Brendan Carroll, Co-Founder & Senior Partner of Victory Park Capital on the growth of private credit

Brendan Carroll, Co-Founder & Senior Partner of Victory Park Capital

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In the early days of the online lending space, when it came to institutional capital, one name seemed to be in more deals than any other: Victory Park Capital. And while the industry has matured a great deal since then, in no small part thanks to the capital invested by Victory Park, their thesis remains the same: lend money where banks won’t.

Brendan Carroll, Co-Founder & Senior Partner of Victory Park Capital

My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Brendan Carroll, Co-Founder and Senior Partner of Victory Park. I am so pleased to finally get Brendan on the show after first inviting him many years ago. They have a great story to tell and they continue to help fuel the growth of private credit, providing capital to a wide variety of different lenders.

In this podcast you will learn:

  • The founding story of Victory Park Capital.
  • Their fortunate timing of the closing of their first institutional fund.
  • What they saw as the opportunity in the early days of the online lending space.
  • Why they pulled out of the peer-to-peer lending platforms fairly quickly.
  • How they are able to get comfortable investing with new lending platforms.
  • What types of lenders they are working with today and the regions they operate.
  • Why businesses are staying with Victory Park a bit longer today.
  • Why their check sizes are higher today than five years ago.
  • The niche of consumer finance they are most bullish on today.
  • How the equity funding pullback has impacted their business.
  • How lenders can set themselves for success and get a deal with Victory Park done.
  • Brendan’s views on the future of asset-back private credit.

Read a transcription of our conversation below.

FINTECH ONE-ON-ONE PODCAST NO. 483 – BRENDAN CARROLL

Peter Renton  00:01

Welcome to the Fintech One-on-One podcast. This is Peter Renton, Chairman and co-founder of Fintech Nexus. I’ve been doing this show since 2013, which makes this the longest running one-on-one interview show in all of fintech. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey.

Peter Renton  00:27

Before we get started, I want to remind you about our comprehensive news service. Fintech Nexus News not only covers the biggest fintech news stories, our daily newsletter delivers the most important fintech stories into your inbox every morning, with special commentary on the top story of the day. Stay on top of fintech news by subscribing at news dot fintech nexus.com/subscribe.

Peter Renton  00:57

Today on the show, I’m delighted to welcome Brendan Carroll. He is the co-founder and senior partner at Victory Park Capital. Now he’s also a real pioneer in the fintech lending space. We talk about those early days, what they were like, and I think there was a time when I would say pretty much every single fintech lender had conversations with Victory Park at some point. So we also talk about how the space has evolved since those early days, we talk about the international expansion. We talk about the pullback in equity funding in fintech and the impact that’s had on the space. You know, we also talk about what it takes to really position a fintech lender for success, so that Victory Park would take a look at you, and much more. It was a fascinating discussion. Hope you enjoy the show.

Peter Renton  00:57

Welcome to the podcast, Brendan.

Brendan Carroll  01:56

Thanks, Peter. Nice to see you.

Peter Renton  01:58

Nice to see you. I’m glad we finally got to do this. So let’s get started by giving listeners a little bit of background, I mean, I think most of the listeners will know about Victory Park, but tell us a little bit about your background. You know what you’ve done in your career to date.

Brendan Carroll  02:13

Sure. So my co-founder and I, Richard Levy started Victory Park almost, it’ll be 18 years this September. I think I’ve known you for a good portion of that.

Peter Renton  02:25

Yep, indeed.

Brendan Carroll  02:26

We came out of Magnetar Capital here in the Chicago area to start VPC. Prior to Magnetar I worked at William Blair & Company here in the Chicago area. And then prior to that, worked at Robertson Stephens in investment banking in both New York and San Francisco. And then prior to that, worked in government for US Senator Joe Lieberman, who was our chairman for the last 10 plus years, and who unexpectedly and unfortunately passed away last week. So that’s been the career trajectory from college through today.

Peter Renton  03:06

Wow. Wow. Okay, so let’s go back 18 years then if you could, and just talk about the founding of Victory Park, what was the sort of the impetus behind that?

Brendan Carroll  03:18

Yeah, I just turned 28. And my partner Richard will tell you, he wanted to do it because he was tired for working for somebody else. I’ll tell you, I went and did it because I didn’t know any better, probably, because I was 28 years old and knew nothing about starting a business. So weren’t doing any of the things that we now do today. But we went out with a simple thesis of looking to provide private credit anywhere a bank wasn’t, as we were starting to see that in our time at Magnetar. And then we closed on our first institutional fund in June of ’08, so about 45 days or so before Lehman Brothers collapsed. And then the world changed overnight, both in terms of the types of companies that needed non traditional private debt, and the people who were actually willing to supply credit to those sorts of companies. So banks pulled back dramatically, you had massive regulatory change. Then combined with one of the largest influxes of growth equity and venture capital into call it the brick and mortar to digital business model transformation that we’ve ever seen. And now all of a sudden, our type of credit of lending money to a growth business, but that actually had collateral, became to me, brand new, but grew dramatically with the growth of fintech, e-commerce, any sort of, you know, analog to digital transition within business, and then Victory Park grew along with that. If you look at our pitch book at the time, there was maybe 500 billion or so worldwide within private credit on the alternative side. And fast forward to today, depending on what metric you look at, 1.7 to 2 trillion. So I like to say, you know, everyone says today’s the golden age of private credit. And I guess we could debate that, but for what we do, 2007/2008 was the beginning of asset backed private credit for where we focus.

Peter Renton  05:29

Right, I imagine like when the world was falling apart in 2008, you probably thought this was not a great time to close a fund. But in hindsight, obviously, as you said, it led to some real major shifts in how businesses get funded. And suddenly, banks were pulling back, we saw the growth of peer to peer. I imagine that 2008, you probably were thinking the world’s falling apart, oh, my God, we’re crushing it in like a very short period of time, right?

Brendan Carroll  05:54

Yeah. And I’d like to say it was all because of our skill, which I think we have a lot of, but I’m a firm believer in you work hard to get lucky. And we had good timing, right. That that fund closed, as you were starting to see turbulence. But if we hadn’t closed and it was 45 days later, there was no way that any institutional investor, no matter what the strategy is, is going to sign on the dotted line when there’s just uncertainty in the world. So we were fortunate that we had a committed pool of dry powder, to then take advantage of all these new opportunities that started to come our way and build it from there. But for sure, it definitely changed the types of deals we were going to see, as well as just the trajectory of deployment. It basically changed everything, but I like to say it was a you know, it was a trial by fire, a very good learning experience, you know, for what we’ve now seen for almost 18 years.

Peter Renton  06:52

So I want to go back to the early days of the online lending space. Obviously, you were very early mover in this area. And I wanted to kind of get a sense when you saw the online lending space like the Lending Clubs and Prospers, and you had OnDeck and Funding Circle and others. What was it that you saw that, you know, because these companies were fairly nascent. I mean, like, they’d been around for a few years, because they got really, they got a boost from the financial crisis as well, as banks pulled back. But what did you see about the online lending space that really attracted you back then?

Brendan Carroll  07:26

Yeah, so I think the first time we had even looked at it was maybe mid late ’08, where we were having a conversation with Sequoia and TCV, who were starting to get active in the space, looking at a multitude of different types of consumer loan structures, etc. And our first investment actually wasn’t in a whole loan format or forward flow type agreement that became pretty popular back then. We were, what I like to describe as a balance sheet lender, so for every dollar, that lenders given to the consumer, we were putting up 80 to 85 cents, and the platform itself had to put up that 15 cents of first loss. Every loan they were making was going into our collateral pool. Any loan that became in covenant breach or default, at the end of every month, stays in the pool, but it’s removed from the borrowing base. It was a pretty active calculation and you know, fast forward 19 years in that structure, knock on wood, we’ve never had an issue. And a combination of we were, we liked the short duration nature of it. My partner Tom Welsh and I always joke, never bet against the US consumer, we’ve been saying it now since we started Victory Park. But what changes is what part of that consumers daily life do you want to bet on, right? Is it a discretionary purchase? Is it a need-based financing? Is it small dollar, is it mid range, etc? That’s changed dramatically. But we just became very bullish, because access to credit was near impossible for most consumers post 2008. Combined with you saw an influx of venture capital from very well respected institutions like the two I just mentioned, plus many others. So from a structure standpoint, we loved that they were putting skin in the game, they were retaining risks, the duration was short, in there wasn’t any sort of selection bias on what loans are we getting versus somebody else. Because we were doing everything. That then grew into the names you mentioned, in your Prospers, your Lending Clubs in doing whole loans, which we were very active in. But I think, God, maybe two or three years into it, we sat there as an investment committee and a risk committee saying we’re trying to generate a double digit return on a net basis for our LPs. The only way to do that with some of these platforms like a Lending Club or a Prosper would be to lever our portfolio. We’re not financing every loan they do, we’re getting sort of a monthly pick. And you know we were comfortable with how those loans were distributed amongst either to us or other buyers. But we weren’t that 85 cents of the dollar that I was just talking about, we were the full dollar, or in certain cases $1.02 or $1.03, because you’re paying the (garbled). And it just became to us, you know, most things in life are about alignment of incentives. And we just didn’t feel we had it there because not that Prosper or Lending Club,were doing anything wrong, but they weren’t retaining the risk. And if you’re them, and you have all these buyers, and you don’t need to, I totally understand that. But we were doing this in a very benign and rosy credit environment. And we started to look and say, Okay, well, what happens if defaults spike by 10%, 20%, 30%? We have no downside protection. The only way to repair either defaulted collateral or early repayments, in terms of your collateral pool would be to go out and buy more loans. So we got out of about a billion dollars or so of whole loan structure agreements across seven or eight different lenders. And transitioned just back to that we’ll be the balance sheet, we want to know you, you know, consumer lending platform, small business lending platform, whatever it may be, are retaining the risk. We’re that sole lender, so we don’t have to worry about any sort of bias in that loan distribution or selection on a monthly basis. Because, again, we were and still remain extremely bullish on the demand and need for that type of product. But we just wanted to match what we thought was a better structure in terms of our own downside protection, and call it a crawl, walk, run mentality in terms of providing capital as individual platforms would grow.

Peter Renton  11:45

Right, right. And one more question back to those earlier days, before we get to today. I know with a lot of the newer lending platforms that were popping up in sort of the mid 2010s, you are often the very first institutional capital that they actually had access to, and you closed a bunch of different platforms, obviously, the you know, you obviously demanded a return for the risk you are taking. But what was the sort of thesis there where you would obviously, you know, some of these companies were fairly, really new, hadn’t had a vintage kind of mature. How did you get comfortable with kind of making that dive into untested companies?

Brendan Carroll  12:25

It starts with, again, back to what I said, we were believers in the industry, and believers in the demand for the product. Moving from there, being backed by a well known or high quality sponsor, that’s a positive, doesn’t make it immune to problems. But, you know, typically, we were doing a deal with a sponsor we had worked with in the past. So that obviously helps, because maybe they were focused on that business model in the US, and now it was moving to Europe, or Asia or something along those lines. But we view risk management through structure, right, you know, if we commit 100, let’s say, you know, there’s a new lending platform, and we would say, in the headline, we’re committing $100 million to business XYZ. How much they can actually draw on that 100, Peter, was directly correlated to what’s the collateral pool that they have in place at that time that they can draw against? So oftentimes, you know, we may commit  100 million, 200 million, but the day one draws or 20, 30, 40 million, whatever, it may be much smaller. And then over time, monthly, quarterly, depending on what the arrangement is, as they’re making new eligible loans that go into that collateral pool, they can come and draw additional capital from us. So even if it’s a new business, we can get comfortable with the enterprise risk, because that’s not necessarily our, you know, first line of defense. It’s the loan pool. And the capital drawn is based on what we view as the eligible collateral in that pool. And in certain cases, we were getting updated information on a daily basis from the pulls of all those different loans. So maybe it’s because we grew up in the industry, maybe it’s because we had good relationships and comfort with the sponsor, but we’re far more focused on what’s the collateral if the company goes out of business tomorrow, and we have to step in with a backup servicer and wind down that portfolio? How do we feel that we’re going to get paid back? How long is it going to take, etc? And the answers to both those were typically positive or we wouldn’t have done those early deals, but I think we were very active because we were just looking at it differently. We weren’t looking at Oh, my God, this is risky, because this business has only been around a year. They’ve got enough capital on their balance sheet to manage that burn rate for the next 12 months, 24 months. But yes, I care about that. But my capital at risk is solely dependent on what’s the eligible collateral, whether it’s consumer loan, small business loan, and oh, by the way, you If they want to grow, their own money is sitting in front of us, in terms of who’s going to get hit first, right? Because I’ve been putting that dollar up and I’m 85 cents, they’re that 15 cents of first loss. So again, back to the alignment of interests, the downside protection and the short duration. So, Peter, we’re looking much more at that. And concerned with that, then we were, you know, this business has only been around a year or so.

Peter Renton  15:22

Right, gotcha. Okay. So let’s fast forward to today. You’re now a multinational company. Maybe you describe sort of, what is your thesis today? How has it changed, and, you know, what kinds of companies that you’re looking for?

Brendan Carroll  15:37

The thesis, you know, at the high level remains the same as it was when we started it, which is lend money where banks won’t. And if I had our presentation that shows, I like to call it the Wheel of Fortune, or the Trivial Pursuit page, because I played Trivial Pursuit as a kid with my parents, it shows all the different industry verticals that we’ve been involved with over the last 18 years. And if I could make it spin, I would, because 10, 12 years ago, your Prospers, your Lending Clubs, those were the cutting edge consumer lending businesses at the top. And I jokingly say every borrower we’ve ever had, no matter what industry it is, has at least one goal in common. They want to refinance us as soon as possible, right? They want to graduate to securitization markets, traditional bank facility, right, they want to cross the chasm, to use a venture phrase, to show that they can scale, they’ve generated enough of a track record to get a rating agency or a bank comfortable with their performance. And oftentimes, you know, our cost of capital is not that of a bank, but they recognize we can give them the scale and get them to the point where they can. But every couple of years, where we see the best risk reward is going to change, right? When Square was in the process of going public, we were their first partner for their small business lending product. Two years later, they generated enough data to go get, you know, lower cost of capital, better structure for themselves, etc. So now all of a sudden, Square doesn’t make sense for us. But okay, well, let’s go find who’s the Square of Europe? iZettle. Or Latin America? SumUp. Where we will take a business model that we understand and are bullish on, and we will also go out back because while one company may have graduated because they’ve been with us long enough, or they’ve generated enough of a track record, there’s typically other businesses that are very similar, whether it’s in the same market, a different market where, for us, we’re looking at the same type of collateral, small business loan in California versus a small business loan in Europe or Australia. There are similarities that we can understand and look at, but we’re looking for, okay, well, what’s that next iteration of the business model, whether it’s slightly different twist on how you source, how you underwrite, new geographic area, so that wheel is going to spin, and you’re going to see it move around. So industries that, for example, we think are exciting in this fund, typically different from the last fund, and will be different from the next fund. In this current higher interest rate world, you’re seeing businesses stay with us a bit longer. And like my kids that are in high school, instead of graduating, they all want to take gap years. So they’re, you know, they’re lasting a little bit longer just because of that environment. So as a result, I used to say that it was between years zero and five of an enterprise’s life, that they would need us at Victory Park to help show that scale. And if we commit that 100 million, that day one check size was somewhere between 20 and 40 million depending on the business or the collateral. You fast forward to now, we’re seeing far more companies that are between years five and 10 of their enterprise life. And that day one check size is closer to 80, 90, 100 million. Same industries, it’s just because we’re in the world we’re in, higher rate environment, securitization markets not being as active, we’re seeing that same industry vertical, but in a business that’s larger. So in our minds, we’re actually putting more money out, but taking less risk, because you have more data, you have more collateral, these businesses are typically more established, for the most part, you know, cashflow positive, or profitable. So that gets us a heck of a lot more comfortable. But that’s been sort of the biggest change. Whether it’s, you know, consumer lending in the US, Europe, Latin America, it’s more based upon what is the enterprise life of the business you’re looking at, versus the collateral, because the collateral is the same. I don’t care if it’s a consumer loan held by American Express or a consumer loan held by a business started six months ago. It’s still a consumer loan in terms of how we structure, how we look at the risk, how we think historical data plays into the performance, etc. Now, there has been some significant nuance where Prosper, you borrowed $1,000, 10 years ago, they’ve got your information, no different than the credit card companies or the banks, and they found you through direct mail. And they don’t know exactly what you’re using that $1,000 for. You don’t have to tell them, they can ask, but maybe you’re using it to go on vacation, maybe you’re using it for emergency medical costs. But not knowing the use of proceeds makes it a lot harder in terms of modeling expected default, repeat usage, etc. Where fast forward to today, where we’re bullish within the consumer finance area, at least is more needs based financing, where you know exactly what the borrower is going to use that money for. We back a company called Sunbit, which is a large provider of point of sale financing for the auto industry. So you go into the Ford dealer, you think it’s going to be 500. Now, it’s 1000. Ford doesn’t want to take you as consumer risk on its balance sheet. But somebody to underwrite you right there, you the borrower never touch the money, it goes from Sunbit to Ford. And if we’re looking at a predictability standpoint, expected defaults, etc. When we know exactly what you’re using the money for, and exactly where as a customer, you were sourced, it’s a heck of a lot more reliable than looking at the same type of credit profile of another person who’s borrowing that money and you don’t know what it’s for. So putting a wall around that use of proceeds, that’s been the biggest change, right? There’s three legs to the consumer finance model, since I’ve been talking to you, you know, from the beginning, where it’s cost of capital, your sourcing, and what is unique about it, and then the underwriting. The one that really can change it all is that sourcing area and what’s differentiating about how you are originating that loan, and the more information you have about it, the better your underwriting predictability is going to be, and things of that nature. So whether it’s getting your car fixed, dental treatment, rent, we’re seeing many more businesses that are more call it walled gardens, where, again, to us, it’s a consumer loan, but since they’re new business models, it starts that cycle all over again, where they’ve gotta show they can scale, they’ve gotta show they can cross the chasm. And until that point, you know, they’re going to use capital like ours.

Peter Renton  22:28

Right, right. So what about the pullback that we saw in the equity markets in the fintech space? I mean, where you’ve got a lot of these companies that were raising tons of money and now no longer have access to the same sort of capital they had. How’s that impacted you guys? Because there’s a lot of bit more people turning to debt, that they’re not necessarily a fit for you guys. I mean, is it, have you seen more activity based on this pullback?

Brendan Carroll  22:54

We’ve seen, again we’ve seen more activity, but it’s for businesses that, call it survived, that first onslaught, right? They made it from, there were 100 online lenders, and then there were 10. So whether they were first mover, they were able to raise enough money to ride it out, they built a brand, they built an established customer base. So they survived that, so to say, now it’s the next phase of their lives, they’re not going to be able to grow as fast as they thought, because they can’t go out and keep raising those growth equity checks. But fortunately, they’re large enough to have a large enough customer base where they can, you know, ride it out in a steady state and at least hope for that next growth cycle to occur, or consolidation in the industry, whether it’s from a larger fintech business, a bank, financial institution, etc. So again, it’s, we’re seeing less, call it new businesses, right? We’re not seeing as many of those businesses that are one years old, two years old, and just raised a significant amount of equity from, you know, venture firm XYZ, and now we’re going to build their business. It’s much more businesses that have been around five plus years, they may not be growing at the same clip, but they’re still big enough to, you know, survive on a day to day basis. And that’s where our capital is being provided. Because again, I’m not looking I’m not an equity investor, right? I’m not necessarily looking at the growth prospects of the business. Yes, we care about their burn rate, employee retention, cash, all of those things are important. But again, first and foremost, I’m looking at the collateral, I’m looking at what is my first line of defense if things go sideways, and I can get much more comfortable if I’m looking at it that way than if I was just looking at a lens of alright, well, what’s the growth prospects of this business? Now if I looked across the entire industry, I haven’t done the math, but I’m pretty sure as a lender, I’m doing better than an equity investor, across a lot of those names that I just mentioned, because again, at the end of the day, they’re banks, right? They may be a fancy version online and have all different bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, it’s a bank. And it’s all about cost of capital and scale. In the most successful businesses have had, call it multiple channels, right? Whether it’s a securitization market, when that makes sense, versus a bank facility versus a loan from somebody like us. You know, they’ve diversified their capital base in some way, shape, or form. So that’s been I think, the biggest change, you’re seeing far more established businesses come to us than, you know, call it, the brand new business that started yesterday, and has a massive check in the next great idea. Hopefully, that comes back again. But right now, we’re just not seeing as much of it.

Peter Renton  25:48

Yeah. So I actually want to dig into that just a little bit. Because, obviously, there’s far fewer new lenders that are fintech lenders that are being launched than there used to be, but it’s not zero. I’m wondering if there’s someone listening to this who is in the process of starting a new fintech lender. What are the best practices? What should they really, how should they position themselves for success, and so that they can go and reach out to you guys and get a deal done?

Brendan Carroll  26:16

First and foremost, it’s what, what’s the type of product or service you’re providing? Is it in an area where, again, we’re massive believers in the need, and the demand for small dollar loans and small dollar for us can mean anything 100,000 and below. So whether we back a business that provides, in essence, factoring to government contractors. Government doesn’t like to pay in less than 180 days, obviously, those businesses are typically smaller. And whether they’re providing software or some sort of product to the Defense Department. they’re in growth mode, they need that capital. We back a business that, in essence, just provides that factoring, because they understand the federal government procurement process, and they can look at it and quickly underwrite that risk. That is a new business that we just put 10, or 15 million was the day one draw. But the need and the TAM is massive. Again, in our minds, that’s no different than a Funding Circle type loan, or a Prosper or Lending Club type loan, except for, again, the structure and the need and demand. But shorter duration, strong need for, and the ability to underwrite or predict default at a level that gets us comfortable, right? Because again, day one, if you don’t have a lot of data, that 85% LTV I mentioned. may be closer to 60, or 70. And then as we see more performance, and get more comfortable, that the model matches reality, then it can grow from there. So any business that’s coming to us needs to know, they’re going to have to put, you know their own equity dollars into their product, right, back to the alignment of interests. We’re gonna have, we don’t mind writing a $5 million check on day one, we don’t have the firm we do, or the portfolio we’ve had over the last 18 years if we didn’t bet on teams being able to grow their business, and I think what differentiates us versus you know, there’s obviously a lot of players now within private credit, I’ll do the five or $10 million deal, but I’ll also do the $200 million deal. Not a lot of people will do both. So we have zero problem writing a small check, if you can convince us and show us that you think there’s a path to it being a much larger capital need, you know, over that three, four year period. So I would say that’s the most important factor. And at this point, there’s not a sponsor, or a you know, growth equity firm we haven’t worked with, but that doesn’t mean, you know, that has to be the case. If it’s a new business or a new firm, and we like the collateral, we like the, you know, projected scale, we’re willing to take the chance that small dollars out the door doesn’t turn into anything, because again, more often than not, we can show you examples where five or 10 million became multi 100 million. And in certain cases, you know, over a billion. So we like finding those businesses early, where we can provide that growth catalyst, but you have to know you’re putting your own money in, in front of us and alongside of us, there’s no whole loan structures anymore.

Peter Renton  29:26

Yep. Yep. Okay, so let’s close with sort of looking towards the future and what, what are the other trends that you’re paying attention to as you see sort of the changes in the market? I’m curious to know, how you kind of view the future of private credit.

Brendan Carroll  29:43

So for us within asset backed again, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about consumer finance fintech, because that was really when ’08 happened, that was really the first big industry that we saw, But fast forward to now. We’ve done everything e-commerce businesses, we’re looking at a business right now that provides bridge financing to professional soccer player movements in European leagues who are again. But think of it with a thesis, shorter duration, good collateral, and alignment of interest where you can understand the contract, you can understand the cash flow behind it, you can understand the risk of default. Again, any sort of growth business that has any sort of tangible collateral, but hasn’t been around long enough to get that data for a rating, or get a bank excited, you know, we’ve seen come our way. We’re looking at businesses in the spirits industry where you’re lending money against whiskey barrels, because just banks haven’t gotten comfortable with it as much yet. And you’re seeing, you know, an industry sort of loss and then new funds kind of pop up that are focused on it. And we can provide that, call it asset back financing. So for us, it’s about the asset. And none of the assets that we’re looking at are novel, right? They’ve all been around for a long time, it’s just it’s a new business model that’s helping deliver it. So I think that’s, that’s the fun part of our job is it sort of changes every day. In terms of the types of businesses that are coming across our desks. Yes, people know us for fintech and lending businesses, but we’ve actively invested now in you know, 20 different businesses, whether it’s, you know, farmland, or agriculture equipment, or some sort of real estate bridge financing, be it here or we manage a fund now for the World Bank in the Inter-American Development Bank, which focuses on all the industries you and I have talked about, but in the developing world and predominantly Latin America. So we’re seeing things that 17 years ago, we never would have imagined. And it gets exacerbated, obviously, in the current world with a higher rate environment because we become, you know, a heck of a lot more popular when you don’t have that same lower cost of capital option that you did maybe two, three years ago.

Peter Renton  32:09

Okay. We’ll have to leave it there, Brendan, it’s always great to chat with you. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Brendan Carroll  32:14

No, thanks, Peter. Appreciate the time.

Peter Renton  32:18

Well I hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you so much for listening. Please go ahead and give the show a review on the podcast platform of your choice and go tell your friends and colleagues about it. Anyway, on that note, I will sign off. I very much appreciate you listening, and I’ll catch you next time. Bye.