WEBVTT

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>> I'm Chris Hastings, and I work

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at a small placement agent firm;
advisory firm -- 13 people.

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And what we do is raise capital
for private equity firms,

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which consist of venture capital firms.

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Mezzanine funds.

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Distressed debt funds.

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Pretty much everything except hedge funds.

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So we raise capital from limited partners,

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which consist of endowments --
like Penn State's endowment.

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Corporate pension funds.

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Public pension funds.

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Family offices.

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Insurance companies.

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That invest capital into -- a good example
would be KKR, which everyone has heard of.

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We would act as their advisor to help
them raise the capital for their fund.

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So typically I'm looking at,
you know, a fund manager.

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So these could be -- they're earlier stage.

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We're not doing large deals.

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We're doing $3 to $500 million raises.

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So it could be a management team
that came out of a larger fund,

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that wants to start their own fund.

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So I'm looking at information
describing who the team is.

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What their track record is.

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And assessing whether my firm should
pitch that business and try to win

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that business to be hired as an advisor.

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And the way we get paid is a percentage --

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which is typically in the 2% range
-- of the capital that we raise.

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And it gets paid over a time period.

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So typically I am looking at management teams

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and their track records on
investing in companies.

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And assessing whether we want to move
forward and go after that business.

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Major criteria include how
good the track record is.

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So you're looking for, what we
refer to as top-core tile managers.

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And then depending on the timer period --

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I mean private equity firms typically are
looking for, you know, 20% to 25% returns.

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Not all of them hit that.

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And it's our job to find the managers
that have been able to hit their targets,

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you know, for a sustained period of time.

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The other thing we look for
is continuity of a team.

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So it's very important for us that, you know,

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typically these teams are
anywhere between 5 to 20 people.

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And you want to make sure that you're
working with teams that have worked together

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in the past for an extended period.

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You don't want a team that's come
together in the past 30 days, and you know,

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even though they may have great, individual
backgrounds, you want to make sure

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that they can work together
effectively to produce the returns

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that our investors are looking for.

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[ Silence ]