Dino

Yeah, that’s fair on the FTC. Was more cartooning, but the auto cycle starting to turn does make for an interesting setup against the backdrop of…everything else in the world

So…MAX 🚀🚀🚀?

I have been very full on the fun-nançe side, not the other stuff quite yet

Come on, @transverseslice.bsky.social you had to have intentionally tried not to read any of my ‘love for one small bank in particular’ tweets…

You sure???

I’m getting follows from the same bots. It’s brutal.

But don’t sleep on how much public equity value is coming from strategics buying PE portcos. NFP ($13B), McGriff ($8B), and Assured ($14B) sold to strategics (~$35B of EV going to public markets combined). Just Q4. That’s the other big channel.

Yes to bigger cos after longer holds. Just look at insurance broking in Q4: Alliant sold a sizable stake at a $25B EV. Ardonagh at $14B. Howden rumored not far behind. Hub, Acrisure, etc. have previously. All will be public, but get there at $20B+ TEV. That’s a ton of new publicly traded value.

I feel better about the second response than the first here, but again, no real way to prove this that comes to mind

That scale M&A thing may sound trite, but reality is that a sector “discovered” by PE sees tons of consolidation and may produce fewer public cos. So it may be more: PE contributes more market cap to the public markets than it takes out, but in fewer companies and often as M&A targets

I have absolutely no satisfactory way to prove this, but yes, at some point. The big swing as to when will be scale M&A. Take insurance brokerage where Aon, Marsh, and Gallagher have recently taken out $7-15B PE portcos that could have gone public (well NFP definitely and McGriff maybe/AP no chance)

Short answer is a few, although you are mostly right that most are sour grapes and mad about marks (credit to Cliff Asness for giving the fair and good faith anti-PE view). One caveat is the annuity carrier movie could end badly, but that should be more whimper than bang, especially industry-wide.

Just to be that guy over here too: imagine being a PE permabear with this chart (and functionally no ERISA money in the asset class either). And after an R sweep. Lmao.

a cartoon drawing of three purple elephants on top of a brick tower ALT: a cartoon drawing of three purple elephants on top of a brick tower

@transverseslice.bsky.social whenever FinTwit moves over to Bluesky (gotta build those network effects)