Episode summary
Sovereign 2.0: How Mubadala Capital Is Reinventing the $430B Playbook
How I Invest With David Weisburd
· · 27 min · Hosts: David Weisburd · Guests: Oscar Fahlgren
Summary
Oscar Fahlgren argues that Mubadala Capital’s edge comes from doing large, complex deals that many competitors avoid. He points to the $12 billion buyout of CI Financial as a case where a public company hid a more attractive business underneath, and says the firm actively seeks situations with enough complexity to create mispricing rather than avoid them.
He explains that Mubadala can back these deals with both fund capital and its own balance sheet, then syndicate pieces out to LPs over time. That structure lets the firm write very large checks, anchor transactions, and still offer investors access to co-investments that can exceed the size of the fund itself. Oscar says this model also supports a broader GP-partnership strategy, where Mubadala takes stakes or makes capital commitments without trying to control managers.
Oscar is skeptical of the industry’s obsession with short-term DPI, calling it a fallacy that encourages unnecessary turnover and fees. He argues for longer holds, more compounding, and continuation vehicles when they are used to retain true winners rather than extend fees. Looking ahead, he sees growth in insurance, private wealth, GP partnerships, and applying AI to traditional industries rather than chasing the hottest standalone AI names.
Key takeaways
- Oscar Fahlgren says Mubadala Capital seeks complexity and large ticket sizes because competition falls away fast in that part of the market.
- He says Mubadala can warehouse multi-billion-dollar deals on its balance sheet and syndicate them later to LPs.
- Oscar calls short-term DPI obsession “the biggest fallacy” and prefers compounding over forced exits.
- He says GP partnerships work best when Mubadala is aligned but does not control the manager.
- Oscar thinks continuation vehicles make sense when they preserve true winners and are used ethically.
Notable quotes
“We started really embracing complexity in in our Brazilian investment business um a little over a decade ago”
“There is really only a handful of funds that can write a check of this size and most of them are not really embracing complexity”
“we have the ability to write these really large tickets like um like CI again is an example of that”
“I think this is this is really a chemistry question, right? You need to find a firm that really shares your values”
“I think, you know, this is like the biggest fallacy of the of the industry in some ways, right”
How the episode opens
So, Oscar, tell me about the $12 billion buyout of CI Financial. CI Financial, so it was a an opportunity in plain view as we call it, right? We we've been hunting the markets looking for mispriced assets that are are kind of hiding in plain view if you wish on the public markets.
CI was listed in Toronto. It was an old mutual fund company, right? So, not very sexy in terms of industry and and it was trading as such, but underneath CI there was Coriant and Coriant was the largest and fastest growing ultra-high-net-worth platform in the United States for wealth management.
And and really sort of a highly attractive and strategic asset. When we decided to take CI private, both businesses are attractive but for different reasons, but but Coriant was really sort of the crown jewel of the of the company. One of the fascinating things when we last chatted about you talked about there's not much capital competition from capital sources that could write these 10 12 billion-dollar checks in this case.
Tell me about that. We've been trying to focus on a on a on a segment of the market where there is a little bit of complexity and relatively large tickets. And if you do that, we see competition falling away quite quite fast, right?
There is really only a handful of funds that can write a check of this size and most of them are not really embracing complexity or or hair as part of their investment thesis. They're more focused on, you know, stable capital deployment and getting money back fast. We've We as a firm have developed, you know, a bit of a modus operandi where we embrace complexity a little bit as an enabler of of alpha for us.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- private equity complexity
- dpi misconception
- gp partnerships
- permanent capital
- ai investing debate
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Mubadala Capital
- AlphaSense
Watch the episode
Watch “Sovereign 2.0: How Mubadala Capital Is Reinventing the $430B Playbook” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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How I Invest With David Weisburd, this episode and its artwork belong to David Weisburd. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
