Knowledge Base
Portfolio construction, risk management, and the investment frameworks that work when the stakes are high enough to matter. Strategy over speculation.
63 articles in this category — page 1 of 6
Standard portfolio advice, the 60/40 allocation, annual rebalancing, broad index funds, is written for someone with $500K and 30 years to compound. At $5M+, the math changes. The Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances confirms what most FatFIRE investors already know: the top wealth decile ho
Tax lien interest rates by state range from 5% to 36% annually on paper. The operative phrase is "on paper." Before you allocate capital here, you need to understand the gap between statutory maximums and actual after-tax yields, which for a FATFIRE investor in the top federal bracket can be 40% nar
The rate of return vs interest rate distinction matters more at $5M+ than at any other wealth level, because the gap between gross nominal figures and what you actually keep widens dramatically once you factor in taxes, fees, and leverage costs. Rate of return measures what an investment produces. I
Public Market Equivalent (PME) solves a problem that IRR alone cannot: it tells you whether your private equity allocation actually beat what you could have earned by putting the same dollars into a public index at the same time. For anyone with $1M or more committed to a single fund, that distincti
RedBird Capital Partners is a private equity firm founded in 2014 by Gerry Cardinale, a former Goldman Sachs partner who spent two decades structuring media and sports deals before going independent. The firm manages over $10 billion in assets and focuses on sports, media, and entertainment as a dis
HarbourVest Global Private Equity (HVPE) is a London Stock Exchange-listed closed-end investment company that provides access to HarbourVest Partners' private equity fund-of-funds platform. Founded in 1982, HarbourVest deploys capital across primary fund commitments, secondary purchases, and direct
Private equity sales reward preparation, network, and timing in roughly equal measure. Whether you are evaluating a fund commitment, negotiating co-investment rights, or positioning a business for a PE exit, the mechanics that matter most rarely appear in generic overviews. This article covers the s
Buy and build private equity is a structured acquisition strategy where a sponsor acquires a platform company, then systematically purchases smaller add-on businesses to consolidate a fragmented market. The math is straightforward: buy add-ons at 4x–6x EBITDA, exit the combined entity at 8x–12x. The
The private equity investment process flow chart maps a predictable sequence: fund formation, capital deployment, value creation, and exit. But for an LP writing a $5M check, the chart is less important than what sits behind each stage: fee drag, capital call timing, tax treatment, and the GP's actu
The private equity bubble question has moved from cocktail-party speculation to a serious portfolio concern. Buyout entry multiples averaged 11–12x EBITDA at the 2021 market peak, against a historical average closer to 8–9x. With benchmark rates now above 5%, the debt structures that looked servicea
Venture capital exits convert illiquid ownership stakes into realized returns, but the mechanics, timelines, and tax treatment vary enough to materially change what you actually keep. For LP investors and direct startup holders at the $5M+ level, understanding exit structures is less about the headl
Platform investment in private equity starts with one acquisition and compounds from there. A PE firm buys a company with strong fundamentals, defensible market position, and a management team capable of absorbing additional businesses, then uses that initial holding as the foundation for a series o