Private Capital: Intelligence for the Family Office Investor

Sports franchise valuations have become one of the defining stories in private capital. The Lakers sold for $12.5 billion. The Seahawks, just under $10 billion. Every major fund is circling the asset class, trying to find a way in. Davis Noell at Providence Equity Partners looked at the same trend and made a different bet. Instead of buying teams Providence bought the infrastructure underneath the entire industry: one of the world's largest sports agencies, a leading stadium architecture firm, a high-end audio manufacturer whose systems are installed in arenas around the world. Same growth curve as the teams themselves, without the control restrictions leagues place on minority stakes, and without paying a premium that only makes sense to someone buying prestige alongside the asset. In this conversation, Noell, a Senior Managing Director at $33 billion Providence, explains the sourcing logic behind that decision, and why he thinks it reflects something durable about how his firm underwrites a trend versus how most capital chases one.  He also explains why the biggest AI and digital platforms are not private equity businesses, why they have leaned so hard into live events and proprietary data instead, and what he sees coming in the next PE shakeout. Davis Noell is a senior managing director at Providence Equity Partners. He co-leads the firm's private equity investment activities in North America, oversees investor relations and fund raising efforts, and is a member of the firm's investment, portfolio review and executive committees. Mr. Noell is currently chairman of the board of DoubleVerify (NYSE: DV) and a director of A2MAC1, The Chernin Group, Mediawan, Smartly.io and THE·TEAM. He was previously a director of 365 Retail Markets, GLM, OEConnection, Stream Global Services, SunGard Data Systems and World Triathlon Corporation. Prior to joining Providence in 2003, Mr. Noell worked in Deutsche Bank's media investment banking group. He is a trustee of The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, GA and Gilman School in Baltimore, MD. Mr. Noell holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   Please enjoy my conversation with Davis Noell. Providence Equity Partners:  https://www.provequity.com If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:  https://open.spotify.com/show/3R4k3mw1blnV1vgye6iYjF If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it. S5E18 ©2026 Joe Reilly

Robert Stark is the President and Deputy CEO of Nomura Asset Management International.  Robert spent ten years at McKinsey, then several more running strategy at JP Morgan Asset and Wealth Management, which means he had a front-row seat to nearly every major structural shift in asset management before he ever placed a bet of his own: the move from active to passive, institutional to wealth, direct lending to broader private credit. That strategist's pattern recognition is exactly what led him to spot the gap in private credit allocation that became his current business. We talk about how a career spent diagnosing other firms' blind spots turned into the conviction to build something himself, now at scale inside Nomura.   Robert Stark is the President and Deputy CEO of Nomura Asset Management International and Head of Investment Management in the Americas for the Nomura Group. Robert has more than 20 years of financial services industry experience. Previously, Robert was the Founder & CEO of Alterum Capital Partners LLC, where he focused on building an investment management business with a particular emphasis on the intersection of private markets and Registered Investment Advisors. Prior to founding Alterum Capital Partners, he was a Senior Managing Director and member of the Executive Committee at FS Investments and was responsible for Corporate Development. Prior to joining FS Investments, Robert spent 7 years at J.P. Morgan across its Asset & Wealth Management businesses. He initially ran Strategy and Business Development for both Asset & Wealth Management and later ran Global Strategic Relationships (National Accounts) for the US Funds business. He joined J.P. Morgan from Russell Investments, where he was a member of the Executive Committee and responsible for Strategy and M&A. Robert started his professional career at McKinsey & Company. As a partner of the firm, he focused on serving clients in the asset management, investment banking, insurance, and private equity industries. He was also responsible as the Global Sponsor for the financial institutions research group comprising 150 practitioners globally. Robert earned a Master of Science in Management Sciences from the University of Cologne, Germany.   Please enjoy my conversation with Robert Stark. Nomura Asset Management International:  https://nomuracapitalmanagement.com If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:  https://open.spotify.com/show/3R4k3mw1blnV1vgye6iYjF If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E17

In the early 1990s, Ward McNally's family began selling off Rand McNally, the 150-year-old mapmaking company his family controlled for five generations. Two of the divested businesses later went bankrupt. Ward was in college at the time, watched it happen, and eventually built a private equity firm around a simple, personal rule: never put himself in a position to look a founder in the eye and say he ran their business into the ground. This conversation traces how that history shaped everything from how long he holds companies to how much ownership he insists founders keep.  We also talk about his widely admired deal network that he founded post-crisis and his long-abiding interest and thoughtful strategy around investing in defense. Ward McNally founded McNally Capital in 2008 to continue his family's legacy of owning and operating private companies. Prior to founding the firm, Ward spent ten years investing in family- and founder-owned businesses. Since founding McNally Capital, Ward has worked with hundreds of family offices and business owners with the dedicated purpose of supporting their objectives to create long-term value. Ward is currently the Chairman of FedData, Orbis, Xcelerate Solutions, Endurion, Patriot Group International (PGI), and TENICA Global Solutions. He is the former Chairman of ITS Logistics and Advanced Micro Instruments and the former board director of Genesys Aerosystems. He is also a member of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Visitors, the Young Presidents' Organization, and the Business Executives for National Security. Before founding McNally Capital, Ward spent ten years as a partner with private equity firms The Edgewater Funds and Hammond Kennedy Whitney & Company ("HKW"). Previously, he worked in banking and financial services for Benedetto, Gartland & Company, where he focused on private placements for private equity funds, and Caremark International's Physician Resources Division, where he was a member of the M&A team. Ward began his career at Bank of America in their Financial Engineering and Risk Management Group. Ward holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Please enjoy my conversation with Ward McNally. McNally Capital:  https://mcnallycapital.com If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:  https://open.spotify.com/show/3R4k3mw1blnV1vgye6iYjF If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E16 ©2026 Joe Reilly

My guest today has written definitive histories of three of Wall Street's most consequential firms: Lazard, Bear Stearns, and Goldman Sachs. He spent seventeen years as an investment banker before becoming one of the most well known financial journalists in the country, and he's a founding partner at Puck. Now he's turned his attention to Apollo Global Management, and the story of how Marc Rowan quietly rewired the entire banking system. William Cohan joins me to talk about that new book, his old friendship with JFK Jr., and what two decades on Wall Street taught him about power.  William D. Cohan is a former senior Wall Street M&A investment banker (Lazard, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan) and the New York Times bestselling author of five non-fiction books, including Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World; House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street; and, The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co., the winner of the 2007 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Financial Times, and more. Cohan is a founding partner of Puck and a writer-at-large for Air Mail. He is a graduate of Andover, and holds degrees from Duke, the Columbia School of Journalism, and Columbia Business School. Money to Burn: Leon Black, Apollo and the Remaking of Wall Street: https://www.amazon.com/Money-Burn-Apollo-Remaking-Street-ebook/dp/B0GX2TSKRM If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:  https://open.spotify.com/show/3R4k3mw1blnV1vgye6iYjF If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E15 ©2026 Joe Reilly

Charley Ellis is one of the most respected figures in institutional investing, the founder of Greenwich Associates, former chair of Yale's investment committee, and author of more than a dozen books, including Winning the Loser's Game, which has sold over a million copies, and his acclaimed histories of Goldman Sachs, Xerox, Vanguard, and Capital Group. Over a career spanning six decades, he has combined a practitioner's experience with a historian's eye, chronicling not just what great investors did, but why their organizations rose to the top. In our conversation, Ellis recounts some of the major figures of the last 60 years, many of whom he knew personally: J. Richardson Dilworth, who gave him his start managing Rockefeller family wealth; Xerox's Joe Wilson; Goldman Sachs leaders John Whitehead and John Weinberg; quant pioneer Fisher Black and his champion Bob Rubin; Sidney Weinberg and his unlikely friend Paul Cabot; Harvard's Walter Cabot and Jack Meyer; Yale's David Swensen; Vanguard founder Jack Bogle; and mentors Peter Bernstein and Peter Drucker. The result is a rare, firsthand account of how character, culture, and discipline built the institutions that still define the investment world today.  But first, I had to ask him about his art teacher, Joseph Albers, whose famous color theory course at Yale in the 1950s shaped his early thinking on discipline and perception.  Please enjoy my conversation with Charley Ellis.   The Seven Keys Framework Mission — A clear and unifying purpose that guides every decision the firm makes. Culture — Shared values and behaviors that define how people work together. Recruiting — Finding and hiring only the most talented and compatible individuals. Developing People — Continuously training and improving the skills of team members. Client Focus — Putting the client's needs and long-term success first. Innovation — Constantly adapting and improving services and operations. Leadership — Guiding the organization with integrity, clarity, and long-term vision.   Winning the Losers Game:  https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Losers-Game-Fifth-Strategies/dp/0071545492   If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:  https://open.spotify.com/show/3R4k3mw1blnV1vgye6iYjF If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E14 ©2026 Joe Reilly

Today Joe is joined by Michael Gross, CEO and President of SLR Investment Corporation, who was present at the birth of Apollo. Michael co-founded SLR alongside Bruce Spohler in 2006, and the firm now manages roughly $14 billion across cashflow lending, asset-based lending, life science lending, and specialty finance. Before SLR, Michael was a founding partner of Apollo Global Management, where he launched Apollo's first BDC and helped build its credit platform from the ground up. He got his start at Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1987, working under Leon Black in the M&A department.  Michael expects rising defaults in private credit as 2021-vintage loans, underwritten with weak covenants and high leverage, come up to maturity.  We also discuss the early days of Apollo, raising the first significant   BDC in 2004 which launched the massive growth in the industry, and how SLR seeks complexity as a competitive edge. Michael Gross is the Co-Chief Executive Officer and President of the SLR, bringing more than 30 years of experience in private equity, distressed debt, and mezzanine lending. A founder and former senior partner of Apollo Management, he played a key role in building one of the industry's leading private equity firms and helped oversee investments totaling more than $13 billion across 150 companies. Earlier in his career, he worked in mergers and acquisitions at Drexel Burnham Lambert. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Throughout his adult life to present day, Michael has been a vigorous philanthropist. He currently serves as co-chair of the Mount Sinai Children's Center Foundation, and has served on the Board of Directors of New York Road Runners for over a decade, playing a vital role in the creation of the first youth running events. Michael also serves on the University of Michigan Ross School Advisory Board, and the Northwestern University Kellogg Global Advisory Board. In 2019 Michael was an honoree at the NYRR Night of Champions, receiving the Civic Champion award. Please enjoy my conversation with Michael Gross. SLR Investment Corporation: https://slrinvestmentcorp.com If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:  https://open.spotify.com/show/3R4k3mw1blnV1vgye6iYjF If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it. S5E12 ©2026 Joe Reilly

Divya Narendra has spent his career at the intersection of finance and innovation. Divya is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of SumZero, the world's largest community for professional investors, which he founded in 2008.  Divya is also a Managing Partner of SumZero Capital, a private fund that uses AI to invest in public equities recommended by the SumZero investment community. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Gemini Trust Company, started by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, a digital asset exchange which IPO'd in September 2025.  Divya was previously an associate at Sowood Capital Management, a multi-strategy hedge fund, and prior to that, he was an analyst in the M&A Group at Credit Suisse in New York. He was also the original founder of ConnectU, the predecessor to Facebook, and was portrayed by actor Max Minghella in the Oscar-winning Hollywood movie, The Social Network. Divya received a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and a JD/MBA from Northwestern University.   We were very pleased to have Divya keynote one of our recent events in New York.  Please enjoy our conversation. SumZero: https://www.sumzero.com If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964 If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E12 ©2026 Joe Reilly

"The Trifecta of learning throughout your life is always have great teachers, great partners personally and professionally and great students to teach." Today's podcast is with Mitch Julis, the legendary co-founder of Canyon Partners.  Mitch was the keynote at the Circulus Family Office Summit in the fall of 2025.  We talked about his background in the Bronx, how Lowell Milken took a chance on a young lawyer, his years at Drexel under Mike Milken, starting his own firm with his business school roommate Josh Friedman, the debt landscape today, and his fascinating concept of structural alpha.  We were all pleased to be a student of Mitch Julis that afternoon, and I know you will enjoy the talk as well. Mitch Julis is Co-Founder, Co-Chairman, and Co-CEO of Canyon Partners, a $28 billion multi-strategy alternative asset manager with a strong emphasis on credit and special situations. He previously led a distressed and special situations team at Drexel Burnham Lambert and practiced bankruptcy and creditors' rights law at Wachtell. He has published extensively on bankruptcy and distressed investing. Mr. Julis holds degrees from Princeton University, magna cum laude, Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, Harvard Business School, and received an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva University. He and Co-Founder Josh Friedman received Institutional Investor's "Lifetime Achievement" Award in 2014. Mr. Julis is a trustee of Brown University, a trustee of Yeshiva University, and a trustee emeritus at the Asia Society. He previously served as a trustee at Princeton University and the Lincoln Center Theater. He is also noteworthy in helping to establish the Harvard Law School Program on Jewish and Israeli Law and received an Honorary Fellowship from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Please enjoy my conversation with Mitch Julis. Canyon Partners:  https://www.canyonpartners.com/our-team/ If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964 If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E11 ©2026 Joe Reilly

Everyone knows about liar's poker, but do you know about the other game played by the Salomon traders? Today's guest is Curtis Arledge, Chairman and CEO of Mariner Investment Group, a $10 billion multi-strategy fund based in New York.  He started his career studying lasers at Princeton before finding himself at the epicenter of the mortgage-backed securities boom at Salomon Brothers. He was an early employee of BlackRock and served as CEO of BNY Mellon's investment management arm. Join us for a deep dive as we discuss the fax machine era of trading, the other game played by the Liar's Poker desk at Solly, and why he believes the 40-year tailwind of falling interest rates has finally come to an end.  Curtis is obsessed with investment talent and has lots of great lessons in this interview. Curtis Arledge is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mariner Investment Group and a member of the Firm's Management and Risk Committees. A founding member of Mariner, Mr. Arledge returned to the Firm in 2019 and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the business and developing new business lines. Mr. Arledge previously served as the CEO of BNY Mellon Investment Management and was also responsible for the firm's Markets Group. Prior to BNY Mellon, he was the chief investment officer for fundamental fixed income portfolios at BlackRock, Inc. Mr. Arledge also worked as senior research associate with the Forum for Growth & Innovation at Harvard Business School. A graduate of Princeton University with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering, Mr. Arledge is an Advisory Council member at Princeton's Bendheim Center for Finance. He previously served as Vice Chairman of the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee and was inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame in 2014. Mr. Arledge is a senior independent non-executive Director of Soter Holdings Limited, parent company to Soter Insurance Limited, a provider of specialized insurance products tailored to the digital asset economy, as well as a member of the Advisory Board for NEWITY, an SBA Lender for small businesses. Please enjoy my conversation with Curtis Arledge. Mariner Investment Group:  https://www.marinerinvestment.com/about If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964 If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E10 ©2026 Joe Reilly

Today, we are joined by Laurence Russian, a Founding Partner at ABS Global Investments, which manages more than $12 billion in assets. Laurence's career began at the legendary Brazilian investment bank Banco Garantia, the predecessor to 3G Capital. After a tenure at Credit Suisse, Laurence and his partners struck out on their own in 2002 to build a firm that prioritizes specialist expertise over generalist breadth. In this episode, we trace the 22-year evolution of ABS into a data-driven powerhouse managing billions for some of the world's largest pension plans. While many firms rely on off-the-shelf data, Laurence and his team built their own ecosystem to track specialists in everything from Taiwanese semiconductors to Middle Eastern fintech. Today, we dive into the convergence of public and private markets, exploring why ABS is taking significant stakes in late-stage giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cerebras. We discuss the "Goldman Sachs of Brazil" influence, the art of firing managers, and why local boots on the ground are the only way to find true alpha in emerging markets. Please enjoy my conversation with Laurence Russian. Laurence Russian is a Founding Partner and Portfolio Manager at ABS Global Investments. He is a member of the firm's Management Committee and Operating Committee. Prior to co-founding ABS, Mr. Russian was a Director in the Alternative Investments Group at Credit Suisse Asset Management. He joined the firm in 1998 following Credit Suisse Group's acquisition of Garantia. Mr. Russian joined Banco de Investimentos Garantia in 1994 to help build the firm's alternative asset management business. He began his career in 1993 at Scudder, Stevens & Clark. He holds a BA in Economics from Ohio Wesleyan University and an MBA in Finance from New York University Stern School of Business. He is also a CFA charterholder.   ABS Global Investments:  https://www.absinv.com/   If you like these discussions, please subscribe or leave a review. NOTE: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Anything said by the guests or host should not be construed as legal or investment advice. Thanks for listening. Joe Reilly is the head of Circulus Group, a family office network, and the host of The Inheritance Podcast. FOLLOW JOE: https://twitter.com/joereillyjr WEBSITE: https://circulus.substack.com/ INHERITANCE PODCAST:   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inheritance-podcast/id1644964 If you like this show, leave us a rating or review.  I appreciate it.   S5E9 ©2026 Joe Reilly