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Howard you have a new memo out the seven worst words in the world what are the seven worst words in the world for an investor too much money chasing too few deals when when uh there are too many willing buyers and they're too Avid and they have too much money prices go up like any other go down returns go down and risk goes up and safety goes down and that's one of the things that it's essential to be aware of and to act according I have to be honest with you Howard your memo left me and I suspect others as well a little bit unsatisfied and I say that because you conclude with three really important points the first is that credit markets are overaggressive too much money chasing too few deals right that sends one message at the same time you say there's no sign of economic weakness and so the good times may go on for quite a bit longer right the third point you make is that there's still a lot of uncertainty about the future because of this crazy mix of monetary fiscal and trade policy that we have right now and the resultant economic conditions right that they create right investors can't tell how cautious you're telling them to be well you know Eric it in my career which now spans 50 years there have been only a few moments when everything was good or everything was bad bad it's not black and white we're usually somewhere in between and I always try to convey that rather than gloss over it um it's not as bad as 07 and I say that in the memo and there were a lot there were a lot of things wrong in 07 that aren't wrong today uh number two uh yes there are excesses especially in the credit markets but in most markets on the other hand they're probably not going to uh require a a penalty until the economy weakens and there's no way to predict that that's going to happen anytime soon you're very clear in this memo that you're not calling a bubble right it feels to me however that you are if you will sounding the alarm is it fair to say that you're sounding the alarm well I'm calling for caution uh alarm alarm sounds alarming and I don't want to be an alarmist and I don't think it's appropriate to being alarmist today but you know the economy has gone upward for almost 10 years the markets have gone upward for almost 10 years the too much money phenomenon is certainly underway it would be a mistake to have as much risk in your portfolio today as you did two years ago 5 years ago or 10 years ago you have to acknowledge that I use the term calibrate today is not the time for Max risk full risk or for in my opinion evenly balancing offense and defense your PO your portfolio should be be skewed toward less risk yes but not extremely you wrote a similar memo back in February of 2007 the race to the bottom and you cited in this memo and that many of the conditions you described back then yes are the same as what we see today now what I'm getting at here and you make this point in the memo is that even before February of 2007 oak tree was selling yes you were selling assets you were getting liquid and you were raising money a lot of money as it turns out $ 11 billion for a distressed debt fund that you put to work in the financial crisis yes what is Oak Tree doing today well we are are you selling we are selling assets we're also buying but I think we're selling more than we're buying we're selling highly appreciated assets buying Bargains when we can find them but it's not easy we have raised another distressed debt fund distressed debt standby fund this time only 8 and a half billion uh I can't claim prean as to the timing we did it three years ago we thought something was coming and it hasn't come yet uh so it's sitting on the shelf we're not putting it to work very much we're not charging many fees and we're waiting and I think our clients are happy to wait with us because they want to have that hedge some money committed to a fund that can invest when times get tough you're also clear in the book Howard about the fact that you're not a forecaster in fact you're quite dismissive of forecasters right um and you're also not a market timer so again I'm trying to help people understand where we are well you know a cyclical top is not a moment in time right it's something that takes shape right have we entered the cyclical top probably not uh maybe we're on the doorstep okay uh but uh you say the conditions are similar they are similar qualitatively some of the things that went on then are going on now but quantitatively no they're just not as bad it's not egregious as it was then you take up in the memo and again I'm drawing distinction between the book and the memo both of which I want people to read um it's worth your time you take up the extraordinary growth of private credit and direct lending more specifically you may be aware of a white paper that Aries management published in April in which they estimated the size of the direct lending Market this is some months ago yes in the United States alone at almost a trillion dollars surely bigger now you you mean the potential appetite no that's how much money there was already in in direct lending a lot of money yes it is you know that direct lending isn't necessarily bad and of course it may be good for the companies that are borrowing that can't get that credit from a bank what's the downside well it's also good for the clients whose money managers have good judgment in making the loans the downside is that when there's a lot of money when there are a lot of new funds when there are a lot of new firsttime funds which I evidence in the me point out yes there's this race to the bottom that takes place the bidding in the auction gets heated the results for people putting money to work are generally negative and so the question is are the people putting the money to work making good credit decisions opacity has traditionally been in the long and a bad thing for financial markets because where there are dark Corners we can't see what's going on direct lending is a dark corner yes there is no public pricing like there are for there is for high yield bonds for example and there is no reference pricing like there are for loans leverage loans and syndicated loans does that concern you the lack of transparency into that market you know Eric the lack of transparency is a negative when it creates systemic risk I don't think that the risk embodied in direct lending is systemic to the economy uh some bad loans are being made in in the memo I quote Warren Buffett saying that it's only in the bad times when the tide goes out that we find out who is swimming naked and we'll find out and there will be some bad loans that won't get paid people will lose money I don't think it jeopardizes the economy how do you have any idea how much money would need to be in direct lending before it becomes a systemic risk no I couldn't give you a figure on that trillions though yes I mean if JP Morgan has a balance sheet of $3 trillion in Bank of America is of similar size and so is City groups yes and remember that each of those organizations has a diversified portfolio of loans and then a as a small part of an overall Diversified portfolios which includes treasuries uh top quality loans real estate loans that are secured Etc before we go Howard is being more cautious and taking less risk also synonymous with now is the time to be hedged hedging is a form of being less cautious more cautious and uh you know I I do think that this is a time but our motto at oakry is and has been moved forward but with caution we're not hesitant to invest we're investing every day we're endeavoring to be fully invested but in a more cautious portfolio
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