Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry Podcast

Hugh MacArthur is the Chairman of Bain & Company’s Global Private Equity Practice, which he helped found more than thirty years ago. Hugh’s consulting team works on around 5,000 investment opportunities every year and comprises the largest practice area at Bain. He also hosts the “Dry Powder” podcast, my favorite in the private equity space.

Our conversation covers Bain’s work in private equity across due diligence, sourcing, value added support, and strategy for both GP and LP organizations. We then discuss findings from Bain’s latest Global Private Equity Report, including data on the slowdown in deal activity, liquidity bottleneck, private wealth inflows, carveouts, AI, and competitive positioning. We close with Hugh’s perspective on the winners and losers of the next era, and the strategies GPs and LPs need to pursue to come out on the right side of a changing industry.

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Bob Oros is the outgoing Chairman and CEO of Hightower Advisors, a leading RIA platform with over $165 billion in assets under management. Bob has spent three decades in the wealth management industry, including stints at Charles Schwab, LPL, and Fidelity before joining Hightower in 2019. During the last six years, he oversaw fifty acquisitions of RIAs that he integrated under Hightower’s Well-th Rebalanced culture.

Our conversation shares a perspective on how RIAs function and allocate capital at scale. We cover the evolution of private wealth from product sales to holistic planning, the founding and transformation of Hightower, and Bob’s approach to building a scalable, advisor-focused platform. We discuss Hightower’s acquisition strategy and process, advisor retention, and private equity ownership, and then turn to its investment approach that blends centralized oversight with advisor flexibility. We close with Bob’s decision to step down as CEO in an exciting time for the business and some leadership lessons he’s picked up along the way.

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Josh Koplewicz is the Managing Partner of Thayer Street Partners, a boutique private equity firm he founded in 2012 that provides flexible growth capital to lower middle market companies in financial and business services.

Our conversation traces Josh’s journey from his early fascination with business and real estate to building Thayer Street into an institutional platform. We discuss the lessons he learned at Goldman Sachs and his transition from scrappy dealmaker to fund manager. We cover Thayer Street’s thematic sourcing, deal structuring, and portfolio construction, the evolving landscape for non-bank growth capital, challenges of scaling a boutique firm, and Josh’s vision for Thayer Street’s future.

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David Breach is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Vista Equity Partners, a leading specialist in enterprise software investing with over $100 billion in assets. David joined Vista a decade ago when it managed $13 billion and has been instrumental in helping manage its rapid growth. Robert Smith, Vista’s founder, was a past guest on the show, and that conversation is replayed in the feed.

Our conversation centers on Vista’s strategic expansion into the private wealth channel. David shares the firm’s rationale for moving beyond its institutional roots, the lessons learned from other industry leaders, and the operational buildout required to serve private wealth investors. We discuss Vista’s approach to product design and the pitch to offer differentiated exposure. David also addresses the challenges of balancing the needs of institutional and private wealth investors and maintaining discipline as more capital flows into alternatives.

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Robert F. Smith is the Founder, Chairman and CEO, Vista Equity Partners. Vista is a private investment firm that focuses entirely on enterprise software companies and manages $75 billion in assets across private equity, permanent capital, credit and public vehicles.

Taken together, Vista’s current portfolio companies are about 70 in number and house 70,000 employees, 700,000 customers across 175 countries, and 200 million global users. Its combined revenue would make the portfolio one of the largest enterprise software companies in the world.

Our conversation covers Robert’s background, the special characteristics of enterprise software, screening potential targets, adding value through industry expertise, assessing management teams, employing operational and financial leverage, and exiting investments. We then turn to managing Vista and the competitive landscape, and close with reflections on Robert’s past mistakes and impact through philanthropy.

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