The Meb Faber Show - Better Investing Liquid Private Equity & Volatility Laundering (Owen Lamont & Randy Cohen) | #625
27 snips
Apr 7, 2026 Randy Cohen, Harvard Business School professor and PEO Partners co-founder, and Owen Lamont, portfolio manager and academic, explore private equity and ways to replicate its returns in public markets. They discuss liquid private equity strategies, leverage choices, the IPO drought, market concentration, Koreafying of the US market, AI valuation debates, deglobalization, and future macro risks.
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FieldX Incubator Spawned Veho And Halo Braid
- Randy created FieldX at HBS to mentor ~70 student startup teams each semester after losing traditional teaching methods to vision loss.
- Notable successes include Veho (package delivery) and Halo Braid (braiding machine) that scaled during COVID and beyond.
Build Liquid Private Equity Replicates
- Replicate PE by tilting public portfolios to PE-like characteristics and add modest leverage off-balance-sheet.
- Target high-profit, low-multiple, high-payout, low-volatility, smaller firms and add ~0.3 turns of leverage plus hedges for capacity and liquidity.
Leverage Choice Determines Capacity And Quality
- Buying already highly levered public companies has capacity limits and often captures troubled firms.
- Better to select moderately levered companies and add small external leverage to scale capacity for institutional demand.
