Marc Lasry - Making Bucks in Credit and Sports - [Invest Like the Best, EP.371]

Speaker A

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Speaker D

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Speaker A

My guest this week is Mark Lazri. Mark is a pioneer of distressed debt investing and the CEO of Avenue Capital Group, which he co founded with his sister in 1995. Avenue manages $13 billion today. More recently, Mark and Avenue have become active investors in sports. He owned the Milwaukee Bucks when they won the NBA championship in 2021 and has since made investments in sports as diverse as sailing and bull riding.

In our discussion, we talk about his journey building a big investing firm, the evolution of distressed investing, and the opportunities in sports. Today, Mark shares some great stories throughout about traveling with President Clinton, winning the NBA championship and raising his first fund. Please enjoy this great conversation with Mark Lazari. What's the earliest episode you can remember of feeling like a sense of confidence and competence in what you were doing? Oh, wow, that's a great question.

Marc Lasry

That's actually fascinating. I've never really thought about that. I think part of it is I always grew up. I had a mom who always told me, you could do anything. So I just grew up believing I could do anything.

Speaker B

I don't think there was a moment. When I thought, oh, wow, I could do this. I think when we left Morocco, we. Came to the United States, everything was. About education, everything was about learning because.

We didn't really have any money. So the only way you were going to go to school was by scholarship. I think it was a belief that my parents instilled in me. So not fueled by self doubt? No.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Well, it's funny because a lot of people are in your position. I would say, no, I don't think so. Both the GSP guys and Ali Hamed told me to ask you about the story of raising your first fund. It all depends on an investor, Gustave Levin, who actually founded Perrier. When he came in here, he was about 75 years old, and he comes in, and back then he had a Kodak in stamatic, and he's taking pictures of the people who work for me, taking pictures of the office.

Marc Lasry

And I was like, oh, okay. And everybody's like, modeling, and we're all. Standing there doing whatever we're doing. And he literally took 24 pictures. And at the end I was like.

Okay, so why is that? He goes, oh, I just like to have pictures of my investors. I was like, okay. And he goes, but I'll come back. In three or six months, and that's when I'll decide if I'm going to invest.

And he comes back and he's got the pictures with him, and he goes, I want to just make sure same people are here. I was like, okay, yeah, they all are. I go, so I don't understand. He goes, well, sometimes people just would have actors come in, and I just want to make sure it's the same. I just thought it was fascinating.

I've never heard of that. This isn't trying to think when this was. This was in 19, 95, 96. We had just gotten started and you're just meeting characters all the time. We'll rewind back to that time period because I want to talk about the whole evolution you've seen of distressed credit and just how it's evolved over that whole period.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

But I want to zoom today. Today. Last time we were together, we were talking about bull riding and the probably myriad of opportunities that not a lot of people are thinking about from an investing perspective in the world of sports. And obviously, you're very well known for having bought the bucks and done very well, both winning a championship, but also as an investment. I would just love you to riff on why you're so interested in sports as a category of potential investment.

Marc Lasry

I think there's a number of reasons. First, I think it's misunderstood. I don't think people fully appreciate all the different opportunities you have in sports, how media plays a part in it, how sponsorship, ticket sales. And then the other big reason is I actually think it's a uniter. People just love sports.

It doesn't make a difference who you are. If we're all wearing the same jersey for some reason, we all love each other because we're all cheering for the same person. So you don't look at what nationality, what color somebody is. One of the things I loved about owning the bucks, whenever I was traveling, wherever you were, whatever city, sometimes you'd find somebody wearing a Giannis jersey and I'd go up to them and go, oh, are you a big bucks fan? And they would start talking to you about why they love Giannis or why they love the team.

And then they would ask me, and I'll go, well, you know, shockingly, I actually own the team. And they go, no, you don't. They go, well, no, I'm pretty sure there's always the same thing. People would google you, and then once they found out you did, they'd want. To take a picture.

Speaker B

But all of a sudden, literally, you're. Going up to a total stranger and within a few minutes, we both love the same thing. And I just found that amazing. And I actually think it's one of the things that people don't fully appreciate about sports, how it does bring people together. And so for me, the Bucks were a unique opportunity and worked out extremely well.

Marc Lasry

But I see that you can do the same thing investing in other leagues and other sports. There's a really interesting story with the Bucks in that the price you bought it for on a multiple basis was crazy relative to how much you then earned as a return on capital basis. This does not happen usually, unless it's Microsoft stock or something. And the Bucks business did not grow like Microsoft's business did. Can you tell that story, what it.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Was like to retrain your brain? Probably from distress credit to, I think it was like 100 times or something you bought it for originally. It's like a totally new mental model. I think why people at times have a hard time buying a team and. Why people have a hard time understanding the value of a team.

Marc Lasry

I was no different. I'm not going to tell you I was. I think for me, I had invested. In the Brooklyn Nets and I had a minority piece. And when the Bucks became available, you understood the economics of basketball.

Speaker B

So the Bucks were making about $5 million a year. And so you would think, in my business, im trying to buy a company for three to four times. Private equity is trying to buy a company seven to eight times. And everybody thinks youre crazy. If you spend 20 times, we had the opportunity, not 3510, 2050, but the magical number of 100 times.

Marc Lasry

You're like, well, that's fine, I'm going to buy it for 100 times. We're going to have this new media deal. I think the value will go up. And from your media deal, you were getting 30 million a year. I thought it would go up to 60 to 75 million a year.

And if we got that, you'd make. All this money and we could sell. The team and the team would hopefully double in price. The media deal came and it was three times. So instead of us getting 30 million.

Speaker B

We got $90 million and the value. Of the team doubled. And so now you actually can make money. And the dirty secret about sports is you go into it assuming you're going to make money, and then you find out that if you want to win. You'Ve got to spend, spend all the money.

Yes. So you quickly come to the conclusion that it is not any fun to go and try to make money because that means you're going to lose. And why would you want to go watch a team you bought just lose? So you end up spending the money and you literally spend pretty much everything you make. And the reason for that is you.

Actually do want to win and the. Value of your team actually will increase if you win. But the problem is you should sell right when you win, which you did, but most people don't because that's when you have the highest value, is when you win. And when I looked at it. I thought we won in 2021.

Marc Lasry

I thought we could win again in 22 and in 23. And you also realize how hard it is to win and you've got to get very lucky. And I think when we won, everything. Worked out really well. Kevin Durant's foot wasn't an inch bigger.

He would have made that three. We would have lost. Giannis in Atlanta ends up having what I thought tore every ligament in his leg. If you see the video of that is gruesome. Yeah, it really is.

Speaker B

I remember it. And then I go running into the locker room and I remember I said, doctor, how bad is it? And doctor looks at me and goes, listen, I know you're not gonna believe this. It doesn't feel like he tore anything. I go, no, that's impossible.

Marc Lasry

And Giannis goes, no, I heard a pop. And so they've got to do the MRI. And the MRI comes back that everything's fine. What he had heard, there's a water sack inside your knee and that's what he heard, pop, and it just refills up. All right.

So now Giannis is gone and somehow Trey young ends up injuring his ankle because he's walking backwards and steps on the foot of a ref and now he's gone. So you've got to be very good, but you've got to get lucky. And I think we were very lucky. And I think the following year we got a little bit unlucky. And then last year, definitely unlucky because Giannis got hurt within first ten minutes.

Speaker B

So for me, I thought it was. Time to sell and I thought it was a great price. I'm not saying prices may not go higher. I think they will. But I think it'll be hard for teams to increase in value five to ten times.

Marc Lasry

Over ten years, I could see teams. Increasing in value two to three times, and that would make sense. But I think you can take that. Capital and do the same thing in. That amount of time.

So, yeah, it was a unique experience. What do you think of the notion that a lot of these things are vanity assets for their owners? I don't think that's true. I think most people buy a team buy it because they believe the value is going to go up. Nobody's buying something saying, oh, I can't wait for this to drop.

Speaker B

So I don't think it's a vanity play. I think it's an economic play and there's a belief that the value will go up. And part of that is very simply, ticket pricing goes up five to 20% a year. Sponsorship goes up 520 percent. Advertising goes up five to 20%.

Marc Lasry

So I think you will make money if you decide that you don't want to win. And I think that's what ends up happening. It's not a vanity play. What ends up happening is you quickly realize, and I know this may sound a bit hokey, but you actually realize. You'Re a steward of an asset.

Speaker B

I'd love to tell you, you feel. You own the team. I think you're just the owner at that present time, and the community, the fans, everybody else, that's who owns the team. And you feel you have an obligation. To them to try to win.

If you think about it, there's no. Fan that says, are you a Knicks fan or what? You're a Knicks fan? Yeah. You don't go, oh, I really feel bad for Dolan if he's got a spend x.

Marc Lasry

I don't think I've ever heard a Knick fan say that. Right? Especially about Dolan. But nobody worries about what an owner has to spend. They want the owner to spend as.

Speaker B

Much as possible because all they care about is winning. And you actually feel that you hear it all the time. And that's why I said you sort of become a steward of an asset. And hopefully we did a really good job when I owned it, the NBA. Had been around a long time when you bought the bucks and probably be around for hopefully forever.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Bull riding is something that's a little bit different. Obviously it's been around, but not in terms of franchise value, leagues, et cetera, sports tv rights, et cetera. Tell that story because I think it's a fascinating window into the sort of thing that probably people aren't thinking about as an asset that you might look. At or be interested in. What I'm trying to do when we're investing in sports is I don't know what people will like.

Marc Lasry

I don't know what you want to watch. What I do know is what people are currently watching, and you know that from the ratings. So bull riding, it's really rodeos that have been around for 5100 years. People love it. And I had heard about it from a number of friends who had invested in it and said, you need to take a look at this.

You're going to be shocked at how many people are actually loving to watch it on tv, loving going to the rodeos, to the bull riding events. So I started doing work. What I learned was at the time they did their media deal with CB's sports. They got paid zero. And the reason they got paid zero is CB's was like, look, we have no idea if anybody's going to watch it.

If they do, great, we'll make a lot of money. And if they don't, we're not going. To put it on. But there's a production cost and everything. And so they do that.

And within the span of three years, you have roughly the same amount of people watching a bull riding event that watch an NBA game. It really is. And what that tells you is you have 350 million Americans that some love bull riding, some love basketball, some love baseball. So we ended up doing that. And the teams at the time were.

Speaker B

Worth about a million or two, and. Three years later they were worth 25 million. For people who bought them then, they've made anywhere between ten to 20 times on their money in three years. We bought a team for 25 million and we decided to put a team here in New York. We're going to do it out of the Barclay center.

Marc Lasry

But the reason we did that is we think the next media deal is going to be, it could be somewhere around 50 million, 100,000,200, 500 million a year. I don't know what it'll be, but. It'S definitely going to be more than zero. And if you think about it, we own a percentage of the league. And when you end up figuring out with that percentage, which you will own are the media rights, I think the value of these teams in two to five years will be 510, 20 times.

Speaker B

What you paid for it. Here's an interesting statistic that's just happened. So I don't know if you watched the woman's final and course me and everybody else, but think about that. So four years ago, I don't think people would have been interested or would have watched it. And you saw that from the meteorites that the women's NCAA got.

Marc Lasry

Well, you fast forward to today. You had 18 million Americans who watched it, by the way. That's more than I've ever watched an NBA game. It's more than I've ever watched a playoff game. It's more that's ever watched a baseball, the World Series.

It's actually more than I've ever watched a men's NCAA game. So you look at that and go, that came out of nowhere. But now that you know that people are watching it, do you think you want to pay more for women's media rights on the women's NCA? The answer is yes. But five years ago, I would have told you I have no idea.

And so what we're trying to do is see what people are doing and invest and buy into leagues and teams where we know there's already interest. So that's what's different. What about sailing? So I don't know if you can tell, but I'm not a big sailor. I don't know what a big sailor looks like.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Not you. It certainly isn't me because I get seasick, put me on a boat that rocks. I just want to get off. But that's the same thing. So Larry Ellison, three years ago, starts a sailing league and he starts it with about $250 million.

Marc Lasry

If you think about that. Why does he do that? Because he's a big proponent of America's cup, believes that people love sailing, and says, I'm going to create twelve teams. I'm going to have Team USA, Team Canada, Team Australia. I'm going to do all of that.

Okay. I would tell you three to five years ago, that's a venture deal. And you hope that he'll be successful, but nobody knows. He does a deal with CB's sports for $40 million a year, global, because. They think about 100,000 people are going to watch that.

Speaker B

Okay. I would actually think that would be logical. Fast forward to today. So in three years, they just had a race about three or four weeks ago. So they have about 20 races a year.

Marc Lasry

And in that race, they had about 2 million Americans who watched that. So you look at that and go, where did that come from? How'd you go about, that's like an NBA level? Yeah, yeah. It's more than an NBA level.

And I wouldn't have told you there's 2 million people in the United States who love sailing and who want to watch it, but there is. So what that tells you is their next media deal is going to be. Multiples of what the first one was. And that's how we look at things. And for right now, for whatever reason.

Speaker B

In sports, you can actually take advantage of that. What's the most peculiar sports deal you've looked at in this pursuit so far? Oh, my God. Maybe the slapping one. Yeah, the slapping one.

Marc Lasry

It really is. I don't understand. People watch. People love watching it. You got to go back in time.

Imagine somebody comes to you and goes, look, I got a great idea. Here's my idea. I'm going to film people just smacking each other and just slapping each other out. And you're like, okay, nobody wants to watch that. What are you crazy?

No, I'm not funding that yet. That's become a really popular sport. I don't know how you train for it. The other one, that's actually really weird, but requires a tremendous amount of skill. It's on a ping pong table that's at an angle, and all you can do is you've got to hit the ball.

It's got to hit your side, then the other side, but you can only do it with your feet. Yeah, it's like soccer style. And I'm looking at that going, I don't know. It's not for me. But now, would I invest in that?

Sure. If I saw that a million Americans are watching it. It's not what I like, it's what people like. The one that I always find fascinating, and somebody explained this to me really well. There's a media executive that you would know who runs a large company, ends up saying, look, when we have the Olympics, you ever watch that?

I go, yeah. I goes, you ever watch curling in the Olympics? I'm like, yeah, I do. And he goes, well, let me explain the sport to you. I'm going to have somebody roll a ball on ice to a circle, and the person in front of them is going to shave the ice to make it either go slower or faster.

I would have said that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard yet. I'm fascinated when I watch it. And what he explained is people love watching the best in the world compete, period. And that's why people watch on tv, because they want to see the best in the world compete. And I've always remembered that.

So that when I'm investing, it's, let's do things where it's the best people in the world compete because that's what. People want to watch. One explanation I heard many years ago, just to simplify things to basic supply and demand, this was, baseball was like, look, there's going to be roughly 30 teams. There's not going to be 70. And so the supply is fairly fixed, and the sorts of people that can and want to buy a baseball team is probably going up.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Therefore, I'm interested in buying a baseball team. How much do you think about the very basic supply demand story for any one of these things? Is that one of the key models for thinking about buying one of these franchises? It is, because ultimately you have more people who want to own a team, especially in their community, than you have teams. And whether that's baseball, basketball, bull riding.

Speaker B

Sailing, golf, whatever it is, you're seeing the rise of women's soccer, you're going. To see the rise of women's volleyball. There are more people who have the means and the wherewithal to own a team and want to grow it within that community. I think you will have teams, so it is a big factor. And then if those teams can make money, then you've increased the amount of people who will want to buy that.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Trey, does it feel like you are the only or one of the only people approaching this the way that you are with the institutional investor mindset versus just. I'm a local, I'm in Detroit. I want a Detroit team or something. I think today, yes, but I think. Within three to five years, absolutely not.

Marc Lasry

I mean, I think there's a number of firms out there that are getting started that want to do the same thing. So I think you're literally in the first inning of investing in sports. I think as private equity comes in, as more institutional capital comes in, you're not going to be able to do the bull riding. You're not going to be able to do the sailing. You're going to be paying much higher pricing for this because it's going to become a much more efficient market.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

What role does gambling play in this entire story? So the great thing about gambling, at least from the way I look at it, is what gambling does is increase the engagement that people have with whatever they're gambling on. So I'm not going to make money on the fact that people are gambling. That's going to be fanduel DraftKings or whoever people are doing it with. They've already got that monopoly.

Marc Lasry

But the more people who bet on a particular game means there's more people watching that. The more people who watch that means my ratings go up. The higher my ratings are, the higher media deal I'm going to get. So I think it's just part of the ecosystem, and the whole thing in the ecosystem is, how do I make you become a Knicks fan? How do I make you become a Bucks fan?

Because the more people who watch, the higher I'm going to get paid. Preston, how big is the universe of eligible deals in this world right now, today? If you had your whatever funnel, I'm picturing some deal funnel at the top of that funnel. What do you think that number is? I would say it's hundreds of billions of dollars.

I would have thought it was a lot smaller. And as we've started doing this, the amount of deals and the amount of, I would say, opportunities we see is staggering because it's in everything. It's on the real estate side. It's on. Do we want to build hotels near a stadium?

Do we want near arena? Do we want to build restaurants? Do we want to do food services in the arena? What are we doing? And anything that's sports related, I think.

Speaker B

Is just massive opportunities making you put. Your credit hat back on for just a second. It's gotten really interesting because now it seems like the opportunity costs are quite high. You could get whatever low double digits, maybe in credit somewhat reliably. How do you think about hurdle rates and expected returns, desired returns, just the brass tax of what you want to earn on your equity capital?

Trey, I think there's two things you're. Going to be doing. One, you will be doing credit, so you'll lend people money on that. You're going to be lending at ten to 15%. It'll be the same thing we're doing on the credit side.

Marc Lasry

On the equity side. You're going to want to be generating. High teens to low twenties returns. I think today, because of the lack of capital, you're going to be able. To do that pretty easily.

But as more and more capital comes in, that's going to get harder. But that's the same in any asset class. What did you learn from David Bonderman? From David, I learned a lot. David was one of those rare individuals, in my opinion, that was exceptionally book smart and exceptionally street smart.

And normally people are one or the. Other, and David was both. And you saw that in situations and how quickly he could figure things out, but also how he could communicate with everybody. Everybody really liked him. Whether if you were an analyst, you could talk numbers with David, and not only could he keep up with you, he'd be better than you.

But if you just wanted to talk about how you're going to grow a company, what are we going to do on the marketing side, here's my vision. You could actually talk to David, and you thought you'd be able to communicate with him and you'd understand things. He was one of the first people I ever worked for in this business that was able, in my opinion, to do both. And not only do both at a. High level, but at the top.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

How would you articulate the magic of the bass family tree? It seems almost like the parcel's coaching tree or something like this. But in investing, so many interesting, talented people seem to have emerged in it or from it, or can draw lineage back to it. Bonderman, you, rainwater, lots of others. What made it such a special thing?

Marc Lasry

I think because 30, 35 years ago, when I went to work for them in 1988, they gave me 150 million. I was the largest distress fund in the world. In the world. And the reason why you have this lineage from them is there were about four or five families back then who had a lot of capital. So therefore, in my opinion, they attracted some of the smartest people because they would give you capital.

And very few people back then had capital. I mean, imagine if I'm running 150 million. I'm the largest fund. Most people back then were running 50 million, 100 million. And so you could go to the.

Speaker B

Bass family, you could go to a. Number of other families, and they put a lot of people in business. And because of that, I think there. Was one of the reasons why they did exceptionally well. If you think about what I'll call the chapter headings of the story of distressed as a style, you were the biggest fund back then.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Now it's a much, much bigger asset class. You're one of the big ones. How would you chunk that up into chapters? Just thinking back that whole time, what have been the chapters of distressed investing? Well, I think back then you needed to understand law and you needed to understand numbers, because bankruptcies were extremely complicated, and bankruptcies would take anywhere between three to six years, and it was a strict priority.

Marc Lasry

So you were constantly fighting. And then the bankruptcy laws were changed, and they were changed to make it better for creditors as opposed to debtors. And that one changed, ended up making bankruptcies. Instead of being five or six years, you now would have an 18 month to 24 month bankruptcy. Things became more streamlined, and you ended up, I think now you've still got a lot of fighting among different asset classes and different groups, but the timing element has all gotten condensed.

I think that's been a big change. Also, the increase in capital has made it worth it for people now to fight, whereas back then, because time was an asset that the debtor had, you actually settled a lot more. And even though somebody may have been junior to you, they could hold you up for two years. So it was worth it to work it out. Today it's not.

And so you're litigating more, you're fighting more. It's gotten harder. If I was forcing you to be in the business today of backing new credit firms, what would be the variables that you would care most about in evaluating those new firms? They've got to be really good, obviously. On the credit side.

They've got to actually also be very good on the restructuring side, so that if there's an issue, you can deal with it. And I would say that you can't be small. You've got to be large. Back then. People go, well, look, I'm small, I'm nimble, I'm quick.

I can do this, I can do that today. Nimble. Quick means nothing. I could destroy you. You need to be large.

Speaker B

That's the big difference. What's the funniest story that you can remember from your time with the Clintons in the nineties? Oh, my God. I think it's. I got to meet Putin with President Clinton, and it was at Davos, and I got to meet all these people, and I went, we'll go on meeting.

Marc Lasry

And President Clinton would always introduce me as his economic advisor. He's meeting with Putin. And then I come over and I'm saying hello and so on. And I asked President Clinton, I can. Do his voice really well.

Speaker B

Do it. All right. So I said to him, sir, is there any way we can get a picture? I don't think I'll ever meet Putin again. And president goes, oh, absolutely, Vladimir, you come over here now.

Marc Lasry

Vladimir, we're gonna take a picture. Is that all right? And Putin goes, new picture, new picture. And Clinton, without missing a beat, goes, all right, let's hurry up now. It's fascinating to me how people who nobody says no to, they don't really care.

They don't really care. And the fact we're taking this picture with Putin, just because I want to have a picture, and President Clinton is. Like, yeah, absolutely, we'll do that. You just got to meet. I won't say which country we're in.

We're in a country in the Middle east. And presently goes, you see that lamp over there? I go, yes, sir. He goes, I hate that lamp. I think it's one of the ugliest lamps I've ever seen.

I was like, okay. Seems okay to me. No, Mark, I'm telling you, it's ugly. I said, okay. We leave.

We go to the meeting. I look at him, I'm like, what do you care about the lamp for? He goes, oh, I just want to see if they record everything. And we come back and the lamp's gone. Right?

So it's just like always, he's. He loved the game. Yeah, he loved the game. He loved meeting everybody. It was always just fascinating being with him.

Speaker B

I loved it. I thought for somebody who wasn't born in this country, the fact that I could be with someone who was the ex president of the United States and travel and do all these things for me, I just loved it. I loved meeting people. I loved learning from him, he would explain history. He's a brilliant guy.

Marc Lasry

So it was fun. It was a lot of fun. You've had such a varied set of interests and past and things you've done. You seem very positive and cheery about them all. What is the through line of the things that tend to get your interest the most?

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

What do they all share in common? If anything, I think part of it. I'm always super curious. I just want to learn. And I think part of that, when I was a kid, my mother, we went, we didn't really have much money, so we had gone to a book fair and my mother bought funk and wagnalls encyclopedia, the world encyclopedias.

Marc Lasry

And she said, you need to read this, the whole thing from beginning to. End in one year. And you learned a ton of useless information. But it's like all of a sudden you're learning about the world, you're learning about different things, different species, and I found it fascinating. And so what I love is I actually think in life, and we all see this, people either have the happy gene or they have the miserable gene.

No matter what happens in the world, everything's bad or everything's good. To me, everything's good. It's all positive. I just want to keep learning and meeting interesting people and being in interesting situations using my mind, but trying to always learn from somebody. And so I'm always excited to be in new places and try to learn.

Speaker B

I'd love to hear a little bit. About what you learned of the various trade offs building a big investing firm. And I'm curious in lots of dimensions here. The difference between focus on returns and deals versus assets. Sometimes they go together, sometimes not.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

And just the trade offs that you felt coming up against as you built the business over time and why you made the choices that you made. It's a great question. I think when you're going through it. For all of us today, these are businesses. They really are.

Marc Lasry

And if I had known what I know today, I probably would have done things differently. It's just back then when you're getting started and you're growing, your focus is really on returns. It's not on building a firm, it's how do I make someone money? And you're just very, very focused on that. I think in 2012 we were running about 25 billion and I didn't see a lot of distress opportunities, so I ended up returning twelve plus billion to investors.

Speaker B

And the reason I did is I. Said, look, we're not seeing as much on the stress side. We think it'll come back in two or three years. So we're going to return this capital, we're going to sell things, and then we'll come back to you in two or three years to raise money. I was only off by ten years.

Marc Lasry

Right. Would you do that today? Would you return 12 billion of capital and just shrink your firm as a business? You wouldn't do that back then. Focus was, no, I'm just.

Speaker B

All I want to do is try to make return. I think you've seen people go down both roads where they've ended up growing their firms and trying to generate returns. And part of the ways they've done that is use more leverage. I think for us, we were always trying to do things on a lever basis. I had a lot of my capital here.

Marc Lasry

In retrospect, should we have tried to grow the firm more? Probably. I think for us it's fine. We're running about 1213 billion. I think we've done it where we were just focused on returns.

But the biggest problem I would tell you is we were very focused on. We were a credit shop. We were distressed. There wasn't a lot of that for about ten years. There is now.

So we were raising smaller funds because there was less to invest and we didn't go into other things. Should we have done direct lending? Yes. Should we have done private equity? Yes.

There's a lot of things we should have done. At the time you sort of looked at it and said, yeah, but that's a scale business. I don't want to focus on that. I want to try to generate higher returns. We've done really well, but at the same time, we probably should have grown.

Speaker B

Those other businesses in the spirit of. The period guy taking everyone's picture, say a little bit about team building and culture building in a firm like this, where the product is taking money and giving back more money. I take similar attitude in life. And with the Bucs, the biggest question you have at your firm and with a team is, do you hire talent or do you hire people who are team players? So here we can hire somebody who's a huge moneymaker, but by doing that, maybe they're not the best team player.

And causes huge issues within a firm. So what you really want to do. Is you want to have team players and still you're the Bucks team players who are going to win a championship here. You want to have team players who are going to generate good returns. And I think it's hard.

Marc Lasry

I mean, it is. It's a lot easier sometimes. To just higher talent and tell everybody, deal with it. I think for us at the firm, we've always made sure that if it's collegial, that we've got to get along, that we work together. So we've got a lot of tenure with the senior folks.

If somebody creates issues, they're gone. I always marvel at pension plans and folks who say, well, we see that you've had some turnover, and you're like, yes, the reason you have turnover is sometimes you fire people who are not good, or sometimes you fire people who are difficult. And somebody will go, yes, but you've had turnover go. Right. So sometimes you fire people who are not good.

Sometimes you fire people who are difficult, and then next day they'll go, so we saw you had turnover. You're like, okay, I give up. It was the same thing with, I. Would say, the bucks. The biggest question was, do we go for talent?

And you can see that certain teams. Have tried to do that. Or do you build a team in sports? Somebody's got to be the number one option. Somebody's got to be the number two option, somebody's number three.

You can't have four people who want to be the number one option. It's sort of same thing in investing. You can't have four people who are. Deciding what to do. You can have one person who decides what to do, and there's a team and people recommend, but ultimately, somebody's got to decide that there's got to be a senior portfolio manager, or you can.

Speaker B

Have two, where if you're running a. Lot more in assets. But I think for us, we've tried to be more of a team. Trey, if you think not including the bucks of the most memorable investment you ever made end to end, can you. Tell that story for us?

Marc Lasry

Txu was one of those investments where we started buying the bonds at 40, $0.50 did a tremendous amount of work. It became a huge position for the firm. We bought a tremendous amount of it. It went all the way up to 110. And there was one issue that we didn't think was an issue, and we should have sold at 110, and we were holding out for 115.

And decision came down in the courts, and bonds went down from 110 to 50. Learned a lot from that, which was trying not to always get the last dollar. Our thesis was right in what we. Were doing, and then what ended up. Happening towards the end is we became.

Speaker B

An arbitrage firm, and that's not who we are. I think on that, you learn quite a bit from that you learned quite a bit in 2008. I think 2008 was a great year to learn how to deal with stress, how to deal with things going down, how to understand. We were buying Ford bank that we'd start buying it at 80, 90 and it went all the way down for thirty cents and we kept buying it all the way down. And part of that, everybody goes, oh yeah, when things go down, double down.

Marc Lasry

It's not that easy. The reason it's not easy is the market's telling you you're totally wrong. Remember, when you're buying something, somebody's selling it. The person who's selling it thinks it's going lower. As things were going down, the amount of work we kept doing to try to make sure that we were right is the value of that asset correct?

That taught me quite a bit. You had to always refresh what you were thinking and try to look at. It in a different way. It's not easy making money, but it's a process. And I think as time goes on, you actually learn how to avoid a lot of mistakes.

Speaker B

What do you think are the most. Important things about building relationships with capital, with the people that give you the money to manage, especially at the multi billion dollar scale for the big firms out there? What have you learned about that whole part of the business? It's very much about trust. It's about you constantly telling people who have a lot of capital with you what you think is good, what you think is bad.

Marc Lasry

Admitting mistakes when you've done something wrong or you've made a bad investment, I think it becomes really a very strong relationship that you're developing and you're building. And to keep on getting more capital. People have to trust you. People know you're smart. Everyone's smart.

Everybody's smart. It's not I always love. Oh, no, he's really smart. Oh, shocking. Oh, let's go give money to the dumb guy.

Nobody does that. I've never heard. I need the dumb guy. That's the guy. That's my guy.

Have you ever seen that? No. Everybody's smart. So what separates it, it is trust. It's the fact that you're explaining things to investors and when you've made a mistake, say, look, we thought this was going to be what it is.

It wasn't. And if people trust you, they give. You more capital because they believe in what you're doing. So I think that's why you've seen certain firms really grow and others not grow as much. You have a really interesting story in the sense that you started the business with your sister, you work with your kids, you've made investments with them and on their behalf.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

I think the Bucs included lots of working with family, which can be beautiful, can be fraught. What have you learned about doing that? Well, because it seems like it's worked. Very well for you. My partner is my sister.

Marc Lasry

I don't know if that works for everybody. For us, it works extremely well. Sonia and I started this together and there's just a huge amount of trust and also we have different skillsets, so we don't feel like we're competing against each other. And I think when your partners with a sibling, it's very much about trusting them to do what they do really well and them trusting you to do what you do really well and not constantly looking over your shoulder. And I think with Sonya, we've split up the firm in different ways.

And she's phenomenal, what she does, and. It'S actually worked out very well. But I think part of that is you've got to have a pretty close relationship. We shared a room till we both went to college. I don't think it's because we wanted to.

I don't think I was dying to share a room with my sisters. But you do. And you either end up really trusting, liking each other, or it goes the other way. You just don't ever want to spend time with each other because of all. The difficulties you've gone through.

My daughter works here, but the reason she works here is I think she's, I know I'm biased, but I think she's really talented. My son worked for us when we were with the bucks and I think he did a phenomenal job. He now works in the commerce department. I think it's hard working with your kids. I think it's hard working with any family member.

But you either are able to and there's a level of trust or you're not. When you ask around about you, a common thing you hear over and over is that for the category of people that have achieved the level of financial success, youre amongst the happiest, or if not the happiest, just by the way you are. And you said earlier that people are wired, optimistic or pessimistic. Is it that simple? Do you think its just that easy?

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Because even for optimists, it seems like with lots of financial success can come lots of other maybe problems that arent expected. Has it always felt easy to you? No, it's not that it's easy. Anything intentional you've done. I think I won the lottery.

Marc Lasry

People win the lottery the first day, they're so excited, and then you start hearing about, ugh. The only reason somebody wants to be my friend is because I have money. The only reason somebody wants to do this is they want me to help them. They want me to do this. I always just go back, I won the lottery.

What would you rather do? Not win the lottery or win the lottery. And that's actually why I'm happy. I always think back to the fact I won the lottery. And, yes, it's complicated by winning the lottery.

Yes, it's complicated by having success. And I always try to say to people, you've got a choice. You can either win the lottery or not win. And if you win, you're going to have other issues. But if you don't win the lottery, you also have other issues.

Speaker B

So which one do you want? And I think what ends up happening is people forget of how hard you work to try to achieve success, and then they start focusing on the negatives of that success as opposed to the positives to me. I started a fund at a time that it was really hard, but then we grew, and I was lucky enough to grow exponentially, and I'm always thankful for that. I think people have too many demons when they do well and are so worried of what is somebody's ulterior motive. To me, it's, look, I don't really worry about your motive.

Marc Lasry

I'm happy I'm in that situation. Yes, I get it that at times. People wanted to be friends because I own the basketball team better than the alternative, right? No, but that's exactly it. But people go, oh, it's so complicated.

It's not that complicated. You own a basketball team. When we won the championship, President Biden called me. President Obama called me. President Clinton called to congratulate.

Speaker B

I thought that was really cool. I mean, I got to go to the White House. We got honored at the White House, and we brought all the players. I thought that was a unique experience. I get excited about the fact every day I won the lottery.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

What was your favorite moment associated with that championship run? If you had to pick a moment. I was lifting the trophy. It's actually funny. Beforehand, the NBA takes you through and says, okay, if you win, the trophy's.

Speaker B

Here, you're going to lift it up. And here's how we're going to do it. I'm like, okay, great. I don't know. How heavy is it?

Marc Lasry

Do you mind if I just prop this little test drive and they go, no, no, no, you can't touch it because then you're going to get your fingerprints on it and the camera. We don't want to see fingerprints. You're going to do this live. And I'm like, okay, how heavy is it? They're like, well, don't worry about it.

I'm like, no, no, it's on national tv. You win. You go out there and my whole family's there, and we're so excited because all of a sudden you realize you're going to win. And you've got the championship ceremony, and. You go out, and I start lifting.

The trophy really slowly because I have no idea how heavy it is. And finally I realized, okay, yeah, I could take it. I can put it over my head, because last thing you ever want to do is drop it. Yes. Drop national tv.

Speaker B

Oh, look at him. He dropped the drum. I don't know how people got my phone number. I'm being serious. I must have gotten 1000 texts of congratulations.

Marc Lasry

Happy for you. I'm like, no, thank you. Who is this? Thank you. Who is this?

I'd say a quarter of the text was, who is this? Who is this? It's a friend of yours from ten. Years ago or five years ago, and you go, thank you so much. But it was actually a really cool.

Speaker B

Experience to share to be there. I remember I went up to a number of the players afterwards and I said, let's be honest, couldn't have done this without me, right?

Marc Lasry

And they go, no, we could have. I was like, really?

Another part that you'll find really funny. Cause we all see it on tv is when everybody's popping the champagne. So you've had champagne. Nobody pours champagne on their eyes. It actually is a burning sensation.

It really hurts. And that's why you see people with goggles. Goggles. And I always thought, oh, what wimps. We were going in with goggles.

Oh, what, they can't have a little water pepper spray? Yeah. I didn't know because it stung. I thought it was just they didn't want to have stuff. And so in the beginning, I don't have my goggles on.

I'm like, oh, my God, this hurts. We're the goggles. What a cool thing to experience. And then, you know the part that's funny? So in between the ceremony, they go.

And they put plastic all over the. Locker room so that you can go spray. So all of a sudden, there's some professional guy who comes in and tapes up the whole locker room with plastic because you walk in, you're like, what. The hell just happened here? But that.

Speaker B

And then as we're going in, my. Daughter, we go, there's somebody outside who says he wants to come in. Is he a lot? I'm like, yeah, sure. And so we had more people in.

The locker room than we should have had. Cause people were just asking if they could come in. I was like, yeah, why not? It's a great time. It was a lot of fun.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Where do you think, if you think about a room full of your peers relative to that room, your views of the world would be the most divergent or different? I think being in a room with. NBA owners, people have very, very different. Views because everybody's made money a different way. Everybody's got different political beliefs.

Marc Lasry

It's fascinating to be in a room where you've got 30 folks who've done exceptionally well, but in totally different industries, so they view their industry as being the right industry. It's actually very interesting. What would be the most surprising about that NBA room, apart from it just being lots of different ways to make money? No, I think just age is a big factor. You've got three groups of owners.

You've got the owners who bought the teams 30 years ago, you've got owners who bought teams ten years ago, and then you've got owners who bought them today. And the ones today are much younger, have made money much earlier, much quicker. And then the ones who are much older, who are in their seventies, bought the teams for like $20,000,000.15, 50 million, 100 million. So their net worth is actually tied up in the team. And I would say the folks who, ten years ago, teams were expensive but not stratosphere.

Today, a team is three or $4 billion. A football team is six or $7 billion. It's a different level of wealth. It's crazy to think about. No, no, it really is.

I couldn't afford a team today. Well, he had a good timing. No, it was good. My kids could. If you think about the pool of.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Money that you've got, and let's say you had to have others manage it, you couldn't do it yourself anymore. As you think through that lineup, do more individual people come to mind that you would want to give it to or firms? For me, it's people. But that's because you think that says something interesting. No, it's just being in the business, what you do is you meet a number of people.

Marc Lasry

So to me, someone like David Blitzer is exceptionally talented in what he's doing? Yes. He's at Blackstone, and Blackstone's a great firm. But when I think of Blackstone, I think of David. To me, Josh Harris was somebody who, when he was at Apollo, I didn't think of Apollo.

Speaker B

I'd give money to Josh. Now, would I give money to Apollo? Yes. But why? Because I think Mark Rowan is super talented, and I think Mark's doing a great job.

Marc Lasry

Then you look at younger individuals, folks that I've given money to. I've given money to Matt Perelman and his partner Alex. I think they're the next generation. Folks like Boaz Weinstein, Jason Mudrick, Steve Ross on the real estate side, and then just different folks that are out there that I think are super talented. I got to meet when we were doing sculptor, I got to spend more time with Jeff yast.

I thought he was really smart. And would I give his firm money? Yes. Because I came away thinking, jeff is really smart. Ross Stevens, Ed Stonebridge, same thing.

I thought he's really smart. Bill Ackman. You bump into people, and it's those. People that you want to give money to. Can you say a word or two.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

More about Matt and Alex and what makes them special in your mind as. Big up and comers? I think, one, they have the ability to do both. And what I mean by that is they're both street smart and book smart. Back to your point.

Speaker B

Yeah, it really is. I think matt and Alex are just really bright guys. Yeah. And you'll never laugh harder. Yeah.

Marc Lasry

But you'll have a great time with Matt and Alex. So they will appeal to both groups of people. You'll be with them, you'll go, wow, really great guys. I want to give them money cause I think they're great guys. Or you go, wow, those guys are really freaking smart.

I want to give them money cause. I think they're freaking smart. The fact that you can do both is why I think they're gonna build a great firm. It's why I gave them money. I don't wanna just give money to.

People who I think are just smart. I wanna give money to people who I think have both of those qualities. Because in our business, that's really rare. If you were forced to not be an investor and had to build some other kind of business, what would you build? What would I build?

Speaker B

Wow. I'd probably try to build a sports business because I think that's unique and different. I'd like to build a real estate business. I think things that bring people together is always interesting and try to use the fact that I can deal with people pretty easily. So I'd want to be in a.

Business where you're constantly dealing with folks. Give me, if you say a click, more about each of those. So, starting with sports, how would you approach sports? Where do you think in the world of sports? There's interesting things to explore today.

In 2024, I think you want to try to build. Where do you think there's going to be growth? So if I was starting out today, I would tell you the biggest growth is going to be probably in women's sports. Why? Because the cost of it is much lower.

Marc Lasry

And I think you're starting to see that the next generation wants to be more involved in women's sports. So I want to try to buy. A bunch of women's teams. You would try to do that in. One city if you could.

It's just hard to try to do. It in a city. I think. I love architecture, so I'd love to try to do the real estate side and I'd love to try to build buildings that I thought are beautiful but that people would want to either live. In or work in.

Speaker B

What about international? We talked a lot about the US. What do you think is the opportunity, or lack thereof, outside the US? Oh, I think it's the same thing. I think Europe is always 510 years behind the US.

Marc Lasry

I know Europeans hate it when I say that. Look, in Europe right now, the biggest sport is soccer. The biggest thing about european sports is relegation and promotion. So I think it's just hard because. There you do have to spend money and if you don't spend money, you get relegated.

So think of that. You don't have a choice of making money. You've got to constantly be spending. So I'd want to be in leagues where you're not doing that, where actually, if you spend the money and you spend the time and you create something that you still have that, that it doesn't get relegated. So I think there's massive opportunities in Europe and in, I would say in Asia in sports, because that's very much a sports culture.

Speaker B

You tell me. Here we have minor league baseball, double aaa. How many of those games have you ever gone to? One. No, but in Europe, I mean, in the UK, you've got Premier League, Championship league, League one, League two, and people are as crazy about the team in League two as they are about their Premier League team.

Marc Lasry

So it's very, very different. And so because of that, that means people love sports and people are passionate about it. People who have a passion of something. I should be able to create and. Build something that can take advantage of that.

Speaker B

What does it take to be a. Good mentor to younger investors? You just have to care. I think part of it is, to. Me, David Bonnerman, I would tell you, is my mentor that a mentor is somebody who wants you to succeed, whether he succeeds or not, what you find.

Marc Lasry

Most people are happy for you to succeed as long as it's with them. Yes. That's not a mentor. That's somebody who's helping you. And that's fine.

Speaker B

There's nothing wrong with it. A real mentor is somebody who wants you to do well, is trying to. Help you do well. That's hard. It's hard for all of us, especially in this business.

Marc Lasry

Cause this is a zero sum business. And if you're lucky enough to find somebody in this business who's doing that, it's rare. If you think about long exposure in credit, equities, sports, what do you think the biggest risks are in the world today for each of those categories? I think it's just geopolitical, it's exogenous events. It's things that you and I can't control.

It's bad things happening. And you and I never would have. Thought we have an airline fund. And people would go, what do you think is the worst thing that happens? They go, oh, worst case, maybe it's down 1%, 2%.

People are always going to be flying. COVID comes and it drops 95%. People couldn't go into stadiums. People couldn't do anything. What can happen that will change the way people act?

And it's usually negative things. It's not a positive event. It's going to be a negative event. So that's what I worry about. What's the nature of the airline fund?

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

I don't know much about that. Oh, no, we just raised the fund to buy planes. What was the opportunity you saw at the beginning? Well, no, the opportunity is you buy older planes and then you lease them out, and then you're buying a plane at a discount to what it's worth, because people really want to just fly on new planes. And we thought as the airline industry kept on growing, but as travel kept on growing, you were going to need more planes, and people would lease those planes out, and we'd make money on that.

Marc Lasry

And if that didn't happen, you could strip the planes out for parts, and at the very least, you were going to make your money on the asset. Value of the plane. And where you made real money was, if you could lease them out and then strip it for parts. So it's a great model as long. As people are leasing planes, when all.

Of a sudden nobody's flying and takes. Two to three years for things to come back. It had a real impact. I think we were down 75%. We're back up now.

But I think that was because of the hard work of the team and what they were able to do with Sean Foley, who runs that fund, what him and his team were able to do. I mean, it was huge. It's interesting that you had an airline fund, never a private equity fund. What was usually the arbiter between doing something and not doing something at avenue? What was the framework you would usually apply for?

Speaker B

Yes or no? Well, because in that space, we were always investing in airlines, in the distress fund, or in planes. So it's, hey, how cheap could you buy an equipment trust certificate? How cheap could you buy this plane? You had people who needed sell asset and you'd buy that.

Marc Lasry

So that's sort of why. And then you saw, look, we're seeing huge opportunities there, but we can't do as much in the main fund. Let's go do a specific fund for that. So that's why we do private equity. You need a team.

I mean, it's totally different. What's the fattest pitch that you've ever seen in your life and career in investing? Oh, God. That would be when I was able to buy trade claims. So under bankruptcy, under the old bankruptcy.

Speaker B

Code, there was a convenience class, and. A convenience class was. Nobody knew what that would be, whether it was claims of 10,000 or 25,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 and below. But that convenience class, you always needed a class to vote in favor of a plan. So the way they vote in favor is you gave them 100 cents.

Marc Lasry

So back then you could buy these claims for ten cents. Twenty cents. Thirty cents. Forty cents on a dollar. And you were getting 100 cents.

Speaker B

So it was a great, great business. It wasn't scalable, but it was a phenomenal business. How big did it get? It got large. You could invest 25, $50 million, $100 million.

And why was no one else doing it? Whenever there's that kind of opportunity, you. Always wonder, it's too small, it's a lot of work. You make it up in volume. Yes, I can go buy a $10,000 claim.

So, okay, big deal. I bought a 5000, I made 5000. Nobody really cares. But if I go buy 100 of those, if I go buy 500 of those, yes, but it's a lot of. Work to go do that.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy

If I could snap any sports franchise in the world into your portfolio, 100% ownership, what would you take? Any sports franchise. Wow. I guess the Knicks. Why?

Do you have a fan? No, because I live here in New York. You did the nets? Yeah. It's just, it's exhausting.

Marc Lasry

It's tiring. You gotta fly 2 hours to Milwaukee. How much would you do that? I did it a lot. I'd go to probably half the games.

Speaker B

Wow. You'd go to LA? I mean, that was actually one of the reasons. If I lived in Milwaukee, I wouldn't have sold. But you don't?

Marc Lasry

I think if you could own a franchise, I think Knicks would be great. I think Giants or Jets football team. Is actually a great franchise to own. Think about it. You only have 18 games, and you're getting paid $10 billion on your meteorite for that.

Speaker B

Pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty good. What do you think the most misunderstood sport is? The business, the game, anything. You've got to be passionate about that.

Marc Lasry

If you're a baseball team owner, there's 81 home games. You should be at those games. Part of what a fan wants to see is that you're involved, that you believe in it. For them to be excited, you need to be excited. So I think it's hard.

Baseball's hard just simply because there's so many games. Football's easier. Cause you can go, it's once a week, so it's easier to go to a game. I think hockey's a great sport. You either love it or you don't.

Speaker B

I love soccer. I wish there was more scoring. But the purist will tell you, no, a beautiful game is one that's 10. I'm like, no, that's a boring game. But you've got all these different things.

If you think across all the deals. You'Ve done, you've done a lot in lots of different categories. How would you summarize your philosophy of deal making? I would tell you, toe is you want to win, but you don't want to hurt the other person. And what I mean by that is I don't think whenever we've negotiated, we've tried to get the last dollar, you want to do a deal that is good for you and ends up being fair.

Marc Lasry

And the simple reason for that is what you find out over time is if you have a really good reputation, it's shocking how many deals come to you. If your reputation is you're just trying to rip somebody's lungs out. Yes, you will. You'll be able to do that, but. You'Re not going to have a lot of those deals.

It's just hard. And in the world of credit, I'm sure you see a lot of lung ripping. No, you do. You do. And you see there's people who do that, and you're like, okay, I can't do business with you.

You could have made a lot of money in my business by getting control of a company, firing everybody, and liquidating that company for the assets. I never, ever wanted to do that. To me, that had no interest, even though you could make more money. And the reason for that is why do you want to try to do things that are going to hurt others? And, yes, you can make more money doing that, but I think in life, if you're smart enough, you can figure out ways where you can make money.

Speaker B

Trey, this has been such a fun. Romp through a very interesting and lively career of investing. I always ask the same traditional closing question of everybody. What's the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? Oh, that's interesting.

Marc Lasry

I think probably for me, it was when I went to school, being able to get a scholarship, because I don't think I could be where I am today without people who helped you get there. The other ones is, I want to thank every girl who said yes to me when I was in high school for a date. They were just purely kind. I think people just felt bad.

I was not a player or whatever you want to describe. I was one of those geeky folks. So for all of you who I was able to take out on a date, thank you. I think that's the first time I've heard that specific answer. I love it.

Thanks to all those great, so true. It sounds so sad back then, but I think when we look at life, there are people who helped you get to where you are, and I don't even know if you got to meet him. For me to go to Clark on a full scholarship, it was academic. They were the only school who gave. Me a full scholarship.

Speaker B

That's why I went. And it was great. And because of that, I was able to then go to law school, and I was able to do what I did. But if I hadn't, I mean, yes. I would have found a way to go to a college or something, but you needed money.

Marc Lasry

I'm not saying it's right or it's fair, but the fact that others helped you do that, there are people who have huge influences on your life that you don't fully appreciate. Well, this has been so much fun. Thank you for your time. No, thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, check out joincolossus.com dot.

Speaker A

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Marc Lasry - Making Bucks in Credit and Sports - [Invest Like the Best, EP.371]

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1: Introduction

2: Career Beginnings

3: Sports Investments

4: Future of Sports Investing

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