Private Market Talks: Conversations and insights on the private markets with private capital’s leading figures.

This week on Private Market Talks, Warburg Pincus’ Global Head of ESG, Leela Ramnath invites us to look at how ESG drives growth. Leela is one of the leaders of a private equity task force that developed a methodology to analyze key ESG factors specific to the unique needs of each company and which are vital for achieving long term growth and resiliency, along with and never without, sustainability. 

On the podcast, Leela helps identify the link between a company’s performance and its ability to have access to capital, through their ESG priorities and data reporting. She uncovers the fundamental issues and concepts that constitute ESG and how management teams can better understand how those issues influence a company’s success. 

Welcome to Season Two of Private Market Talks. We start this season with a conversation with Kevin Foley, Global Head of Debt Capital Markets for J.P. Morgan, the world’s largest bank. J.P. Morgan is a major player across the financial markets and Kevin is uniquely positioned to discuss a wide range of topics related to debt and global economic activity.    

Over the course of the episode, Kevin and host Peter Antoszyk compare today’s economic landscape to its activity when they last spoke, in the Fall of 2022. They also dive into interest rate trends, corporate credit fundamentals and the future of private credit before rounding the conversation with views on the M&A market and a few quick-fire questions. We hope you enjoy this episode of Private Market Talks. 

This week on Private Market Talks, Neuberger Berman’s Susan Kasser discusses the specific values at the core of building a top-tier private debt group as well as each investment decision. She also talks about the three “C’s” for creating a successful team and offers an insightful, self-proven piece of advice.

Later in the episode, Susan looks back at the evolution of private debt and we hear her thoughts on what’s been done right over the past 20 years in terms of investments, what’s to be improved and where is the asset class going. Finally, Susan shares her thoughts on what portfolio managers can do to prepare for unforeseen dislocations in a post-pandemic environment.

This week on Private Market Talks, MidCap Financial’s Clare Bailhé joins us to talk about what it’s like to build, scale and manage a market-leading credit investment platform. In 2008 – a pivotal year for the financial industry – Clare and her team formed MidCap and embarked on a $500 million fundraise. Since then, they have grown exponentially, and now have $45 billion of assets under management.

Clare shares with us the challenges and opportunities she faced launching a finance platform in 2008, why she and her partners decided to join forces with Apollo and why having the same team at MidCap since its launch has been pivotal to success. She also shares the three most valuable lessons she’s learned managing business growth.

In this episode of Private Market Talks, CEO and co-founder of Novata, Alex Friedman helps contextualize the evolving conversation around ESG and demystifies how companies and their investors assess ESG compliance and goals.

During our conversation, Alex talks about how Novata is working to develop objective data so that companies and their investors can set ESG goals, track progress and unearth how they’ve fared – all relative to their peers. He discusses how Novata’s proprietary database aims to allow CEOs and investors to begin to set ESG benchmarks, which help public and private companies identify ESG risk factors and develop mitigation strategies.  

Jonathan Grayer, Chairman and CEO of Imagine Learning, has been an executive, an owner, a founder, and a growth investor. In episode seven of Private Market Talks, Jonathan takes us through his history as CEO and Chairman of Kaplan; founder of Weld North; partnerships with KKR, Silverlake and Onex; and management and investment in Imagine Learning, which today is the largest provider of K-12 digital curriculum to U.S. school systems.

Jonathan also shares his thoughts about assessing talent, and what it takes to be a successful operator and investor, including why the things that go wrong are just as important as those that go right. 

In this episode, Jason Shuman, General Partner at Primary VC, gives us a window into his world of early-stage venture capital investing and discusses the multitude of stars that must align to lead to success. Jason shares his perspective on the venture investment landscape, what he looks for in founders when making a “go/no go” investment decision, the importance of the founder-investor relationship, and where he sees opportunities, challenges, and strategies for early-stage venture investing. He also takes us into the room and describes how one venture fund dealt with the days leading up to and immediately following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.