://xitter.cf/t.co/m0dUn8aOUy
Joined January 2021
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It’s funny because we said 3 months ago the future hedge fund analyst job will be to collect esoteric information
This is another step forward to automate that part of the job
My theory is that relationships and access to semi-private information will be all the alpha up for grabs in a few years
🤝 Paid partnership
Was talking to a friend of mine who's a Banking analyst and he told me he and a lot of his peers are getting pretty annoyed with how AI is expanding the breadth of their coverage but decreasing the depth.
For example, they may be asked to do more tasks with the expectation that AI will help them, but it only really does the first few simple steps.
In order to keep up, they have to just move on and settle for the superficial work. Not intellectually stimulating for them at all.
More work, less depth and worse learning.
Working in restructuring in 2026:
“Canva,
Create the org chart for Hertz:
- Increase a box to illustrate the restricted group
- Add a second box for the guarantor group
- Add a box for the Oro entity, which is now a JV
- Oh, add a middle finger for legacy 2L that got bought back at a 60% discount
Make no mistakes; you’re not an intern at a bottom-tier EB like Jefferies”
Blackstone CEO Stephen Scharzman recounts his early discovery of AI with Alibaba’s Jack Ma:
Ma told him about the potential impact of this new technology long before labs became mainstream. He stated that scholars even told him “Jack’s underselling this” as the most consequential technological change of the century.
“We bought a very large data center in 2021 for 10 billion dollars, it's now 15 times larger, and we are the largest owner of data centers in the world, putting us in touch with 6 hyperscalers.”
His advice and model for Blackstone’s success: “We have a system where we learn information every week, part of it is having curiosity because those people that don’t fit tell you the future, and the future is key to success in the present.”
This logic explains Blackstone’s current electricity investments as well.
Back when I was an intern we were going through a small group training dedicated specifically to my group.
In the excel template we were using, there was an error that the associate running the training pointed out to us.
It was something that would be super hard to notice if you weren't looking for it.
He chalked it up to "everyone being too lazy to fix it in the master file."
I figured it was strange, noted it, and moved on. Come the end of the Summer for final presentations, 2/3s of the interns in my group failed to fix the error in the master template in their own copies.
Not all of them didn't get returns, but all that didn't get returns were in that group.
When I went back full time, I offered to fix the error in the master doc, but it turns out that it's intentionally left there for the interns to see who can remember the simple stuff.
Nowadays I bet Claude would catch it in one pass.
L40 ran the payback math on how much a PE buyer can pay for a software company, and the gap is bigger than most founders expect.
Two software companies each make $10M of EBITDA today. A PE buyer can pay about 5x for one and about 11.8x for the other.
If EBITDA stays flat, five years of earnings adds up to about 5x today’s EBITDA. If it grows 30% a year, five years adds up to about 11.8x.
One active software acquirer told L40 it needs deals to pay back within four to five years, or six at most. So the buyer is paying for the earnings it expects to get back over that window, not for what the company makes today.
That’s why two companies with the same EBITDA can get very different offers.
Would you pay 11.8x for 30% growth you have to trust will last five years?
Fake it till you make it:
> Second year analyst at a good bank
> Completely shitting the bed (making mistakes, not meeting expectations)
> Inefficient
> Despite this, still get neutral/positive reviews from Seniors
> Not sure whether to stay or go
Sometimes, having a good attitude, showing improvement, and willing to learn is all it really takes
81% of US firms told the Richmond Fed that neither the cost of financing nor access to it has constrained their investment or spending plans, per Apollo.
Those are two different things. A company can find rates expensive and still have no trouble raising money, or the other way round. When both are fine for four out of five firms, it’s a fair sign that credit is flowing. That’s a different story from what you’d expect after years of higher-for-longer rates
Another cringe Blackstone video
Jon Gray breaks down 3️⃣ takeaways from $BX’s 3Q results: the firm once again delivered for clients, the underlying economy remains strong despite the rise in cost of capital, and scarcity of compute is supporting the value of AI infrastructure. 💪✨🏗️
The marketing function is getting automated now.
If you aren't generating money for your business, you are a cost center and are at risk of being replaced.
Backed by Anthropic too so you know you're cooked.
>lead product for news feed and creator monetization at meta and X
>spend years seeing exactly how things grow in the feed
>cofounder scaled facebook groups to 1bn+ users
>build nectar
>$40mm+ raised, backed by Anthropic's Anthology Fund
I spent way too much time doing busy marketing work while building Pari Passu, no alpha in that - great to see this!
Blackstone $BX released earnings this morning. I read the transcript, so you don’t have to:
> A tighter AI financing environment will help Blackstone, as they are uniquely positioned to offer capital solutions which will allow them to earn a higher yield.
> Distributable Earnings: Blackstone reported distributable earnings of $1.7B, underpinned by a growth in fee-related earnings and fewer realizations than previous quarters, as expected
> Private Wealth: Assets from the Private Wealth channel grew 15% YoY to $330B. Fundraising for perpetual strategies increased significantly QoQ.
> IG Private Credit: IGPC grew 24% YoY and is increasingly being supported by pension and SWF LPs rather than solely insurance. The broader industry is seeing tailwinds from IG corporate borrowers looking to tap the private markets for customized solutions.
> PE: Returned 2.8% for the quarter and 15% on an LTM basis.
> Non-IG PC: Returned 2.6% for the quarter and 7% on an LTM basis.
What would you do?
> Associate at a Megafund
> Weak recent performance
> Life is perfect (Good city, healthy, great friends)
> Incompetent IC
Stick it out a little longer and love your life or try looking for something new?
Let's see Claude end the call with "Nothing from my end, thanks"
BREAKING: Claude can now build your board deck like a $309,068-a-year investment banking associate.
Open Claude Code with Anthropic's free financial-services plugins, put this quarter's model, the budget, a GL export and last quarter's deck in one folder and run these 7 prompts:
UnstructuredCap retweeted
The entire AI infrastructure complex is now in a bear market.
Drawdown since all time high
> GE Vernova: -22%
> Quanta: -24%
> Eaton: -18%
> Vertiv: -47%
> Bloom Energy: -32%
> Constellation Energy: -33%
> Coreweave: -67%
> IREN: -64%
Either a falling knife or a generational buying opportunity, depending on which side of the AI debate you sit on
Blackstone’s President Jon Gray: “This isn’t a bubble, AI demand is almost parabolic.”
His position goes against Citadel’s Ken Griffin’s take this week stating that we are almost certainly in an AI Bubble.
“When you think about a bubble, you think about building capacity, and then hoping the demand comes. With AI your building capacity and you’re hoping you can keep up with demand.”
“Personalized agents are rolling out as well creating incremental demand. So demand is almost parabolic. On the supply side, that's the part of the world where we're really focused, its governed by a lot of things that are slowing down delivery (power, chips, capital)”
Definitely interesting the way the narrative changes regarding AI depending on your position as a financier, hyperscaler, or trader.
This clip from former SEC Chair Gary Gensler might be helpful for further context: xitter.cf/UnstructuredCap/status…
Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler warns that “inevitably we will have a downturn in the next 18-30 months.”
“We humans and our financial markets pile into the fashionable new technology of its day: whether it’s canals, railroads, the internet. We build the infrastructure before there's enough demand and revenues to support that.”
“We inevitably have a retrenchment or downturn.”
“There's optimism in all humans but there's also people who are dependent on that growth, [...] even the people from the financial community.”
“It still takes consumers to buy that product and find that it's valuable, and right now the math isn't working for me.”
Is the AI market only being held by investor optimism?
If you are a gifted 18 year old going to a top college, traditional Finance is decreasingly becoming the place to go.
Why would you go to a bank or investing platform where you're going to make a mid hundred-thousand dollar base salary plus bonus when you could go to somewhere like:
1) Quant shop and make $500K plus
2) A startup where you can get equity that could turn you into a multi-millionaire in a couple years
3) AI roles which, to be transparent, I'm not super well aware of how the pay works, but know it has to be lucrative or the top talent wouldn't be going there.
The Harvard valedictorian doesn't want to work at Goldman and earn $120K base + 100% bonus while working 100 hours a week.
And frankly, Goldman doesn't need the Harvard grad either.
Hertz lenders about to get their faces ripped off
What a shit show
Hertz, the next non-sub (JV) dropdown?
- Hertz has Oro Mobility in its own subsidiary
- Oro Mobility is Hertz’s side business that runs vehicle fleets for ride-hailing and robotaxi companies like Uber, a great asset
- Certares and Knighthead purchase 50% of voting units and 16% of common equity of that entity, the entity is therefore a JV (see next tweet)
- Hertz also agrees to retire $51mm of 2L due 2029 from Certares and Knighthead at 60% discount (which likely bought this debt before at even greater discount)
- Debt is retired at a discount, a JV is ready with unencumbered assets, Certares and Knighthead make a gain on the flip, everyone wins, right? Sorry to whoever sold their 2L to Certares and Knighthead ha!
The next step?
- Class, you now have a nice entity with unencumbered assets, a ParentCo which needs to extend its maturities. What do you suggest doing?
- Raise debt against those assets, a beautiful non-subsidiary dropdown. Maybe, yes!
Read our primer on Non-Subsidiary Dropdowns to learn more, awesome work from our legal analyst!
