This year, Young and Lawson, 50, reorganized their firm by promoting younger partners to leadership roles and spreading more of the equity in HGGC among the investment professionals, plotting a course for shared ownership that’s become more common across the maturing private equity business.
Like every other investment firm, they face the near-term challenge of a market roiled by interest rates, inflation and geopolitical uncertainty. They see having a new fund as an ideal position to be in.
Uncertainty, Volatility
“We couldn’t be more excited to have fresh capital to invest as economic uncertainty and volatility begin to ripple through the deal market, creating the opportunity of a lifetime,” Lawson said.
Spreading the wealth, literally and figuratively, is a lesson Young says he picked up from the late 49ers coach Bill Walsh, who created a literal coaching playbook, including videos of meetings and strategy sessions, to share with his assistants as they went on to their own head-coaching gigs.
“He knew if he gave it to them, they’d have success,” Young said. “But who does that? Who does the actual work to give them the opportunity to go succeed, and give away what you own that is most valuable? Maybe that is the great business we need to be in.”
Young’s applying the same technique to pro sports veterans, envisioning a repository of sorts for ex-player testimonials about their post-playing days, complete with successes and failures. He’s further encouraging a next generation of investors and entrepreneurs through personal investments. In addition to helping seed emerging managers, he recently invested in the fast-growing men’s apparel maker Rhone, run by entrepeneur Nate Checketts.
All of it speaks to the intentional melding of Young’s worlds and his willingness to embrace how being a pro on the field and off isn’t so different.
‘Pour Yourself into It’
“Playing in the NFL and trying to be good or great, it takes everything, you just pour yourself into it, and you can’t replicate it,” he said. “You can try and you can waste your time and you can actually create more problems for yourself in trying to replicate what you had in the NFL.”
Like football, private equity is both challenging and energizing, he said.
“In that way, personally, just the job and the business and what success is and how rare it is, it feels similar.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.