Värde Partners CEO and Co-CIO Speak at Milken Institute Global Conference
June 3, 2019MINNEAPOLIS – Värde Partners is pleased to share that CEO and Co-Founder George Hicks and Ilfryn Carstairs, Partner and Co-CIO, spoke at Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, California, on April 29, 2019.
George participated in the Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Excellence panel with CEOs of other asset management firms. The wide-ranging discussion centered on fostering a firm culture that empowers employees to succeed and supports talent retention.
“I would like to emphasize, as we think about our culture – and maintaining and building it – the importance of the initial hiring process. From the earliest days, when there were just three of us, we were very particular in our hiring. We had a very detailed process – a lot of testing, a lot of interviews, a lot of assessment. It was really a great two-way street, it kind of reflected our culture of a lot of due diligence. It was important for us in assessing folks, but it was also important for them to understand us,” George said.
Ilfryn spoke on the Credit Is a Cycle: Global Market Outlook panel moderated by Michael Milken with other leading credit investors. He discussed current market opportunities and risks, as well as the importance of building a platform that can invest throughout cycles.
“We have a very deep lens on relative value across secondary, primary, liquid and illiquid markets all around the world. As Co-CIO, one of my big jobs is to take that information and say where is risk-reward positive and where is it negative in different points in time and to move our capital around to those different markets. So the world looks clearer I guess in that sense […] where you can not just say what looks good in one market but you can dispassionately compare that across markets and say where your capital should be,” said Ilfryn.
Additionally, Jon Fox, Partner and Global Head of Business Development and Investor Relations, was a speaker in a private roundtable session, From Products to Partnerships: The Future of the LP/GP Model.
About Värde Partners
Värde Partners is a $14 billion global alternative investment firm that employs a value-based approach to investing across a broad array of geographies, segments and asset types, including corporate and traded credit, real estate, mortgages, financial services, real assets and infrastructure. The firm sponsors and manages a family of private investment funds with a global investor base that includes foundations and endowments, pension plans, insurance companies, other institutional investors and private clients. Now in its third decade, Värde employs more than 300 people globally with regional headquarters in Minneapolis, London and Singapore.