Warburg Pincus CEO Jeffrey Perlman on navigating a trickier private equity environment
2025/4/21
Goldman Sachs Exchanges
A
Alison Massey
J
Jeffrey Perlman
Jeffrey Perlman: 我认为，在当今这个复杂多变的私募股权环境中，多元化策略至关重要。这包括投资年份、地域、行业和交易数量的多元化。我们必须避免在市场高点进行过度投资，并在压力时期保持投资的持续性。此外，我们必须能够在投资组合中找到可以出售的资产，以确保资本的持续回流。在亚洲的经历让我深刻认识到这一点，因为那里的商业周期往往比较短，这要求我们不能过于依赖现有资产，而要抓住机会变现。
我坚信，在未来十年，私募股权对机构投资者来说将比以往任何时候都更加重要，因为其能够产生超越公开市场的回报。
在亚洲的经历，让我深刻理解了不同市场（如中国和印度）的资本环境差异，以及这些差异如何影响创业者的运营能力。在中国，资本曾经容易获得且成本较低，这导致创业者在运营效率方面相对欠缺。而印度由于资本成本高，创业者则更注重运营效率。因此，我认为中国私募股权投资的未来将更加注重盈利能力和运营效率，而印度的创业者则因其强大的运营能力而具有优势。
在亚洲，我们已经建立了多元化的业务，以应对不同市场（如中国和印度）的波动。我们很早就进入中国和印度市场，并在东南亚等新兴市场建立了业务。我们还努力在成熟的亚洲市场建立业务，以实现多元化。
在过去几年中，我们70%以上的亚洲投资都是控股交易，这与我们早期在亚洲的投资策略有所不同。
我从前任首席执行官Chip Kaye那里学到了很多，尤其是关于企业文化的重要性。他非常重视企业文化，并努力在公司内部营造积极向上、团结一致的氛围。
成为首席执行官后，我最大的感受是需要对工作进行优先排序。以前，我可以专注于自己的交易和团队，而现在，我需要考虑整个公司的方方面面，包括现有投资组合、未来融资渠道等等。
我认为，Warburg Pincus成功领导层过渡的经验包括：重视连续性、提前规划、将机构利益置于个人利益之上以及与投资者保持透明沟通。
我认为，亚洲、人工智能和技术进步是Warburg Pincus未来的巨大机遇。在亚洲，不断增长的中产阶级将带来巨大的消费潜力。人工智能将对我们的投资组合公司产生深远的影响，这将体现在收入增长和成本优化方面。
我非常重视回馈社会，尤其关注儿童教育和犹太社区。
Alison Massey: 我认为，当前高利率、地缘政治不确定性和竞争加剧的环境对私募股权投资者来说非常困难。
supporting_evidences
Jeffrey Perlman: 'And when I look back in 1971, we raised at the time was a $41.5 million fund. I think the Wall Street Journal at the time said, I'm...Also, the limited partnership agreement, I think it was all of 10 pages, and it probably covers about 95% of what's in our documents today that now consist of about 1,000 pages. So the visionary elements that Lionel had, when you think about the structure of that vehicle, pretty much still holds today.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'So I was going back in time and one of the great investments in that fund was we invested all of $5 million for a 10% stake in 20th Century Fox. Wow. Right before Star Wars ultimately came out. And so it was a great kind of example of a lot of noise, a lot of challenging times, stagflation, still find really interesting and compelling opportunities to invest in. Yeah. 1974 was one of those times.'
Alison Massey: 'There is a perception that higher rates and an uncertain geopolitical environment, and that's an understatement, not to mention a greater degree of competition, make this a really difficult environment for private equity investors. So what is your view of today's environment?'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'Yeah, first I'd say there's a tendency for investors to get caught up in the current moment as this is the most complicated that we've ever seen.If you think about, again, the 1970s, or you think about when we're going through the fall of the Soviet Union, you weren't sure what it was going to look like on the other end. But ultimately, obviously, things continued to work out and that compounding in terms of positive growth continued.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'And so I think that's first and foremost, the industry has to contend with that. The industry has to contend on top of that with really the most amount of inventory it's had at one point in time, right? We've got an average hold period now in private equity of over six years.60% of the inventory has been around for over four years. So we've got to continue to work off the excess, especially of the 2021 vintage that existed. And then you've got potentially a little bit of a change or maybe a material change in what this economic order, you know, the U.S. architected going back the last seven or eight decades. So there's no question this is a challenging macro and geopolitical environment.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'One of our defining features is our diversification. I think everyone likes to feel like they can predict the future. I think few have been able to demonstrate that they can do that consistently. And at the end of the day, it comes back to, are you diversified? And I think the firm is really well positioned in that regard to try to navigate through as we have for over 50 continuous years of investing.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'I think when we think about diversification by design, we think about it by vintage. This is a very pro-cyclical industry. Everyone likes to invest a lot at the peak, and then they tend to underinvest during periods of stress. And then they wonder why do we end up below the benchmark? So I think A, vintage diversification is so important. Try to invest about the same amount year in and year out. Second is certainly geographic.Third, sector diversification. And then the fourth, which is also overlooked, is also in terms of number of deals, right? Being sometimes too concentrated can really exacerbate one time you're in the top quartile, maybe you're in the bottom quartile.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'Because if you go back in time, even 20 years ago to roughly around 2006, the percentage probability of a private equity fund who is in the first quartile to then be in the first quartile again in the next fund was over 40%. Today, it's less than a quarter. Wow. So there's been a big change. And I think those investors who can deliver that consistency and persistence of returns...I think are going to be even more valuable to their investors and to their LPs going forward.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'I think for RLPs, especially the big institutions, when they look out over the next decade, I think the value of private equity to them, the ability to generate that outperformance is going to be even more important in this next decade than it was in the previous decade of what was pretty strong public market performance.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'You know, it was a good question. At first, I didn't, when I was first going into investment banking, I didn't even know what that was at first when I was in the business school. None of us did. In the undergraduate business school at the University of Michigan. And my sister, who's three years older, had also gone to the Michigan Business School because my father gave us great advice growing up.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'And it was their first foray into that space. And so it gave me an opportunity to come over right away.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'There's some people who grow up and they're like, they're looking for that adventure and they want to get scratch that itch by kind of going to a place like Asia. I wasn't that person. I was probably more prototypical American in the Midwest. Probably my geography wasn't my strength. But right around the financial crisis, there was an opportunity that the firm was looking at in China. And again, it had real estate element to it.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'One of the reasons why I liked real estate so much in an Asia context was...I felt it was one of the best ways to play emerging consumption at scale. Many of the other areas, whether you were at the time in China 15, 20 years ago, looking at a healthcare deal, it would be like a $30 million investment. Whereas because you're investing in hard assets, you had a huge opportunity. I also liked real estate because when you looked at the listed universe of real estate companies, in the US you would look and...home buildings like five or 6% of the total pie, you had office and retail and logistics and self-storage. And you looked in Asia, and at that time it was 98% comprised of home builders, of residential developers. And I looked at that, I said, there has to be an opportunity to go build leading players in each of these other areas. And so kind of marrying the private equity mindset of the firm with an understanding of the bricks and mortar of the real estate. And so we very much...went on to do that.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'So I think those were two that really stood out. And I'd say really the third over time was really trying to build out a more diversified Asia business, because in my view,...So investors have woken up to the reality of China can be up, India can be down. India's up, China's down. Most are trying to look at and say, "Look, Asia's going to represent two thirds of global growth over the next decade." We want to try to find a diversified way to play that. And so really what we needed to do was take the success that we had more in emerging Asia and really start to build that out across mature Asia.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'One of the unique angles, I guess, or lens that we've had because we've been there for so long is really the difference in, I'd say, the capital environment in both markets and how it's really then translated into what I would call the operational talent that exists in the markets. What I mean by that is if you take India, India has been in an environment where capital was always very expensive and it was less readily available. And it really forced...a bunch of entrepreneurs to really be very strong operators with their businesses. And we've seen that time and time again with the companies that we've invested in.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'Really, in China, I think the real test is going to be now the real private equity model. It's less momentum investing going forward. It's really going to be what we do here in the US and Europe and elsewhere. What can we do to grow earnings of this business and the value creation associated with that? And I think for me, the litmus test for the team in China is really threefold.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'I look back over the last even four or five years, over 70, 75% of our investments have been in majority control deals in Asia. That tends to surprise a number of our own investors of that. But that's how the market has continued to transform. Check sizes have gotten bigger. And again, the ability to get control, to be a majority investor, I think has grown considerably, even over just the last five years alone.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'You know, I think it is the most important question as an industry. Well, I think private equity is one of the few financial innovations that has always delivered on its stated promise over time. It's delivered this outperformance versus the public markets over a long period of time. But when you look at the liquidity element of it, the industry has now gone three consecutive years at distributions over...at 50% of its historical average, essentially 10% of NAV versus the historical 20% of NAV. And we've been very much the opposite of that, right? We've returned 50% more than we've invested over the last five years. That's extraordinary. You know, 45 billion distributed versus 30 invested, which Bloomberg reported over the last 12 months.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'One is diversification is incredibly powerful because I can always find things to sell in the portfolio. Yeah, you have more flexibility. You have things that are uncorrelated that you can make sure you can find elements to sell. And then even in the first few months of 25,...We've sold three very large businesses, which Goldman has helped on as well, that are in totally different sectors. We sold a business in financial services, Kestra, a healthcare IT business in modernizing medicine, and an industrials business, Sundyne. So it just speaks to, again, the benefits that come from a diversified portfolio, things in pockets that are uncorrelated. I think the second is the alignment model we have. One of the benefits of being one integrated global partnership, a true kind of old school partnership,...is we're all in the same bucket. And so it encourages everyone to want to sell to kind of get money off the table. And I'd say the third is you have to have a top-down approach associated with pushing the importance of realizations.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'I'd say a few things. One is what I just described, which is...You can't fall in love with your assets. You have to have a rigorous discipline on returning capital because you don't know when that next window is going to be there. I'd say the second is the importance of culture across the entirety of a firm, right? You can have culture in pockets, but ultimately, especially if you're one firm, you want to make sure whether the team's in India or China or Southeast Asia, US, Europe, everyone's representing the firm through one voice and one aligned message.And I think being out there and seeing the differences that exist in these markets, different people, different culture, is making sure you can preserve that and enhance it as best you can. So I think that was another very big one. And I'd say the third is you're dealing in very complicated jurisdictions.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'Look, Chip's been a phenomenal mentor to me and really just a world-class individual. And I think is really representative of, you know, if I could bottle up Warbur Pincus almost in one person, I think Chip exudes that more than anyone I can think of. Has really been the importance of culture. He wears it on a sleeve every day. I think most would say that I think Chip knows every single person's first name in the firm. We're at a firm now we're approaching...1,000 people. That's not so easy.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'The transition was over a few years. So in a way, I was kind of commenting to someone the other day, you know, the day you kind of become CEOs, like when you have a birthday, someone asks you, do you feel you're older? And, you know, you're kind of like, eh, you know, it kind of feels the same. So to Chip's credit, I think it was a really well-managed, well-staged leadership transition. It's been hugely energizing both internally and externally. Look, I'd say from my side,...It's really just the prioritization. I think like anytime when you're your own deal partner, when your own group head, when you're running a region, you have the deals that are in front of you, you have the pipeline that's kind of coming behind. When you have something like a Warburg Pincus as a whole, there's so many things that we can be thinking about, both for the existing portfolio of 200 portfolio companies, as we think about new funding channels over the long term, there's so many things to be focused on.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'So, I mean, next year will be our 60th anniversary for the firm, and this is only our second leadership transition in that period. So I'm now the third representative of the third generation of leadership in the place. So, A, I think what Lionel first did...by looking out and seeing that in an investing firm, he fundamentally believed that you need continuity. And so if you're going to keep changing out leadership every five years, it's going to be very challenging, both with your investors and with the folks who are showing up every day to try to determine what's the right strategy for us to look at going forward. So I...So I'd say when he skipped a generation, it was quite unpopular at the time. But now you've seen many of our peers follow suit with that same kind of philosophy. And certainly, I think Chip and the other senior folks within the firm believed in that as well. I think second has been really...kind of architecting it early, signaling to the broader firm. This wasn't a situation where you see it in other places where you have a public competition of four people. One ultimately gets it, three don't, and then not surprisingly, the three feel that it's time to move on.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'Just to touch on the second part, because it's an interesting observation and you're not the first to have kind of pointed out the fact that a number of us came from having spent time in Asia. And I think it goes back a little bit to what I'd said earlier, which is it's a very complicated part of the world. And if you can demonstrate an ability to build a franchise and to build a platform over there, you deal with so much complexity. Again, because it's not one market. It's a collection of many different markets.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'You know, look, everyone's going to be caught up in, as I said, the tariffs of the moment, and it's always the one that's in front of you. And I think one of the great strengths you have to have is to kind of see above the trees. And I look out and, as I said, there's so many different subsets of opportunities that are independent of that. Obviously, you look out at Asia, huge opportunity, two thirds of global growth is going to be there. Sure, tariffs are going to have a near term impact on...supply chains around the world and where some of the goods are kind of made. But ultimately, these are still rising populations that are becoming more affluent. Therefore, they'll be able to kind of consume more and more going forward. I think the second and the much more consequential one, I think even more so than tariffs, will be AI and the impact of what that can do in terms of the revenue side of our portfolio companies, the expense and cost optimization side of our businesses.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'Yeah, it was something that was always incredibly important to my parents. They worked incredibly hard, but they always said they had their second job, which was what they were doing for the community. And so they really distilled that down to both my sister and me. And it's something that, as they always said, as you elevate in your roles, your opportunity to contribute grows that much more. And first and foremost, for me, the community element is so important. So I grew up in Detroit. The continued ability to support, I sit on the board of...The Detroit Children's Fund really helping kind of the school system in greater Detroit and trying to continue to elevate that and really bring opportunities across the board in terms of education, not just...to a limited subset of folks. But to me, children, education are so intertwined, so important in terms of kind of longer term success. So trying to do everything I can in the local communities, whether it's Detroit, whether it was New York, when we were in Asia, we were doing the same.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'I think it was, at least professionally, it was investing in B-minus rental apartments in Southeast US, trying to make them into B, B-plus apartments.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'I think it's being even-keeled. You can't get caught up too much in sometimes the hype, and at the same time, you can't get paralyzed by kind of the stress. You've got to, as I say, you've got to be able to see over the trees, and I think, and be measured in that approach, especially when you're sitting at the helm of a large investing institution.'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'I'm going to say it in a lighthearted way, and it was Lionel Pincus when I joined the firm. And Lionel once said,...Because it was a very difficult environment. He said, "I've never met a rich pessimist." '
Jeffrey Perlman: 'When I'm not traveling kind of all over the world, you know, I have two young kids still. So my daughter just turned seven. My son just turned four. So they keep me very preoccupied on the weekends when I'm around. I try to fit in a run on the weekends, especially just it's a great way to kind of clear the mind and...skiing does that too when you have the few opportunities to ever go out on the mountain if you don't pay attention you can fall and so it's a great way to kind of truly clear your mind and you gotta worry about your next turn exactly and it's rare because every every part of every other day is you're thinking about five other things at that one moment in time so i think that's an important piece but with younger kids the time is spent on them yep i get it'
Jeffrey Perlman: 'Look, I think...It's what's to come. You know, it's less what's already happened. It's the ability to kind of shape the future. And this is where, again, I think you've had different technologies that have come at certain points in time, even in my lifetime and when mobile was established. And then there's been other things like IoT or the Internet of Things, which maybe didn't play out exactly as maybe people had hoped for. And then I think with Gen AI and the potential around it,...This will be transformational in a number of ways. And so trying to position ourselves to capture that, not to figure out what's going to be the winning language model. It's going to be how and what ways can we implement and apply this to our investing, to the companies that we invest in. To me, that's to me the most exciting part because that chapter is unwritten at this point.'
Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript