Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Hi, it's Jason Kelly. I'm the chief correspondent for Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Originals and co host of The Deal with my partner
Speaker 2: Alex Rodriguez. I also wrote a book about the private
Speaker 2: equity industry called The New Tycoons. It's all about the
Speaker 2: firms and the people at the center of this massive industry,
Speaker 2: and no one was bigger than David Bonderman, who died
Speaker 2: on December eleventh at the age of eighty two. He
Speaker 2: co founded TPG back in the early nineteen nineties and
Speaker 2: along the way became a face for the booming deal world,
Speaker 2: engineering takeovers of everything from Continental Airlines to Burger King
Speaker 2: to j crwe specializing in deals few others would go near.
Speaker 2: He was also an iconoclast, building his firm far from
Speaker 2: Wall Street, basing TPG in San Francisco and Fort Worth,
Speaker 2: and choosing khakis over suits, and inviting rock stars to
Speaker 2: his annual investor meetings.
Speaker 1: Few knew him.
Speaker 2: Better than Jim Colter, his TPG co founder, who met
Speaker 2: Bonderman when the two men started working for the Bass
Speaker 2: Family in were Worth almost forty years ago. They created
Speaker 2: TPG together in nineteen ninety three, Jim joined me in
Speaker 2: New York to talk about Bonderman and his profound influence
Speaker 2: on the investing world and beyond. Obviously a very sad day, Jim,
Speaker 2: for the team at TPG, for really the entire investing world. So,
Speaker 2: first of all, condolence is of the loss of your
Speaker 2: longtime partner, and thank you for spending some time with
Speaker 2: us here.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Jason.
Speaker 2: So David Bondman, it's amazing to read about his impact
Speaker 2: on the broader investment world. He is a one of
Speaker 2: the best known names, one of the icons. You knew
Speaker 2: him better than anybody in this business. What specifically did
Speaker 2: he bring to this business that was unique to him?
Speaker 3: David really is a legend in the industry.
Speaker 4: But he's a legend for several reasons, and I think
Speaker 4: there's three particular things. First of all, he pioneered a
Speaker 4: type of investing. Secondly, he built a firm that had
Speaker 4: a distinctive place in the industry. And thirty had a
Speaker 4: really trusting personal style that I think helped evolve the style.
Speaker 3: Of this industry.
Speaker 1: And so what did he do, how did that work
Speaker 1: in practice?
Speaker 2: What was he doing as a deal maker that really
Speaker 2: set him apart.
Speaker 3: David did deal making as problem solving.
Speaker 4: So if you think about some of his signature deals,
Speaker 4: they were deals that everyone saw.
Speaker 3: But no one else was willing to take on.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't that he was taking on more risk,
Speaker 4: it was that he saw something different. Take the Continental
Speaker 4: Airlines deal, legendary deal in the industry, the most hated
Speaker 4: company in America, the biggest bankruptcy in US history.
Speaker 3: It sat there for two years.
Speaker 4: Dave and I put together a deal that carved out
Speaker 4: a new Continental and took it from worse to first
Speaker 4: in seven years. Warren Buffett said that airlines were financial sinkholes.
Speaker 4: David over and over made successful investments in airlines. When
Speaker 4: others saw the SNL crisis, David saw the SNL opportunity unity.
Speaker 4: We created the good bank bad bank structure for American
Speaker 4: savings when working with Bess, and then we exported that
Speaker 4: structure around the world to do bank rescues in China,
Speaker 4: in Korea. Again, deals that no one else did, and
Speaker 4: that a problem solving approach really was appeared at a
Speaker 4: moment that the industry was mostly about changing capital structures,
Speaker 4: not companies.
Speaker 2: All right, So you said something to me before we
Speaker 2: came on air, which I found fascinating, which is that
Speaker 2: David was a polymath investor. The Blueberg audience is pretty smart,
Speaker 2: but you need to break this down what that actually
Speaker 2: means in practice.
Speaker 4: Poly Math is from the Greek and it's basically a
Speaker 4: person who has broad and diverse interests but uses that
Speaker 4: knowledge and interest to solve problems. And so David really
Speaker 4: didn't come to investing until his forties.
Speaker 3: Think about that. He had several careers before.
Speaker 4: He was a litigator, He was argued in front of
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court. He taught law Tulane, he studied Islamic
Speaker 4: law on Tunis. This was a person that ever took
Speaker 4: a finance class, didn't know accounting, and yet was he
Speaker 4: brought that broad experience and problem solving expertise to the
Speaker 4: problems of investing. And his ability to use different experiences
Speaker 4: he had to solve problems I think really created his style,
Speaker 4: and it's a polymast style.
Speaker 3: It was not one thing.
Speaker 4: It was a unique ability to see opportunity and frankly
Speaker 4: solve problems well.
Speaker 2: And it translated into him being I have to say,
Speaker 2: one of those eclectic, maybe eccentric sort of figures in
Speaker 2: an industry that didn't always Certainly the broader Wall Street doesn't.
Speaker 1: Always sort of embrace change.
Speaker 2: So how was he received in this broader Wall Street world?
Speaker 3: In your estimation, David was many things, but he was
Speaker 3: never boring.
Speaker 4: We used to laugh that David often brought like a
Speaker 4: rock and roll backbeat into rooms that were used to
Speaker 4: classical music. It was a very different style. He was
Speaker 4: known for his ridiculous socks. I mean, there were just ridiculous.
Speaker 4: When others were drinking fine wine, he was drinking diet coke.
Speaker 4: He's flew one thousand hours a year to meetings anywhere.
Speaker 4: It's a very personal thing for him. And his style
Speaker 4: was informal, it was direct. He couldn't stand obfuscation. And
Speaker 4: that style was sort of a different, a different wind
Speaker 4: in the industry at the time, and it opened up
Speaker 4: the opportunity for different types of styles to really flourish.
Speaker 4: It's an industry that had incredible talent among its founding brethren,
Speaker 4: but David brought I think a little bit of a
Speaker 4: different attitude and frankly, you know, a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Into a very serious business.
Speaker 1: And so how do you build to firm around that?
Speaker 2: I mean that you can be sort of a you know,
Speaker 2: sort of an iconoclast as a single person.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe as a small firm.
Speaker 2: You guys started out as three people in ninety two,
Speaker 2: ninety three, but now thousands of employees, quarter trillion dollars
Speaker 2: in assets. How does that sort of grow into something
Speaker 2: this big.
Speaker 3: I've been doing this long time. Culture and curiosity.
Speaker 4: So in some ways what we described you and I
Speaker 4: about David became how you describe TPG in some ways.
Speaker 4: At a time that the industry was very much about finance,
Speaker 4: was very much focused in New York, we came out
Speaker 4: of a family office in Texas.
Speaker 3: We set up on the West Coast.
Speaker 4: I used to say that, and you do sports a lot, Jason,
Speaker 4: that we were playing the same game, but differently. We
Speaker 4: were the West Coast offense of private equity. And to
Speaker 4: do that you have to get a culture of curiosity
Speaker 4: and problem solving. And I think at the first fundraise
Speaker 4: we did for TPG, our tagline was contrarianism, complexity, and change.
Speaker 4: At a time the industry was more focused on franchise
Speaker 4: businesses in finance. Contrarianism, complexity, and change, and I think
Speaker 4: those lines of problem solving and a different approach Really
Speaker 4: were what David brought to the business in the early days.
Speaker 1: Not afraid to take big swings.
Speaker 2: I mean, was that but you know part of his
Speaker 2: ethos do you think, like being able to really go
Speaker 2: big on something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was never about ego or size. It was
Speaker 4: about really interesting problems and sometimes we got it wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 4: if you're doing this type of investing, you know five
Speaker 4: percent of the time you'll make mistakes, and probably you
Speaker 4: should be taking that sort of risk. But the key
Speaker 4: is never make the same mistakes if you can help it,
Speaker 4: and importantly learn from all of them. And David and
Speaker 4: I think our firm has been a lifelong learner on those.
Speaker 3: So I think somehow.
Speaker 4: We've been able to grow with the industry but still
Speaker 4: keep some of that essence of doing it a little
Speaker 4: differently and looking at new deals. I mean even today,
Speaker 4: as you know, Jason, we've taken on impact investing, climate investing.
Speaker 4: These are new things, new problems, done in a new way,
Speaker 4: and that ethos I think was what we started with
Speaker 4: almost forty years ago, and we've tried to very much
Speaker 4: guard today.
Speaker 1: How'd you build a partnership with him?
Speaker 2: You guys are not the same you showed up in Texas.
Speaker 2: You know, Dartmouth undergrad Stanford Business School. He was a
Speaker 2: University of Washington bankruptcy lawyer save Grand Central. How does
Speaker 2: that marriage of a sort happen?
Speaker 3: I think there's two types of partnerships.
Speaker 4: One are people who are very much the same, almost
Speaker 4: can complete each other's sentences. The other type of partnership
Speaker 4: are people who are very different but share the same values.
Speaker 4: And I think David and I brought different skill sets,
Speaker 4: different views of the world, but values on fairness, the
Speaker 4: idea of you can leave the last cent on the
Speaker 4: table to create a win win, and we agreed on
Speaker 4: the type of firm and culture we wanted to build.
Speaker 4: So complimented each other, respected each other, but also brought
Speaker 4: some balance to the equation.
Speaker 2: How do you think he changed you as an investor
Speaker 2: and as an executive?
Speaker 4: I think David was, as well as being a great investor,
Speaker 4: simply a great business person.
Speaker 3: You know, he's served on eighty different corporate boards. Who
Speaker 3: does that? You know?
Speaker 4: Eighty different corporate boards, from GM to Dakati, from Behringer
Speaker 4: to Burger King. Immensely diverse, and that viewpoint something was
Speaker 4: often underestimated with David really helped me be.
Speaker 3: A bit better businessman.
Speaker 4: It's about being straightforward, it's about seeing different things. It's
Speaker 4: about patients from time to time, and even when things
Speaker 4: go wrong, you don't step back, you step in. So
Speaker 4: I think his polymath skills really extended into the business world.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier this is a massive, massive industry at
Speaker 2: this point that what we used to call private equity,
Speaker 2: it's now alternative investing these firms, including yours, or doing
Speaker 2: lots of different things.
Speaker 1: How do you take.
Speaker 2: That Bonderman ethos, you know, the sort of like you
Speaker 2: know he's calling in to an investment committee, meaning from
Speaker 2: Timbuck to to you know, now a publicly traded company.
Speaker 2: How do you maintain that essence? Because I know that
Speaker 2: culture is something it's important to you, you study it,
Speaker 2: how do you really institutionalize that culture.
Speaker 4: Fight conformity in all ways? I think if you were
Speaker 4: starting this business today, sometimes I think that people who
Speaker 4: are looking at it field they have to learn finance
Speaker 4: in their crib and have to go through internships.
Speaker 3: David came to this, as I said before, in his forties.
Speaker 4: He brought that wide set of experiences, and I think
Speaker 4: the understanding that you can ask different questions, approach problems
Speaker 4: in different ways is something the industry needs to.
Speaker 3: Say true to today.
Speaker 4: So that's spirit, the spirit of problem solving, curiosity, a
Speaker 4: little bit of courage.
Speaker 3: Put together with a broad view.
Speaker 4: Is something the industry still needs today. And I think
Speaker 4: the industry is delivering that men's talent in the industry.
Speaker 4: We have to just make sure that it's not delivered
Speaker 4: in one way.
Speaker 2: And so as he sort of kind of moved on
Speaker 2: from the firm, and we'll talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: what he was doing in the latter years of his life.
Speaker 2: You know, how did how how did you sort of
Speaker 2: honor his legacy?
Speaker 1: How did he stay involved?
Speaker 4: Well, David always had broad interests and one of the
Speaker 4: interesting things about his career is he's mentored and spawned
Speaker 4: many businesses and helped many businesses, from Mark Lazari to
Speaker 4: Tom Barrick to Mark's Stad to Wasijing Shan. There are
Speaker 4: disciples around the industry that have picked up some of
Speaker 4: his investing style in ethos and he continued to do
Speaker 4: that as he continued to have TPG as a cornerstone.
Speaker 4: But he went on, as you know, to be active
Speaker 4: in sports and yes, he had been an investor in
Speaker 4: the Celtics, but he did a typical Bondo thing. By
Speaker 4: the way, just the nickname Bondo was different in the industry.
Speaker 3: He did a typical Bondo.
Speaker 4: Thing, which is he took on a problem no one
Speaker 4: else would, bringing back a team indoors in Seattle, rebuilt
Speaker 4: an arena where he had worked as a security guard when.
Speaker 3: He was an undergrad at University of Washington.
Speaker 4: It was a worthy outcome the Kraken, yet it was
Speaker 4: done in a very Bondo polymath way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that for a second, because I
Speaker 2: was listening to something in preparation for this from Toddler Wicki,
Speaker 2: who's the president of the Kraken, and he was talking
Speaker 2: about the fact that the complexity was a feature, not
Speaker 2: a bug, and that seemed to be sort of a
Speaker 2: reflection of the sort of bondermin ethos of deal making.
Speaker 3: Is that fair? That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 4: And I saw that for thirty eight years that we
Speaker 4: worked together. Is if something hadn't been done, you start
Speaker 4: with a question of why not and the curiosity of
Speaker 4: whether it might be done. So there had been much
Speaker 4: talk in Seattle about bringing back teams, but the ability
Speaker 4: to really take it on as a hard problem is
Speaker 4: something that I think is very.
Speaker 3: Much David's legacy.
Speaker 4: He did that in business, he did it for the industry,
Speaker 4: and he's done it in his life.
Speaker 1: And so take me all the way back.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's go all the way back to when
Speaker 2: you first meet this guy again.
Speaker 1: You show up in Texas, You're like, well, a tagated guy.
Speaker 2: You're going to make your way on, you know, for
Speaker 2: this this family that's doing some investing.
Speaker 1: And you run across this kind and you're like, I'm sorry, what, okay,
Speaker 1: that's cool.
Speaker 2: You argue in front of the Supreme Court, what are
Speaker 2: you going to tell me about in investing?
Speaker 1: And yet he did, Like I was.
Speaker 2: I was chatting with Tom Barrick earlier and he said,
Speaker 2: you know, we were the farm system for this, you know,
Speaker 2: great investor.
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 4: We were all fortunate to work with Bob Bess who
Speaker 4: kind of gave us the leeway to develop this type
Speaker 4: of style. But what was interesting is that David hadn't
Speaker 4: really done much investing.
Speaker 3: I was coming as a junior person. We had not
Speaker 3: much of a team.
Speaker 4: The first deal we did together was a cable TV
Speaker 4: roll up, and we went on with a small office
Speaker 4: to do the first reinsurance deal, something called National Reinsurance
Speaker 4: buy out of Bell and Howell, bought Weston out of
Speaker 4: un Airlines, sold the plosit to Donald Trump. A series
Speaker 4: of deal after deal, and I think it was we
Speaker 4: were kind of learning on the job.
Speaker 3: We were undaunted by that.
Speaker 4: And in some ways, not having the framework of how
Speaker 4: it was supposed to work, we could create a different
Speaker 4: framework of how.
Speaker 3: It would work.
Speaker 2: So tell me about the decision that you guys make
Speaker 2: in ninety two. You're going to go after Continental Bob
Speaker 2: Bess basically says, go with God, Like, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to do this, You guys can go do it on
Speaker 2: your own.
Speaker 1: What's that moment like? And do you know at that.
Speaker 2: Point that you're creating something new and different or is
Speaker 2: this just a deal that you're interested in doing?
Speaker 4: Somewhere between deeply interesting and absolutely terrifying. Again, this is
Speaker 4: the most hated company in the country, the biggest bankruptcy
Speaker 4: in US corporate history. No one else is showing up,
Speaker 4: We have no money, we have to put together the money,
Speaker 4: do the deal, etc.
Speaker 3: But it was a.
Speaker 4: Fascinating one of the most fascinating business problems I've ever seen,
Speaker 4: So in some ways what motivated us was the problem
Speaker 4: and the opportunity. It was like a hunk of marble
Speaker 4: and you had to see what was inside it. So
Speaker 4: I think for us we probably didn't know better. If
Speaker 4: someone was starting a business today, this particular deal would
Speaker 4: have in capitals at the bottom, don't try this at home.
Speaker 4: But we did try it at home, and that made
Speaker 4: all the difference.
Speaker 2: How did you know that it was going to then
Speaker 2: become that there was a business to be built out
Speaker 2: of doing this?
Speaker 1: How soon did you make the decision?
Speaker 2: What was that decision like to create an entirely new firm.
Speaker 4: After we did the Continental deal, we had a long
Speaker 4: discussion because at that time there were two ways we
Speaker 4: could have gone. We could have kept doing deal by deal,
Speaker 4: which was a Richard Rainwater model, or we could build
Speaker 4: a firm.
Speaker 3: We made the.
Speaker 4: Call then that the industry was going to develop in
Speaker 4: a way that you had to have broader resources in
Speaker 4: a more permanent structure really to be able to not
Speaker 4: serve us, but to serve the people that would join
Speaker 4: the firm.
Speaker 3: We needed to have a future for them.
Speaker 4: So we brought in a third partner, Bill Price, who
Speaker 4: was kind of our operating side of the business, And
Speaker 4: we decided to name it not after ourselves, but a
Speaker 4: name that was kind of low key and could be
Speaker 4: what it was going to be beyond us. And I
Speaker 4: think that decision to build a firm and the generosity
Speaker 4: that that implied really.
Speaker 3: Was part of David's legacy.
Speaker 1: Were you sure it was going to work?
Speaker 3: Never sure it was going to work?
Speaker 4: We live in a world we call constructive paranoia, which
Speaker 4: is you always have to be constructive, but at night
Speaker 4: you have to make sure you're not making mistakes.
Speaker 2: And did you think, like were there timing over those
Speaker 2: thirty eight years?
Speaker 1: I mean, you've done, you know.
Speaker 2: Tremendously successful deals, as you mentioned earlier, some deals that
Speaker 2: didn't work.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a moment you're like.
Speaker 2: Maybe this isn't maybe this isn't the right thing, Like
Speaker 2: how did how much doubt comes into it? And what's
Speaker 2: Bondo's sort of what's his frame of mind in those moments?
Speaker 4: You know, David, if things are going wrong, you want
Speaker 4: David with you in the foxhol So I've never seen
Speaker 4: him daunted or I never saw him daunted or down
Speaker 4: by problem and you also begin to get perspective. Jason,
Speaker 4: You've been around this industry for a while. We continuously
Speaker 4: declared private equity dead in nineteen eighty nine, in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety seven, in two thousand and one, in two thousand
Speaker 4: and seven, in twenty fifteen, were declaring it, you know,
Speaker 4: dead today in some ways or diminished. But what you
Speaker 4: learn is it's a very powerful, very powerful economic engine.
Speaker 4: It's investing with a bigger toolbox, and so stay the course.
Speaker 2: And what I find interesting about that that stay the
Speaker 2: course idea is that as going back to this notion
Speaker 2: of the industry institutionalizing, it goes public, you guys are
Speaker 2: the last of the big firms to do that. Like
Speaker 2: this contrarianism, like not only you know is there it
Speaker 2: takes hold it as sort of a core principle. How
Speaker 2: much was was David sort of driving that, Like what
Speaker 2: would it bring him into that discussion?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jason, you've written one of the best books on this,
Speaker 4: and I hope you will continue to work on this
Speaker 4: because the story of this industry and how it went
Speaker 4: from a few people doing deals to something that touches
Speaker 4: and probably employees ten percent of the economy today there's
Speaker 4: more than forty five hundred private equity firms. We used
Speaker 4: to all know each other in the industry.
Speaker 3: That evolution.
Speaker 4: Is one of the more interesting stories in business. I
Speaker 4: went back a few years ago far threieth anniversion and
Speaker 4: I looked at the growth of the industry over the
Speaker 4: period TPG has been there. It's grown fifteen percent a
Speaker 4: year compounded for thirty years.
Speaker 3: I couldn't find another business.
Speaker 4: Fourteen and a half percent was the growth of Chinese electronics,
Speaker 4: So that growth has been extraordinary. I think what David's
Speaker 4: role was was shaping the fact that it could be
Speaker 4: a different set.
Speaker 3: Of styles that it could grow.
Speaker 4: He was also personally extraordinarily important in opening Asian private equity.
Speaker 4: As you know, TPG was one of the first firms
Speaker 4: to go to Asia in nineteen ninety four, and David
Speaker 4: was instrumental in both driving that move and frankly building
Speaker 4: the business throughout the region.
Speaker 2: And so one of the things that I'm glad you
Speaker 2: brought up Asia, because you know one of the.
Speaker 1: I think it.
Speaker 2: Feels like it is something that couldn't be true, but
Speaker 2: I've heard enough people say that it must be that
Speaker 2: he would literally get on a plane to go have
Speaker 2: lunch in Shanghai, like, he was very much a practitioner
Speaker 2: of the art.
Speaker 1: Of showing up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is that a fair assessment? And why do you
Speaker 2: think that?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: What was driving him to do that?
Speaker 4: David always viewed the business, and I think we all
Speaker 4: should is very personal. If you're going to solve problems,
Speaker 4: it's so much easier to do it in person.
Speaker 3: And he was so quick on his.
Speaker 4: Feet that to actually get in the room with someone
Speaker 4: was one of his greatest Secondly, he had always been
Speaker 4: an internationalist.
Speaker 3: He loved traveling.
Speaker 4: In fact, after traveling incessantly for work, when he got
Speaker 4: a week off, he would travel. So he on average
Speaker 4: flu for a number of top years, one thousand hours.
Speaker 3: I want you to do the math on that, A
Speaker 3: thousand hours and one particular story.
Speaker 4: I was talking to his assistant the other day who
Speaker 4: was relating to me. In the middle of that binge
Speaker 4: of travel, the budgeting people at TPG asked.
Speaker 3: For next year's budget.
Speaker 4: She gave him the hours, and they asked for the
Speaker 4: hotel costs and she said there aren't hotels.
Speaker 3: He said, it's only acts and they said.
Speaker 4: I can't be x and they said there aren't hotels
Speaker 4: because David used to fly overnight, get off the plane,
Speaker 4: shower at the FBO, and go. He didn't use hotels
Speaker 4: because that was the way he went and for him,
Speaker 4: it was I think part hobby, part interests, but you know,
Speaker 4: absolutely a tool for getting done what he could get done,
Speaker 4: and frankly one of his superpowers.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about his life outside of TPG because
Speaker 2: it certainly informs it. It informs him as an investor,
Speaker 2: all the things he's doing with wildlife conservation, rock and roll.
Speaker 2: I mean, those two alone are rich for discussion. What
Speaker 2: was it about those things that ended up sort of
Speaker 2: informing him as a business person and as an investor.
Speaker 4: David had things that appealed to him, that he loved,
Speaker 4: and he was fiercely loyal to them.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you one diet coke.
Speaker 4: David drank more diet coke than anyone I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: In fact, it was a problem when we bought Continental
Speaker 4: because they had a contract with pepsi, oh boy, and
Speaker 4: he would not drink diet pepsi. So literally, as we
Speaker 4: went through airports, we would buy cans of diet coke
Speaker 4: and take them onto the plane with us. Because he
Speaker 4: wouldn't drink pepsi, and so he was passionate about He's
Speaker 4: passionate about rock and roll. Well before TPG, he would
Speaker 4: hold rock and roll parties and at annual meetings. When
Speaker 4: we started the business, most other firms had Margaret Thatcher
Speaker 4: and James Baker after dinner. We were the first firms
Speaker 4: to have Jimmy Buffett and Elton John things that Dave
Speaker 4: and I typically supported personally for these meetings.
Speaker 3: And so he loved Dia Coke. He loved rock and roll,
Speaker 3: and he really loved the wilderness of all sorts. He
Speaker 3: loved hiking.
Speaker 4: He went into the Himalayas many times in a Mustang
Speaker 4: that others hadn't gone in. So if you look at
Speaker 4: his interest, we never bought Coca Cola, but he did
Speaker 4: support the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he did
Speaker 4: support the Wilderness Society, and he's been very active in
Speaker 4: conservation activities around the world, often quietly at a scale
Speaker 4: people don't understand, but from the Grand Canyon Trust to Mustang,
Speaker 4: he's made a difference.
Speaker 2: And I think it's fair to say I'm going to
Speaker 2: make a leap here that you know you can.
Speaker 1: You could tell me is wrong.
Speaker 2: But I mean that sensibility makes its way into a
Speaker 2: lot of the investment decisions you guys are making and
Speaker 2: the lines of business that you go into, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: you're running a climate fund it.
Speaker 4: This point, there's it's no accident, yeah, that these things
Speaker 4: play through. I think we were doing ESG before it
Speaker 4: had a name in a variety of our investment memos.
Speaker 4: We always talked about the effect things would have, and
Speaker 4: we took on this question of how do you scale
Speaker 4: impact investing?
Speaker 3: It was a really interesting question.
Speaker 4: We took it on with vigor and this idea of
Speaker 4: defining climate not just as a problem but as an opportunity.
Speaker 4: As we were talking about before, this is a theme
Speaker 4: that has gone through David and through TPG for years.
Speaker 2: And so I mean from a personal perspective, how do
Speaker 2: how does it shape you to work with one person
Speaker 2: for as long as long as you did for that
Speaker 2: person to be your partner.
Speaker 1: You meet him as a very young man.
Speaker 2: Sorry by making this too personal for you, but it's
Speaker 2: like you meet him as a very young person. He
Speaker 2: obviously shapes you in a way that almost no one
Speaker 2: else could in your professional life. And I know you
Speaker 2: must be reflecting on that a lot right now, and
Speaker 2: maybe it's too soon to ask you this question, but like,
Speaker 2: how do you how do you sort of take that
Speaker 2: all in?
Speaker 4: No, he had shaped my life in many ways. We
Speaker 4: had a very interesting partnership for a few reasons. First
Speaker 4: of all, the age difference were seventeen years different. I
Speaker 4: started working for him, and we became equal control partners
Speaker 4: when we build TPG, and so that process of becoming
Speaker 4: partners we were colleagues for thirty eight years, partners for
Speaker 4: thirty two.
Speaker 3: Just doesn't happen that often.
Speaker 4: It does happen in private equity, and in some ways,
Speaker 4: one of the attributes of really strong private equity firms
Speaker 4: is strong partnerships. The strong partnerships tend to land well
Speaker 4: because I think private equity is not a one person sport.
Speaker 4: It is a team sport, and great teams, as you know,
Speaker 4: often have a partnership among their leading athletes in ways
Speaker 4: that play out over periods of time. So for me,
Speaker 4: it was a journey from a colleague to partner. I
Speaker 4: was always learning something from David, and I think he
Speaker 4: told me over the years he learned a few things
Speaker 4: from me. So that kind of constant curiosity was important,
Speaker 4: but we travel together on trips. We had lots of
Speaker 4: mutual friends who were very different people, but that partnership
Speaker 4: I think really resonated not only in the business world,
Speaker 4: but in the personal world. He was an immensely, immensely
Speaker 4: interesting person. No dinner, no flight was without fascinating conversations
Speaker 4: and usual deep laughter, and that certainly shaped me, shaped
Speaker 4: their firm, and really shaped so many in the industry
Speaker 4: that they touched.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just before we leave that, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: so interested in that because you know, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people, you know, watching this and listening to
Speaker 2: it who will think about, you know, their own careers
Speaker 2: and the choices that they make in terms of how
Speaker 2: they choose their partners and how they create winning partnerships
Speaker 2: and business relationships, and so I just I do wonder
Speaker 2: even as you guys built like, how do you even
Speaker 2: like divide responsibility? You know, how do you figure out
Speaker 2: like you're good at this, you're good at that? I mean,
Speaker 2: you're making it up as you go along.
Speaker 3: Presumably, Yeah, we were making up for how many years?
Speaker 4: I think it was always division of responsibility was often
Speaker 4: was very clear, and it's because we had different skills
Speaker 4: and similar values. It was kind of clear that David
Speaker 4: loved to go to Singapore for lunch and I was
Speaker 4: coaching my kid's soccer team, right and that division kind
Speaker 4: of worked for both of us Franks, because someone had
Speaker 4: to keep the firm growing and the other deals happening
Speaker 4: if he was in Singapore. So I think it was
Speaker 4: actually very natural and David was. Many people have partnered
Speaker 4: with David in many ways, so we probably had the
Speaker 4: longest continuous partnership. But he's been a great partner to
Speaker 4: a lot of people. I think in life, if you
Speaker 4: find great partners it's a very fortunate privilege. And even
Speaker 4: if you look at the public investing in side, you know,
Speaker 4: the Munger Buffet partnership went on for forty five years.
Speaker 4: These partnerships can be very powerful in our particular business.
Speaker 2: And I want to talk a little bit about his legacy,
Speaker 2: and part of that, I'm going to bring it back
Speaker 2: to an area I spent a lot of time is sports.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked a little bit about the Kraken,
Speaker 2: and I do think it's notable that that may be
Speaker 2: one of aside from the firm that you guys have
Speaker 2: built together, that may be one of his biggest legs.
Speaker 2: He's in part because his daughter, Samantha Holloway is now
Speaker 2: the control control ownder the Kraken. It is well known that,
Speaker 2: you know, they would like to bring basketball back to
Speaker 2: Seattle through the SuperSonics.
Speaker 3: Talk to me.
Speaker 1: About him getting into that.
Speaker 2: I'd love to unpack that because it was this it
Speaker 2: was this sort of tricky deal, but also something that
Speaker 2: he was very emotionally invested in.
Speaker 4: It felt like, yeah, it's something that he had been
Speaker 4: thinking about for a long time and for a number
Speaker 4: of years.
Speaker 3: It was hard for us to invest.
Speaker 4: In it because of our relationship with CIA, So David
Speaker 4: had to do this separately from the firm and actually
Speaker 4: be carved off from CIA to be involved in the Kraken.
Speaker 4: And I loved how he brought the same problem solving,
Speaker 4: just absolute brilliance and creativity to solving that problem.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't just about one thing sports. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of people who want to be sports owners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was about solving this problem for a city
Speaker 4: he loved, in a place that he admired uh and
Speaker 4: doing it in his own way. And so I think
Speaker 4: uh TPG maybe the cornerstone of his investing legacy. But
Speaker 4: I think the Kraken is certainly right up with it
Speaker 4: as as something that will have a longstanding impact.
Speaker 2: And presumably in part because you know, he brought his
Speaker 2: daughter into it, I mean, with which.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: Sam is Sam is doing an awesome job. It's been
Speaker 4: just brilliant to watch, uh, that evolution of her partnership
Speaker 4: with her father at the Kraken, and even like, I
Speaker 4: love the name, right, I remember when we were David
Speaker 4: was naming it, you know, he was talking over options
Speaker 4: with me and as soon as he said crack and
Speaker 4: I knew he was going there.
Speaker 3: It's just it's so bondo and.
Speaker 1: A little bit contrarian. There's no other It's like that.
Speaker 4: It wasn't going to be the Blue Sox, right, it
Speaker 4: was going to be the Kracking.
Speaker 2: And so what's been you know, I mean that it's
Speaker 2: it's early days obviously in terms of you, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of coming to grips with all this. I'm sure
Speaker 2: you're hearing from lots of different people, like the what
Speaker 2: are the messages that you're getting, what are the notes
Speaker 2: you're you're hearing, the calls you're getting that may maybe
Speaker 2: surprise you a little bit.
Speaker 4: Actually, it doesn't surprise me because one thing that is
Speaker 4: clear is that David has touched so many people over
Speaker 4: the years in his inimitable style. But my phone has
Speaker 4: been lighting up from all over the world from people
Speaker 4: I haven't heard from in twenty years, people reaching out
Speaker 4: to say how much David shaped his or her career,
Speaker 4: from you know, the CEO of Goldman to the CEO
Speaker 4: of JP Morgan to the top investment partnerships around the world,
Speaker 4: top LP partnerships around the world, and the messages have
Speaker 4: been not just about him as an investor or partner,
Speaker 4: but him as a person. And I think that's one
Speaker 4: of his legacies is not only did he do different
Speaker 4: deals build a.
Speaker 3: Different firm, but he almost gave license.
Speaker 4: For different ways to interact in this industry in a
Speaker 4: way that has opened up. He's always been interested in
Speaker 4: people of all sorts. I mean, who else hitchhikes across
Speaker 4: Africa for a year. Imagine who you meet and how
Speaker 4: that goes. So his ability to connect with people and
Speaker 4: welcome them into the industry from all nationalities, from all backgrounds,
Speaker 4: is I think another contribution he made to the industry.
Speaker 2: Well, as we wrap up, I've been wanting to ask
Speaker 2: you this, which is, if you had to given all
Speaker 2: these things, that all these inputs that you've got, all
Speaker 2: this experience you got, if you had to distill him
Speaker 2: down into one story that you could tell, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure you will tell over the coming weeks and months
Speaker 2: and years, what's the story?
Speaker 1: What's the Bondo story?
Speaker 4: Oh, there's too many. Uh, you know, I think there's
Speaker 4: deal stories, and there's and there's personal stories.
Speaker 3: On the deal stories. Uh.
Speaker 4: You know when the night there was one other bidder
Speaker 4: for Continental that sort of showed up and in the
Speaker 4: night before the bids were happening. Uh, that bidder was
Speaker 4: backed by Credit Lionnaise Credit and they were, you know,
Speaker 4: French bank owned by the French government, and uh we had,
Speaker 4: Uh the night before we made a deal with Air
Speaker 4: France to join the Continental Frequent fire Mile coalition, but
Speaker 4: only if Credit ly in A dropped out. So the
Speaker 4: morning of the Continental bids, we walked in with our
Speaker 4: bid and the other bidder couldn't show up because they
Speaker 4: just had their financing pull.
Speaker 3: So the the the chessboard of what was.
Speaker 4: Going on, I think we would have won anyhow, But
Speaker 4: the chessboard of what was going on was we were
Speaker 4: playing at a different level than maybe was understood generally,
Speaker 4: and his ability to be playing on a different board
Speaker 4: than others was happened kind of over and over again.
Speaker 4: But there's many very funny quips that I can't share.
Speaker 4: But the other moment that sticks out to me personally
Speaker 4: was at his birthday party, much written about when the
Speaker 4: Rolling Stones played, which was kind of before people did
Speaker 4: these private bands like this, And the thing I remember
Speaker 4: is I stood in the back with David and he
Speaker 4: was watching out the Stones, he was watching the crowd,
Speaker 4: and he refused to have toasts at the party, and
Speaker 4: it wasn't really.
Speaker 3: About his birthday.
Speaker 4: It was actually a gift from him to all the
Speaker 4: people that he invited. And that sort of generosity misconstrued
Speaker 4: a little bit outside.
Speaker 3: But that sort of.
Speaker 4: Generosity, the very bondo, very not about him but about
Speaker 4: an experience, was something I just saw over and over again.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening to this conversation with Jim Colter,
Speaker 2: the chairman and co founder of TPG, all about his
Speaker 2: late partner David Bonderman. And if you're interested in these
Speaker 2: types of conversations, check out my show The Deal with
Speaker 2: Alex Rodriguez. I'm Jason Kelly, and this is Bloomberg