Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton, business editor for Variety Today. My guest is
Speaker 1: James Moore, managing partner and CEO of Vine Alternative Investments.
Speaker 1: James gives us an investor's guide to navigating the content business.
Speaker 1: He discusses the growth of the asset management firm and
Speaker 1: its approach to building a diversified portfolio of content, production
Speaker 1: and i P holdings. Vine is the parent company of Village,
Speaker 1: road Show and other established industry entities, and it has
Speaker 1: slowly but surely been amassing a library through acquisitions. As
Speaker 1: More explains, Vine hopes to help fill the void for
Speaker 1: global TV buyers as Hollywood's largest studios focus on funneling
Speaker 1: content into vertically integrated streaming platforms. Or started Vine in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six after sixteen years as a banker
Speaker 1: with JP Morgan. That experience taught him that media investing
Speaker 1: could be demystified and made more predictable and thus more
Speaker 1: palatable to investors. He had a trial by fire with
Speaker 1: a startup launched just as the country went into its
Speaker 1: last recession. Now he sees opportunities coming out of the
Speaker 1: current pandemic crisis. Jim Moore, managing partner and CEO of
Speaker 1: Vine Alternative Investments, Thank you so much for joining us. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you, Cynthia. It's a pleasure. Um. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we're about we're about two and a half months into
Speaker 1: an extraordinary environment that none of us could have even
Speaker 1: imagined three months ago would be would become something like
Speaker 1: the new normal, and it looks like, at least in
Speaker 1: some places like California in particular, it looks like we're
Speaker 1: starting to very slowly turn the corner to reopening and
Speaker 1: getting to something that looks a little bit like normal. Um.
Speaker 1: For you, as an investor, first and foremost, how have
Speaker 1: you kind of been spending this time? How have you
Speaker 1: been sizing up opportunities in the media landscape right now?
Speaker 1: Great question. We really continue to pursue our business model
Speaker 1: of investing in content related opportunities. So as an investor,
Speaker 1: we see the landscape as being one of high demand
Speaker 1: coming out of this. Uh, the theatrical environment has been
Speaker 1: completely shut down. The streamers have been very fortunate in
Speaker 1: in growth opportunities because of this, But it means their
Speaker 1: new customers and their old customers are consuming all of
Speaker 1: the content that it's on their platform. So we see
Speaker 1: across the board the need for the entire industry to
Speaker 1: restock its content supply. And between the content investments in
Speaker 1: our portfolio and the production investments in our portfolio, it's
Speaker 1: really more of aligning them, trying to give them the
Speaker 1: resources they need so that they're out of the gate
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible when production returns, helping them through
Speaker 1: the process of development and getting all of those ducts
Speaker 1: in a row so that on the other side of
Speaker 1: this we are able to meet what we expect to
Speaker 1: be a very robust demand for content. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: we've seen that in every in every study and every
Speaker 1: ratings report. You know, people are no surprise at this time,
Speaker 1: are definitely tuned into their screens. And a number of
Speaker 1: people have said that this this could be seen as
Speaker 1: the you know, if there's a silver lining here, it
Speaker 1: is that people have had a chance to sample the
Speaker 1: incredible explosion in in content, have you. I mean, the
Speaker 1: media and entertainments was already in a period of consolidation
Speaker 1: before the lockdown hit. Do you think that you know,
Speaker 1: coming out of this. The conventional wisdom is that the
Speaker 1: companies that were weak are going to be a lot
Speaker 1: weaker after just at this abrupt shutdown. You know, do
Speaker 1: you see shopping opportunities as the world kind of starts
Speaker 1: to get back on its feet. I think that the
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom is probably largely correct um. But we're not
Speaker 1: just buyers. We are capital providers to the industry. So
Speaker 1: it's not just about what can we buy because it
Speaker 1: it's struggled, it's what can we support that means our capital.
Speaker 1: So we look across the spectrum at opportunities. Where are
Speaker 1: their platforms that otherwise we're very solid platforms, will run
Speaker 1: platforms with good content, but with this headwind, you know,
Speaker 1: couldn't make it. Where can we support them with our
Speaker 1: capital is just as much a part of our business
Speaker 1: plan as where have assets become available because of this situation?
Speaker 1: And where can we add to our very large portfolio.
Speaker 1: Do you find given that you do provide you know,
Speaker 1: you do not just acquire, but you do provide that
Speaker 1: kind of liquidity. Do those opportunities come for you to
Speaker 1: come in and support a struggling business? Do those typically
Speaker 1: come from things that you and your team scope out
Speaker 1: or do they come from incoming phone calls people know
Speaker 1: that you can provide that kind of financing and and
Speaker 1: seek you out. It's a bit of both, but I'd
Speaker 1: say it's a little bit more on the outbound. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think people think there's the type of
Speaker 1: creative capital out there as we can provide, because almost
Speaker 1: everything we've done in the past has been pretty bespoke.
Speaker 1: It's solved a very specific need for somebody in a
Speaker 1: very specific situation, and we have the capacity to meet
Speaker 1: those needs when people don't even know that they either
Speaker 1: have the need or that there is a solution outside
Speaker 1: of their traditional things. So our outreach is very important
Speaker 1: to educating people. And they're not just struggling businesses. There
Speaker 1: are other businesses that now have competing priorities or are
Speaker 1: just you know, in need of another source of capital
Speaker 1: given the extreme demand that's going to be on the
Speaker 1: whole system. So it's we deal with everybody from well
Speaker 1: capitalized but needing diversification in that capital too, you know,
Speaker 1: struggling and needing additional capital too greatly, struggling and needing
Speaker 1: the ultimate liquidity solution. M HM. Did you have any
Speaker 1: deals that were in motion that we're kind of put
Speaker 1: on ice by the pandemic. Uh No, Actually it's accelerated
Speaker 1: some of the transactions that that we were looking at.
Speaker 1: So um Our transactions take a long time. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a process of of understanding the assets at a
Speaker 1: very granular level and understanding what the issues are. So
Speaker 1: we tend to have a lot of lead time for
Speaker 1: everything we've ever done. Uh. The pandemic has accelerated a
Speaker 1: couple of opportunities in our portfolio and we're moving that along. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Do you um, does you know does the conditions of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, the lockdown of the last couple of months,
Speaker 1: does that change you know, price and value discussions at all?
Speaker 1: I mean the is it are the conditions that the
Speaker 1: industry is facing so significant you think that you would
Speaker 1: have to reevaluate the terms of something that you would
Speaker 1: maybe you know, come close to really nailing down like
Speaker 1: January or early February. Is it that significant? I think
Speaker 1: if you're focused on theatrically released pictures in an independent context,
Speaker 1: you'd have to revisit the market coming out of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: The opportunity to get your theatrical film in a theater
Speaker 1: with any meaningful amount of showing is going to be
Speaker 1: extremely challenged. So if that was your business model, you
Speaker 1: have to revisit at the economics of your business model.
Speaker 1: Our business model tends to focus more on established i
Speaker 1: P and the development of that i P into alternative
Speaker 1: platform so we haven't been as directly affected by this change,
Speaker 1: and we saw that change coming several years ago and
Speaker 1: we acquired Village road Show. Village was exactly that. They
Speaker 1: were solely reliant on the theatrical market until we took
Speaker 1: them over and steered them in a different direction to
Speaker 1: focus on opportunities and television and streaming. And with Steve
Speaker 1: Moscow having come on board and brought a team with
Speaker 1: him and assembled a team around him to make that
Speaker 1: vision happen, that company has as positioned itself extremely well
Speaker 1: for the content demand that's going to come in the
Speaker 1: next couple of months. M I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little more about Village road Show. But let me ask you,
Speaker 1: although I realized this is out of the scope of
Speaker 1: your I P and content focus business asn't it, just
Speaker 1: as an invest stir and somebody who you know who
Speaker 1: evaluates markets, do you think that there is an opportunity
Speaker 1: for somebody to come in at a time when the
Speaker 1: major theater change the exhibition chains are really struggling. The
Speaker 1: A m c S, the cinemarx. Do you think that
Speaker 1: we'll see buying opportunities or consolidation in that market? Well,
Speaker 1: just because they're cheaper, I don't know that that means
Speaker 1: it's a buying opportunity. UM. I don't know who has
Speaker 1: the crystal ball that knows what the theatrical consumer experience
Speaker 1: is going to look like six months from now or
Speaker 1: twelve months from now. Um. But if your vision is
Speaker 1: that it will return to something resembling normal and something
Speaker 1: resembling a reasonable time frame, I could see making that
Speaker 1: investment for the long term. But there's just so much unknown.
Speaker 1: H How prevalent will social distancing be, either because of
Speaker 1: regulation or because of consumer preference. You're gonna want to
Speaker 1: go to the movies and sit next to or in
Speaker 1: front of somebody you don't know as tightly as as
Speaker 1: you have. And you know that's a real estate business
Speaker 1: that relies on a certain density of consumer to make
Speaker 1: the numbers work. So you know, the the change that
Speaker 1: that gave you more of a living room experience the
Speaker 1: eye picks of the world. They were struggling long before
Speaker 1: the pandemic because it's a challenging business market to have
Speaker 1: so much space dedicated to so few people. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they'll be opportunities because things are valued less. I just
Speaker 1: don't know if they're valued less, if they're still over
Speaker 1: or undervalued. With your acquisition of Village road Show, you
Speaker 1: recruited Steve Moscow, a season television executive. Is it fair
Speaker 1: to say that, at least in the short term, like
Speaker 1: year two the Village road Show, will you know, put
Speaker 1: more capital and energy towards television and digital content versus
Speaker 1: theatrical films as it has in the past. That's a
Speaker 1: very accurate. That's a high priority drive of ours is
Speaker 1: to diversify that company into providing content to a diversity
Speaker 1: of platforms. So they have relationships with and and are
Speaker 1: talking about real content opportunities to everybody across the spectrum.
Speaker 1: And we look forward to being able to create really
Speaker 1: any type of content that the consumer wants, from the
Speaker 1: shortest form too to the new you know, single season
Speaker 1: episodic streaming television to traditional linear television. M hmm. Do
Speaker 1: you think um at this moment in time when we're
Speaker 1: seeing you know, we're seeing the launch of massive global
Speaker 1: streaming services. You're obviously bullish and investing in Village road show.
Speaker 1: Do you think that a company of that of that
Speaker 1: size and a company that kind of fulfills that that
Speaker 1: traditional role of not quite a studio but a bit
Speaker 1: larger than a boutique, can those companies thrive in this
Speaker 1: environment where we're seeing people kind of be you know,
Speaker 1: networks and platforms and content providers are becoming you know,
Speaker 1: more siloed than they had been in the past. Um
Speaker 1: you know, at the same time, it is a there
Speaker 1: is a very vibrant demand for content, but nonetheless, the
Speaker 1: companies and the control of the content and the rights
Speaker 1: is very is very concentrated with a you know, truly
Speaker 1: a handful of big, big players. Is that is that
Speaker 1: daunting as you try to build a build, build up
Speaker 1: a business like a village rocha. It's exactly the opposite.
Speaker 1: If we were in the distribution business, it would be
Speaker 1: incredibly daunting because distribution is very expensive, it requires scale,
Speaker 1: and you're up against the biggest companies on the planet.
Speaker 1: We're in the content creation to news and it's those
Speaker 1: silos that our business model is exactly built to feed
Speaker 1: the fact that Warner Brothers has built HBO Max, and
Speaker 1: Disney has built Disney Plus and Peacock is coming uh
Speaker 1: that will take up content that previously had been distributed
Speaker 1: around the industry. So the previous consumers of Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: content are going to be shut out of Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: content as it all goes increasingly to HBO Max. That
Speaker 1: opens the door for The Village road Show UM and
Speaker 1: other investments that will make in this space. On the
Speaker 1: production side, they'll be able to deal independently with all
Speaker 1: the different platforms as an honest broker and be able
Speaker 1: to deliver content that meets each one of those and
Speaker 1: it won't be the same type of content. They'll have
Speaker 1: a demographic that they'll be trying to fill, and we
Speaker 1: have a very diverse catalog of content in development to
Speaker 1: be able to meet those needs. So it's those silos
Speaker 1: that are exactly the business opportunity that we're pursuing because
Speaker 1: they've shut off content delivery to other platforms that continue
Speaker 1: to need it, and they needed themselves as big as
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers is. They can't create enough content for HBO Max.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a huge enterprise that they're trying to create.
Speaker 1: They're trying to compete head to head with Netflix. They
Speaker 1: need high quality original content h and obviously too in
Speaker 1: this environment, the business that the traditional TV series, the
Speaker 1: construct of how studios made money on television series has
Speaker 1: changed very much. For for a village road show, going
Speaker 1: into a world where most of your upside is is
Speaker 1: calculated up front, maybe not paid up front, but calculated
Speaker 1: up front um that is still you feel like there's
Speaker 1: enough of a robust business there to warrant to just
Speaker 1: by your investment. We do. We do because it's a blend.
Speaker 1: There's some element of the revenue stream that says you
Speaker 1: described it's fixed margin business UM, and the margins if
Speaker 1: you can control production costs and development costs and overhead,
Speaker 1: are sufficient to to have a good business. But that's
Speaker 1: not our only business. We still have the theatrical leg.
Speaker 1: We still have our catalog of extremely valuable tent pole
Speaker 1: titles with Matrix four coming down the pike and potentially
Speaker 1: other sequels to our iconic properties those that's an important
Speaker 1: leg in the business. There's UM, there's other you know,
Speaker 1: we are dealing with the linear channels in a more
Speaker 1: traditional television sense, so there will be international exploitation of
Speaker 1: content we've developed for domestic platform so we look to
Speaker 1: blend all of them. We don't want anyone to be
Speaker 1: our soul business model. We think the combination of the
Speaker 1: three adds value, and the value in the fixed price
Speaker 1: contracts is stability. When you're a Village road Show sized enterprise,
Speaker 1: extreme volatility is dangerous stability. Even though people tend to
Speaker 1: focus on oh, it takes away your upside, it takes
Speaker 1: away you're downside too, and so having a nice element
Speaker 1: of known profit is very attractive as an investor. Does
Speaker 1: Village Road Show? You know, for years, Village Road Show
Speaker 1: was very closely aligned in the feature business with Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: You know, had had agreements together. Do there are those
Speaker 1: still in existence? Do you still have that relationship or
Speaker 1: are you more of a what more playing the field
Speaker 1: these days in the film On the film side, we're
Speaker 1: still a very active partner of Warner Brothers. Um it's
Speaker 1: not an exclusive relationship and never actually was. The prior
Speaker 1: incarnation of Village did several movies with Sony. We have
Speaker 1: some older paramount pictures that our in our catalog. So
Speaker 1: we've always had the ability and have always had relationships
Speaker 1: with other studios, But we do have an anchor relationship
Speaker 1: with Warner Brothers, and our development of that co owned
Speaker 1: i P is central to to that part of that relationship,
Speaker 1: and we look forward to working with them on a
Speaker 1: continuing basis. But we are free to do other things
Speaker 1: with other studios, either the television side of other studios
Speaker 1: or the theatrical side of other studios. Will develop those
Speaker 1: relationships and continue to do what what is the intersection
Speaker 1: of the content that we have and the consumer appetite
Speaker 1: that we see And when you're producing uh in the
Speaker 1: TV series Realm, do you are there things that you
Speaker 1: anticipate Bill Road Show producing entirely on their own or
Speaker 1: are you gonna? Are you still in a business of
Speaker 1: looking for partners on a project project. We're very opportunistic.
Speaker 1: We're capable of doing anything on our own. UM. We
Speaker 1: accept partners when they make sense within the context of
Speaker 1: the project. We don't start things meeting a partner. That's
Speaker 1: not our business model. UM. The company is very well
Speaker 1: capitalized and capable internally of creating and developing and producing
Speaker 1: anything that we start. But there are just certain times
Speaker 1: where you know, somebody has a piece of I P
Speaker 1: and you have a take and putting those two things
Speaker 1: together makes a lot of sense. And that's where partnerships
Speaker 1: are organic and important. M Um, let's talk about Europa Corp.
Speaker 1: You are an investor in Europa Corp. And obviously that's
Speaker 1: a company that that I'm sure gives you a really
Speaker 1: you know, a good sense of the global market for content.
Speaker 1: But you know, beyond just beyond the United States, Um,
Speaker 1: that company has obviously been through They've just been through
Speaker 1: a restructuring, They've had a lot of management changes in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. What do you uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what what has kept you invested in or rope for
Speaker 1: Let me ask you the kind of the bigger picture
Speaker 1: question about the content business that that I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have to as an investor really evaluate. One of the
Speaker 1: things that we've been talking about, the production models, the
Speaker 1: profit models are all changing for film and television, and
Speaker 1: that makes it very hard to to evaluate and really
Speaker 1: put a number on the long term value of an
Speaker 1: individual movie, an individual television program. How as you look
Speaker 1: at as you know you have you have been in
Speaker 1: the business of buying film libraries. You bought the Lake
Speaker 1: Shore Entertainment Library a couple of years ago. Village Road
Speaker 1: Show has a library. How do you go about, you know,
Speaker 1: in a world where syndication futures is you if you will,
Speaker 1: are not nearly as predictable as they once were because
Speaker 1: the market is so much bigger. What are the what
Speaker 1: are the measures? What are the what are the yard
Speaker 1: sticks that you use to evaluate a library that you're
Speaker 1: considering buying or or the potential of a property that
Speaker 1: you're considering investing in at a time when when there's
Speaker 1: so much about the way people make money is changing. Um,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of change going on. We do
Speaker 1: a very granular analysis of any library we're looking to acquire,
Speaker 1: and what that means is you're really looking at the
Speaker 1: individual pieces of content and what they're the rights are
Speaker 1: that are associated with them, and what channels are available
Speaker 1: to you and what channels will be exploited in the future.
Speaker 1: So you do have a lot of visibility, even though
Speaker 1: there's change coming. You do have a lot of visibility
Speaker 1: because the path of content is sort of set when
Speaker 1: it's created and then it's observable over over its life.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is. The change that's
Speaker 1: happening is going to be happening more to new content
Speaker 1: than to the library content, and so it's easier to address.
Speaker 1: So a new piece of content that you make for Netflix,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't have the the life cycle that
Speaker 1: it would have had fifteen years ago because Netflix doesn't
Speaker 1: operate the way they did then, and um and the
Speaker 1: world doesn't operate that way. So now you have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to make something for a margin and you put
Speaker 1: you don't get the international upside um. So that's sort
Speaker 1: of what you're talking about in terms of the change
Speaker 1: that's happening. The rights that had historically been left with
Speaker 1: producers or monetized in different ways aren't being that monetized
Speaker 1: in those ways. But there's a lot of library, older
Speaker 1: assets that still are where the rights aren't controlled in
Speaker 1: the same way as they're going to be controlled in
Speaker 1: the future. There's still a very robust international demand for content.
Speaker 1: The more and more um quality pieces of i P
Speaker 1: that get locked up in these streaming platforms, the less
Speaker 1: and less independent distributors in far entire tories have available.
Speaker 1: So you know, we can look at things very gradually.
Speaker 1: We can still understand how they're going to be exploited
Speaker 1: over the next thirty years, and we can still measure
Speaker 1: that with a high degree of of accuracy. And as
Speaker 1: we continue to evolve our portfolio, we're always looking behind
Speaker 1: and forward, you know, how we're our projections when we
Speaker 1: made them, and how does that influence how we make
Speaker 1: future projections. And that ropebust level of data that we
Speaker 1: have gives us comfort, lets us sleep at night that
Speaker 1: we understand how much content is worth because we look
Speaker 1: at it. You can't just say in general how much
Speaker 1: content is worth. You have to look at individual pieces
Speaker 1: and model it out separately. Is it fair to say
Speaker 1: that you are seeing a diminishing you know, revenue stream
Speaker 1: coming from traditional sources like broadcast syndication, like cable syndication
Speaker 1: in the US? I mean, is that are those businesses
Speaker 1: you know, seeing the feeling the decline that we are
Speaker 1: seeing in a macro sense of the shrinking cable universe.
Speaker 1: The domestic TV is under a little bit of pressure,
Speaker 1: but international TV is still robust, and overall the international
Speaker 1: market is now larger than the US markets, So on
Speaker 1: the whole, those those have balanced out. Um the counter,
Speaker 1: is international TV or domestic TV. They still need content
Speaker 1: and they still have audiences to cater to. They still
Speaker 1: have a demographic that wants to see a certain thing. So, um,
Speaker 1: while they're under pressure, they're under pressure to keep their
Speaker 1: audience as well, and that keeps a certain amount of
Speaker 1: of demand on their side that benefits owners and you
Speaker 1: and your company. Vine at times will go into like
Speaker 1: buying you know, very specific portfolios, portfolios of of interests
Speaker 1: in in content that a producer might have or a
Speaker 1: showrunner or a star. You get, you get back granular
Speaker 1: in some deal making. Correct, absolutely, absolutely, We've we do
Speaker 1: everything from single pictures either films or television shows up
Speaker 1: to libraries of a hundred plus three hundred plus titles.
Speaker 1: So we're capable of spanning the universe of of investment.
Speaker 1: And do you do you license the library because you've
Speaker 1: picked up you know, Village Road Show, Europa, Lake Shore,
Speaker 1: do you have some some way to license the library.
Speaker 1: Do you market the library as a as a Vine
Speaker 1: Alternative Investments library or do you do it sort of
Speaker 1: by brand when you're if you're trying to license, you know,
Speaker 1: do a big content licensing deal. Right now, we're still
Speaker 1: licensing titles under the original uh cat library names. So
Speaker 1: if you're talking about Rischer or gay Lord or some
Speaker 1: of the other titles that we've had where we have
Speaker 1: international distribution, our distributions still uses is the the original
Speaker 1: is just that because that's the familiar name in the marketplace. UM.
Speaker 1: As we get bigger, we will entertain whether or not
Speaker 1: the Vine brand UM gives us scale. You know, we've
Speaker 1: acquired the capacity to service and sell those assets across
Speaker 1: the globe, So we're doing all of that internally with
Speaker 1: the acquisitions we've made. UM. So with increasing acquisitions, it
Speaker 1: will just organically become more familiar to the marketplace that
Speaker 1: these are Vine assets. So but at this at this moment,
Speaker 1: do you have your own kind of like licensing and
Speaker 1: distribution team or it do we do? We have far
Speaker 1: in sales and all of the back office support you
Speaker 1: need to handle that from delivery to payment of participations,
Speaker 1: all of those, all of the capabilities within the Vine
Speaker 1: ecosystem go. And that's based in l A. It is
Speaker 1: it is UM. Jim. Before you started, before you co
Speaker 1: founded by an Alternative Investments in two thousand six, you
Speaker 1: spent sixteen years with JP Morgan as a banker working
Speaker 1: in asset backed securities. What was it about your time
Speaker 1: at JP Morgan that led you to launch Fine? You know,
Speaker 1: at JP Morgan, my clients were especially finance companies that
Speaker 1: UM that needed to finance themselves in a creative way
Speaker 1: and did so by issuing asset back securities backed by
Speaker 1: any number of different esoteric assets from golf cars to airplanes, helicopters,
Speaker 1: regular cars, you name it. It was a very diverse
Speaker 1: universe of customers that I served at JP Morgan. What
Speaker 1: that taught me was, you know what investors looked for
Speaker 1: in institutional grade investments and how they liked the cash
Speaker 1: flows and the diverse the importance of diversification and and correlation. UM.
Speaker 1: There was a consumer credit cycle and a commercial credit cycle,
Speaker 1: and when I came across the entertainment sector, I realized
Speaker 1: that there was no credit cycle associated with the entertainment sector. Yes,
Speaker 1: it went up and down, but it didn't go up
Speaker 1: and down with respect to when the stock market went
Speaker 1: up and down or when credit went up and down,
Speaker 1: when the economy went up and down. And we did
Speaker 1: a lot of digging, we did a lot of homework,
Speaker 1: and we were able to demonstrate that we could create
Speaker 1: an institutional quality investment out of investing in media and entertainment,
Speaker 1: and it was differentiated. It was an opportunity to give
Speaker 1: something to the investor base that they had no access
Speaker 1: to before. And we tested that business model and ultimately
Speaker 1: launched our first fund in two thousand seven right before
Speaker 1: the crash, and the crash very articulately demonstrated that those
Speaker 1: assets could survive and thrive in a very adverse market
Speaker 1: and that's what led to the growth of mine for
Speaker 1: the last thirteen years. So you and so economic downturns
Speaker 1: are are nothing new and you you have managed your
Speaker 1: way through them in the past. Are there any lessons
Speaker 1: from two thousand, two thousand eight, two tho nine period
Speaker 1: you think that will be applicable to the you know
Speaker 1: what we hope will be the great re emergence and
Speaker 1: then in the coming months. You know that from an
Speaker 1: investors standpoint, the big lesson and people tend to forget
Speaker 1: this is just because the industry is not correlated. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can't make bad deals. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: it's discipline and deal making. It's it's discipline and risk
Speaker 1: taking that are the most important elements of success. It's
Speaker 1: from my perspective, it's about creating partnerships that benefit both sides.
Speaker 1: Those are the best deals, and when they do benefit
Speaker 1: both sides, you know you're there to come back and
Speaker 1: your partner is there to do more and and that
Speaker 1: creates a virtuous circle of growth. So the lesson is
Speaker 1: clearly just because there's there's a lot of liquidity and
Speaker 1: this sector is not correlated, doesn't mean every deal you
Speaker 1: can do is gonna make money. You really have to
Speaker 1: stick to your to the nuts and bolts of what
Speaker 1: you do and really understand the nuances of the space.
Speaker 1: Great well, Jim, thank you for spending time with us
Speaker 1: to help us do just that. I really appreciate it's
Speaker 1: it's great to talk with you. Good luck getting through
Speaker 1: this and we'll definitely stay tuned. Say thank you, Cynthia.
Speaker 1: This was great. I appreciate the time to talk. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Be sure to tune in next week for
Speaker 1: another episode of Strictly Business.