Paul Burgon

Read our latest article on Creating an Ownership Culture. This piece dives into how fostering a sense of ownership among employees can lead to remarkable outcomes for both the team and the organization. Here at KKR we are committed to providing ownership to all employees in all new controlled deals, building on recent successes of our Broad-Based Ownership Program. Whether you're a leader seeking to enhance your company's culture or an employee interested in the dynamics of workplace engagement, this article offers valuable perspectives. 👉 Read article here: https://lnkd.in/ejVc2ffd You can download the full report here: https://lnkd.in/ee_vT2rs #Leadership #BusinessCulture #EmployeeEngagement #KKR

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📈🏢 Aby Rosen's RFR Holding is facing a staggering $2.5B debt bill as defaults pile up! 💥 🔎 According to a recent Bisnow article, RFR Holding, a prominent NYC real estate firm, is grappling with mounting debt and defaults. The company, led by billionaire Aby Rosen, has a portfolio of high-profile properties, including the iconic Seagram Building and Lever House. 🏢🏦 📊 The firm's debt load has surged to a whopping $2.5B, with $1.1B in loans maturing this year alone. 💸 The pandemic has hit the commercial real estate market hard, causing defaults to skyrocket. RFR Holding is no exception, with defaults on several properties, including the $200M mortgage on the Seagram Building. 📉 🗣️ "The pandemic has created a perfect storm for commercial real estate," said one industry expert. "Companies like RFR Holding are facing unprecedented challenges as they navigate this difficult time." 🌪️ 🔜 So, what's next for RFR Holding? The company is reportedly exploring options to refinance its debt and avoid further defaults. 💡 With the commercial real estate market showing signs of recovery, there's hope that RFR Holding can weather this storm. 🌞 Stay tuned for more updates on this developing story! 📰🔔 #RFRHolding #CommercialRealEstate #Debt #Defaults #NYCRealEstate

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Thrilled to announce Next Frontier Capital's investment in Hoonify Technologies Inc. Andrew Clark, Victor Kuhns, and team bring decades of HPC experience from Sandia National Laboratories. Hoonify is NFC's first New Mexico investment! Hoonify’s innovation began by placing supercomputers at the edge – in offices, academic institutions, and homes – and liberating them from the traditional high hurdles of supercomputing. Providing immediate and personal access to this technology improves customer performance by up to 300%, achieving higher efficiencies with lower costs compared with alternative solutions. Currently, Hoonify serves U.S. Government and commercial companies in the aerospace and defense and biotech markets that demand accelerated results for their consequential modeling and simulation, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) workloads. With $3.75m in new funding, Hoonify provides clients supercomputing capabilities typically only available to a select few, will use the new funding to fuel additional growth for product enhancements and to position its software platform, TurbOS for entry into additional markets. TurbOS runs on any Intel CPUs or NVIDIA GPUs to enable faster computing performance through parallel computing - using the customer’s existing hardware or options including Hoonify’s all-in-one Cub Desktop Supercomputer. Let's go!

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Pending collapse of the American economy? Congress is now on a tear of rapidly increasing deficit spending and creating annual debt-service exceeding $1 trillion annually, almost 20% of the Federal budget by end of 2024. As Treasury bonds mature and have to be refinanced at higher interest rates, debt-service will rapidly increase to 25% to 30% in the short-term. Are they motivated to solve this problem of pending national insecurity? No. So what is Congresses solution going to be when debt-service exceeds 50% of the federal budget? What about 75% of the federal budget? Indeed, somewhere in the latter numbers, a default on US Treasury debt (currently $34.7 trillion) has to occur. And when this occurs, a major recession/depression will ensue because money derived from deficit spending will disappear from the national economy. Thanks to fiat currency systems and socialist economies, historically, this ineptitude by national leaders is bound to occur. So what is the solution to avoid USA economic collapse? https://lnkd.in/gyqbT6B2

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The Information just broke the news of the incredible $8B+ #fundraising haul, with General Catalyst nearly doubling its last total. Fund breakdowns include $4.5B for "core venture funds," $1.5B for their "core creation team," and $2B for "multiple accounts." This was a 33% oversubscription to their $6B fundraising target, which surfaced in April 2024 by the Financial Times. While this is great news for the #entrepreneurial founders, the key question /challenge for General Catalyst will be where to place the newly closed funds to deliver the returns expected by their #limitedpartners that entrust them with their hard-earned capital. What do you think? #management #venturecapital #privateequity #capitalmarkets

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Happy news from one of our Fund I portfolio companies (which willl hopefully make our investors happy, DPI baby!): https://lnkd.in/e5bPu5qx Personal Thoughts: - My great admiration for the Biocatch team, I've witnessed your achievements and ultimate interim payoff - Bold move from Permira, you got yourselves a strong asset - Constantly reading aggregated data from the VC industry, which is good, but also very misleading. Why? Because as in the economy, even in a bear market, the good and healthy companies will ultimately thrive. Don't rely on aggregated data only

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BluWave has a deep bench of 800+ interim CFOs that allow us to quickly and expertly connect private equity firms and their portfolio companies to the exact-fit interim CFOs they need.    In one case study example, a PE firm came to us in need of a stopgap interim CFO for their automotive operations portfolio company. Here's the details of how we helped:   The Situation - Needing to make a leadership change in their portfolio company, a PE firm came to us in urgent need of an interim CFO who could focus on the portco's cash flow and working capital optimization while the search for a permanent CFO was underway. Given the protfolio company's industry, the PE firm not only needed an interim CFO with financial acumen, but one with the ability to handle a complex operational landscape and turnaround skills.   How BluWave Helped - Thanks to BluWave's deep network of exact-fit interim CFOs, we quickly connected them with a select few interim CFOs with the exact experience they were looking for.    The Outcome - The client selected their preferred interim CFO from our presented options. Their leadership marked a significant turning point for the automotive manufacturer, helping them tighten cash flow, meet reporting requirements and guide them through a crucial transition period.   When you need an exact-fit, PE-grade interim CFO, contact BluWave and we'll be ready to support.   #interimCFO #interimchieffinancialofficer

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#Duediligence in #PE stays in a few core areas, from Quality of Earnings to #IT to Human Capital and market study, but how closely does it align and drive #valcue creation planning?https://ow.ly/cX1150QqEaC

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Good and alternative state of Venture capital. I lean more toward Bryce and Indie.vc's view. This is the future. The other end of factory farm industrial VC. https://lnkd.in/g2DzZzTu

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The Information and Martin Peers are out with an alarming report about something most people take for granted….#wirelessspectrum. According to the CTIA carriers will run out of available spectrum, at current growth rates by 2027. Before people go blaming the #wirelesscarriers the CTIA points the finger exactly where it belongs with the Federal Communications Commission failing to appoint a commissioner. Long story short reach out to your elected official since wireless capacity impacts everything from the trivial #socialmedia posts to more important things like #E911 calls, #alarmsignals, and even #telemedicine monitoring. The growth in data usage is breathtaking and unlocking more revenue will help finance the government. What do you think? #management #venturecapital #privateequity #wirelesscarriers #capitalmarkets #

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Led by Anduril, defense tech funding sets a new record this year | TechCrunch https://buff.ly/4129kts Anduril, a leader in defense technology, has driven defense tech funding to an unprecedented high this year. Investments in this sector have surged, reflecting a growing interest in advanced military solutions and cutting-edge innovations. This milestone underscores the increasing importance of tech-driven defense initiatives in modern security strategies. As global tensions rise, there's a notable shift towards integrating AI, robotics, and autonomous systems into defense operations. The record-breaking funding highlights the critical role technology plays in national and international security landscapes. #DefenseTech #InnovationInSecurity

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Alta Fox Calls for Immediate Strategic Review at Forward Air Corporation Another board that follows all of the tenets of modern "good governance" yet fails to drive value for shareholders. This board needs to either wake up or be gone. #corporategovernance #governance #boardsofdirectors #shareholdervalue #shareholderactivism #capitalism #institutionalinvestors

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Series A or B wondering when to bring in a VP of Finance or CFO? It’s a crucial decision that can shape the future of your company. At this stage, financial leadership is not just about managing numbers but also scaling processes, securing funding, and driving strategic growth. My colleague Paul breaks down key signs that it’s time to hire and indicators for choosing between VP of Finance and a CFO #FinanceLeadership #CFO #StartupGrowth #SeriesA #SeriesB #NextGenLeadership

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Thanks, Axial, for your findings. I'd rank the Management Team high in the business description. As investors, we are buying their core competencies, track record, market position, and strategic fit. #privateequity #buyout #independentsponsor #growthequity #food #beverage #CPG #healthwellness

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PE - Insights from "Constellation Software" Shareholder Letters Some of the key investment takeaways Constellation Software (CNSWF - https://buff.ly/3Coo3V8 ) These highlight a strategic focus on long-term growth, disciplined investment practices, and the importance of governance and engagement, all good insights for tech PE: - Disciplined Investment Approach: strict adherence to specific acquisition hurdle rates, reducing risk and underscoring the importance of rigorous investment criteria - Acquisition-Focused Growth: they target 100 acquisitions annually, underscoring an aggressive portfolio expansion strategy attractive for growth-oriented investors - Flexible Capital Structure: exploring various financing options for acquisitions, especially in downturns highlighting proactive financial health management - Long-Term Horizon: emphasis on indefinite investment holds to maximize returns, favoring long-term strategies over short-term gains - Post-Acquisition Reviews: they conduct detailed after action reviews (AARs) post-acquisition to refine investment strategy, a best practice for continuous improvement - Decentralized Decision-Making: Constellation operates with small, autonomous business units (just like portfolio CEOs & execs) to foster agile leadership and decisions (i.e. the PE firm doesn't tell the CEO what to do but works alongside collaboratively) - Behavioral Economics: Constellation incorporates insights from behavioral economics to mitigate cognitive biases, enhancing decision-making rigor Constellation Shareholder Letters: https://buff.ly/4fu29Pc ------------------ #pe #privateequity #tech #ceo #cro #saas #gtm #growth #middlemarket #boardofdirectors #board #revenue #revenuegrowth #investing #investment #finance #business

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"The idea of America as the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II—innovative, productive, and hard-working—is now firmly a part of the story we tell about ourselves. It is a source of pride, patriotism, and inspiration. And it’s a true story. But that was then, and this is now. Today, Americans are waking up to the reality that we can’t make things in sufficient quantities to keep us safe, while our principal adversary is flooding the world with its manufactures. Many of our allies are in even worse shape. Rebuilding and rearming before it’s too late are the urgent tasks before us. Thankfully, industrial decline is a solvable problem—anda choice. We can make better choices, create better incentives, and use the strengths we still have to our advantage. Not only is mass production a solvable problem. It’s already being solved. Half of our business at Palantir Technologies, where I work as chief technology officer, is with commercial clients. We work every day to create software that helps the free world’s most important industrial concerns supercharge production, see into their supply chains, and empower their workers, from the C-suite to the assembly line. I’ve seen the results, and I believe this model—what’s sometimes called software-defined production—is key to rebuilding the American industrial base." https://lnkd.in/g_MPzfFH

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This is quite interesting advice and also quite a non-consensus view in the B2B software world. Cross-border founders who are considering the US vs International incorporation question should consider this as valuable input.

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Some great insights from Jason Calacanis at yesterday's Austin Tech Week regarding venture investing; ' Surface area (broad diversification) is important early (seed stage), concentration is important in later rounds.' Couldn't agree more. Read the piece below to see why...and how.

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