There are a number of other big firms that are trying to use debt to take
control of troubled companies. You might now that you have more money to play with to start running more frequently into Oaktree
into Apollo into Aries and to Blackstone. Is that a welcome challenge. You know we lead run into them.
All the time. Right. But what we have found is you know for us it's about what's our edge when we are running into an Aries or
an Apollo. So what is it. When you buy debt you buy debt from commercial banks you buy debt from some of the high yield
holders you own but that you can buy debt by going through Wall Street intermediaries. The famous Goldman Sachs trading desk.
That's not a great way to have competitive advantage. We go through that Goldman Sachs trading desk but we also call the
banks. And the loan funds directly. It's a mix for us. So when we are competing with some other people you are describing. We
get to it faster. And we get to it directly without an intermediary who is trying
to say you know hey if it's really interesting I'll take 20 percent of it. Right. So we are able to get to it directly. The
other thing which is the other difference which we have versus kind of some other people you're said.
Most people in the distressed business who look to kind of take control like that including some of the names you mentioned they
are paper investors they buy that. At a good price hopefully they've restructured the debt in a
restructuring process and then they get equity and they sell it. It's paper.
When you look at what we do starting about 12 years ago we started to set up operating teams operating partners to work
with these portfolio companies. A lot of times we change management teams. The last group of people ran. Some of them ran
and badly put it into bankruptcy. You rebuild new value creation plans to kind of fix those businesses improve them. That's not
something 95 percent plus of distressed business is paper investing paper trading. So the fact that we can source so
differently. You know in a very enhanced way the fact that we go out and
operate businesses and everything I'm describing doesn't get built in two years. You got to you genuinely believe and I don't
doubt you know that you're doing more of that than they're doing because I look at an Apollo for example and I see a company
that's not afraid of a messy restructuring with a lot of hair on it. You know.
And I also see a firm that has hundreds of billions of dollars to put to work not necessarily in distressed debt but they're
awfully large. And surely they can if they want to pick up the phone and call any bank in the world or any fund in the world
and try to source deals directly themselves. But they don't do it. They don't. When it comes to sourcing they are going
and please I'm not picking on Apollo. No I have no idea. I use them as an example. I'm talking about the entire industry. Are
entire industry is reliant on Wall Street as an intermediary feeding them.
And if you can kind of. And of course Wall Street's really important. But at the same point in time if you can supplement
your efforts with the way I'm describing it is distinctive. So a lot of people talk about taking control through debt.
A lot of people. So few people. And by the way I think our industry is
is Oaktree Center. Bridge Avenue. Golden tree diameter. I can go on with the left. Right. That's our industry. That industry a
lot of it is focused on buying through Wall Street and much of it doesn't really focus on operations. It's focused much more on
investing in paper. And so if you can build and the business which we are describing it doesn't get built in a year or two
years or even five years to change the DNA of your investment team from being a paper based investor to a operating controlled
based investor. It's just it's just it's just a DNA change. Which kind of takes place. Right. So it's it's hard for people
to just even look at us and say boy that's a good deal. I'd like to do it. It's hard to kind of do it.