Four years ago, Guggenheim Partners President Todd Boehly negotiated what by Wall Street standards was an unusually civil departure. On his way out, Guggenheim agreed to let him buy a handful of its businesses and even take a few senior executives.
The investment firm Boehly started, Eldridge Industries, now has holdings in everything from Hollywood to insurance, e-sports to facial-recognition technology, and its profits have grown to rival some of the larger players in finance.
Eldridge is on track to earn at least $500 million this year, Boehly said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, putting it in the same league as Lazard Ltd. At his request, Duff & Phelps performed a valuation of his firm, pegging it at about $6 billion. He has no plans to sell or take Eldridge public.
“It’s our capital to invest as we best see fit, without regard to day-to-day dynamics in the markets,” Boehly said. “What we’re trying to build here is something that stands the test of time.”
That means the freedom to keep expanding -- and with it the risk of trying to do too much and ending up with an unwieldy mess. Among the new investments Boehly is pursuing or considering: a football club in the U.K.’s Premier League, real estate in Europe and farm financing in the U.S.
DraftKings, Fortnite
Whatever Eldridge buys would extend an empire that already includes the Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Dick Clark Productions and the studio behind the Netflix hits “Ozark” and “House of Cards”; Security Benefit, an insurer with $40 billion of assets; CBAM Partners, an $11 billion loan buyer; a $2 billion hotel and condominium development in Beverly Hills; 7% of the Los Angeles Dodgers and minority stakes in DraftKings, the fantasy sports platform, and Epic Games, the company that created the online sensation Fortnite.
Because Eldridge is so diversified and also closely held, comparisons are difficult. The Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm incorporates some elements of both Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Athene Holding Ltd. Like Berkshire, Eldridge is a holding company that uses premium revenue from a captive insurer -- the so-called float -- to fund investments. Like Athene, the insurer whose assets are managed by Apollo Global Management LLC, it issues annuities to create that float.
Different ‘Ethos’
Just don’t confuse Eldridge with private equity.