Doug Monticciolo, Brevet Capital
Episode 9 of Perspectives our dedicated series where AIMA, in partnership with KPMG, speaks to alternative investment industry leaders from around the world continues with Doug Monticciolo, CEO, CIO and Co-Founder of Brevet Capital Management.
From the glory of standing on the podium at the endurance road biking world championship to helming a multi-billion dollar investment firm, Doug shares his extraordinary journey into finance and how he is now helping government agencies solve complex problems and drive a positive social impact.
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This podcast is the sole property of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). This audio production and content are intended as indicative guidance only and are not to be taken or treated as a substitute for specific advice, whether legal advice or otherwise. AIMA permits use or sharing of the content in media or as an educational resource, provided always that proper attribution is made. The rights in the content and production, including copyright and database rights, belong to AIMA.
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Doug Monticciolo
CEO, CIO and Co-Founder, Brevet Capital Management
5 Lessons from Doug Monticciolo
Unleash your imagination
Doug's journey from an engineering background to finance illustrates the power of adaptability. He states: "I quickly realised that, most importantly, I liked technology, because I can be very creative ... I could also be equally as creative in finance." His approach to finance as a creative endeavour rather than just a numbers game teaches that innovation and thinking outside the box are crucial in any field, especially in one as dynamic as finance. Embrace letting your mind wander and consider how a different perspective can bring new approaches to old problems.
Seek to make a difference
The focus on mission-driven investing is evident when Doug discusses his firm's approach. "We're looking for people who have a desire to be a solutions provider and have aligned values with us," he explains. This highlights the importance of aligning professional goals with personal values and striving to make a positive impact through one's work. In his words, "it's not the money, but the value proposition, the solution we bring that the return is actually created from".
Push beyond your limits
Always be a student
Doug's commitment to continuous learning and development is clear when he talks about encouraging his team to go outside of their comfort zones and pursue further education and reveals that his firm has put people through business school programmes and law degrees, to underscore the point that continuous learning and skill enhancement are vital for personal and professional growth.
Change creates opportunity
Read the transcript
John Budzyna, KPMG 00:03
Welcome back to perspectives. This is John Budzyna of KPMG.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 00:07
I’m Tom Kehoe of AIMA. Today's episode features an industry leader from the private credit space. For the past 25 years, his firm has been helping government agencies solve complex problems and drive social impact by creating innovative financing products and services that support a wide range of federal, state, and municipal government programs that promote the economic and social well-being of families, individuals and entire communities.
John Budzyna, KPMG 00:32
In addition to this, our guest has a passion for long-distance road biking, and rocketry, where he led one of his teams to a podium finish in a world championship. Its founder is the Co-CEO, and Co-CIO of Brevet Capital Management. Doug Monticciolo. Welcome to Perspectives.
You've had a remarkable career in financial services over three decades with Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers, and now Brevet capital. Tell us a little bit about what attracted you to the industry.
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 01:04
Sure. Thank you, John. So, as you've heard, in some of my background, I started off going to Stony Brook (University) majoring in applied math and I have a background in software technology. I think it was leading edge at that time, which looks like it isn't today, but it was leading edge at the time. And after a couple of years, I wound up getting into the doctoral program at Columbia (University) in applied math in the engineering department. And one day I was offered a fellowship to work at Goldman Sachs, with Fischer Black. And in all honesty, I didn't know who Goldman Sachs was, at the time, I was very excited to be an engineer. And when I got into the finance world, I was actually quite surprised. I saw a concentration of talented people with skills that were amazing. I worked with amazing people at Goldman and in my career. I had seen that they were in many cases stronger and more skilled than even the people I had worked with in the technology industry. I got to say, in a very short time period, I was hooked. I quickly realised that, most importantly, I liked technology because I can be very creative. And it's very self-fulfilling when you're creating programs and solutions. I realised I could also be equally creative in finance, as I could in tech. But after a number of years, it became pretty apparent that I can have a bigger impact by funneling that creativity into finance, and into financial products and solutions than I could at almost any technology company that I could have been in. So, like I said, I was hooked relatively early and surrounded by great people in the industry.
John Budzyna, KPMG 02:50
So then, what inspired you to create Brevet Capital?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 02:56
I think it's relatively unconventional. It was a combination of discussions that we were having with investors. We started off as an advisory firm, and we were solving problems which is what we do well, and investors came to us and said, look, the industry is not providing unique, uncorrelated returns, and they're looking for managers to see things that are different. So we were led into it, you might say, by the support from a number of good-sized investors. I knew that we could bring our structuring skills, our solutions-based mindset, and combine that with capital, and in a package in such a way that a value proposition wasn't just a solution anymore, it was dramatically better because we could also bring the capital to put the exclamation point on taking our experience, creating a solution, and delivering it with capital. And from there, the rest is history. We've been managing money for quite a long time now.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 03:58
And so Doug, in 1998, you founded Brevet Capital, which is a leading credit investment and specialty firm with a focus on the government sector. So, could you then give our listeners a potted history of Brevet (Capital)? And what you've done over the years at Brevet (Capital)?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 04:17
Sure. So, as you mentioned, we're a credit provider to government-related programs, but may I give an example because our business is about providing capital to companies in conjunction with a government program.
For example, in Australia, we work with an electric motorcycle company that is trying to make cleaner-running motorcycles that are also, as you can imagine, stylish and trendy. Think of them as the Tesla of the motorcycle world. The government has programs that are designed to accelerate this type of company without diluting their economics, but unfortunately, they don't use it. So, this is where the problem was created that we come in to solve. And the problem is that businesses perceive these programs to be too complex, too slow to help and a distraction to their core business. In short, they're busy doing their day job, and busy running their business. So, our solution, and where we actually provide capital is, we created and built a platform company that bridges the gap, we simplify the process, we provide the capital in a timely manner, and we change the perception of the program, the government gets what it needs to succeed, right. Gets the company to get the right money. The government achieves its goals also because it is hitting target sectors and deploying capital, and our investors get a strong correlated return. So, we are working with the company, providing them capital, going through the simplification of applying for the government program, the government pays the company the money, the company repays us, our investors get a good return, the company gets the capital it needs, and the government gets the success in the program.
This is a really good example of our value proposition, which if you think about it, is not about the capital. It's about the fact that we've simplified the process. It's a service. So, you'll hear us say finance is a service, right? It's a service that makes it easy. And we know that we've achieved this, because a couple of years of doing this business, we've actually been brought in by the government to make their side of it more efficient. And by making it more efficient means simplifying their process, it means providing the ability to use tools that we have that reduce fraud, waste, abuse and things like that. We've even taken this as far as working on government buildings. So, another tangible way to think about this, as an example is, on the first case, the motorcycle company, it's a large program, we've found 1000s of companies that are just like the motorcycle company, help them get access to a government program.
The second example is we help government entities with their physical assets. In this case, they had a building government building in the capital that was actually decaying, whatever was coming into the building ceilings was getting all over papers and such they couldn’t even store them in the building. And so, what we did was we brought a solution that we repeated, which is being able to help solve one physical assets problem by taking advantage of underutilised assets in another part of the government. So, we were able to bridge a solution, where we created a company that shows the government how to solve their problem, a hole in the ceiling, and cross it with a local developer, who would have never done it had we not shown them that there are other opportunities and other assets that bring them together. So, our business is solutions providing.
Now in that latter case, we make money and the investors make money. And so, we create the model, we create the solution, and we repeat it. Again, our business is not necessarily working with the government, but understanding that the government has great programs, and we work with the companies to make it easy for them to apply. As a matter of fact, one of our platform companies is actually called ‘Easily’. And it's very well known in the industry because it makes getting programs easily done, right. And that is kind of our philosophy value proposition. That's what drives the returns, not the capital.
John Budzyna, KPMG 08:51
Obviously, we've had a dramatic rise in interest rates over the last year and a half. How has that affected the type of investment strategy that you're deploying?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 09:06
In reality in our business, interest rates don't really affect us. It's not that type of business that we are in. Interesting enough, right, I started this whole career back in the golden days, even when mortgage rates were 18%. I thought that was the norm, so did everybody else. A little scary to think about these days, but we're not in a race to the bottom on rates and competitiveness. We're in the business of providing value propositions to both companies and government programs. It's that. It's not the money, but it's the value proposition, the solution we bring that the return is actually created from. So, whether or not people call it an absolute return strategy, it's done in a credit format. That's the legal agreements. But we're pricing to the service provided and the benefit provided, not necessarily, you know, what's this cost of capital versus someone else's, because it's not a good comparable for the business that we're in.
John Budzyna, KPMG 10:06
You spoke about the array of different investors that are attracted to the product. But obviously, also the relationship with investors from the time you started Brevet to now has changed dramatically in terms of communication, et cetera, risk management, how would you describe sort of the relationship and how it's evolved?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 10:29
It has evolved in a very interesting way. And one what I wouldn't have expected, which was that we've moved into being much more collaborative with our investors. It's been growing, given the number of investors that we have, the concept of government, where we operate, is often the space that they don't understand, or don't know, except for if they're a state pension, even sometimes if they're an endowment, obviously, if they're a sovereign, as I mentioned before, they understand what we're doing. Often, they will bring to us or identify to us places of need for our type of business. And so, the relationships become symbiotic where we're providing them returns, sometimes they're giving us reverse inquiry, you might say, as the opportunities that we could pursue, that we know are going to be pretty good, because obviously, they're a customer, then, or their state or government is, and then we're able to provide, if we can, a scalable solution for what we do in that particular request.
Interlude 11:38
KPMG is a global professional services firm, providing audit tax and advisory services to many of the world's leading alternative investment management firms to address the specific challenges and opportunities unique to alternative investments. KPMG has dedicated practitioners focusing on hedge fund, private equity, and real estate organizations. Our professionals devote their time to provide innovative and strategic solutions to alternative investment managers in areas ranging from strategy to operational and compliance functions. Through the knowledge of industry leading practices and customized technology systems. They provide advice and support that deliver value to these organizations and their investors. For more information, please visit kpmg.com.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 12:27
Throughout the course of this series, Doug, we've had our guests talk about alpha. And it's been mentioned in our industry about the importance of alpha protection when it comes to alternative investments. Many say it's difficult to have alpha without really having the best people. So, how do you go about attracting and retaining the best people for your firm?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 12:55
We're looking for people, believe it or not, not from the fund industry. And in a lot of cases, not from purely the credit industry. That's because we're looking for people who have a desire to be a solutions provider and have aligned values with us as to our mission-driven investing process. So, we do look for people that we hire who have the same beliefs and the same philosophies. And this holds true across the firm, from the front to the very back of the organisation. Every role, we have people who are in the business, and they're not necessarily driven by just the paycheck, they're driven for doing the transaction that makes a difference. And look, a lot of people see when they're interviewing with us, they see our product, right, which is known as finance as a service, as something that's very attractive, you know, it's not just finance, it's not just credit. When you look at the things we're doing, whether it's helping an electric motorcycle company in Australia get access to a government program that changes their path to success dramatically, or we're working with the city to help figure out how to deal with the fact that they have holes in the roof of a building and the papers can't be stored there and those papers are part of the prison and court system, and people's trials and time in jail are extending or even getting worse. They see that it's not just finance, that we're solving problems that have a real impact as well. So, it's not that that is the driver. But that is the intent of what we do. And so, we're looking for people who have that same mindset that we do.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 14:42
That culture then, if I can describe it in that way, that's very much led by yourself and your senior leadership team around you, right?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 14:52
Yes, which you’ll find is very collegial. I do have to say it's very much like the early days on the street, where we are constantly sharing knowledge, we have the breadth of experience in the firm from 40-plus years down to someone who's right out of college. We do share this philosophy of teamwork, creativity, and doing what everybody believes to be the right thing. And we have the mindset that there's nothing wrong with doing good while doing well. We're constantly pushing the team to go outside of their comfort zones with relationships and learning. We put people through business school programs and law degrees and, and the like because we're always looking to have people that have that core belief system, and equip them and train them.
John Budzyna, KPMG 15:47
Doug, let's just pivot for a moment and talk about some of the sort of the broader things impacting the alternative investment management industry, specifically, something that's near and dear to you, the growing influence of technology. whether it be innovation through open AI platforms, I know that you coach robotics, rocketry is in your bio, what do you believe the impact of all these different technology tools will have on the industry going forward?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 16:25
It's a good question. You would need a really good crystal ball to figure that out. I think a lot of people are trying to figure that out. I have a lot of tech that I keep current with. I think the emergence of AI is like, I viewed almost the same as the creation and invention of the first steam engine, very empowering, right? Don't need horses, don't need humans. Put a steam engine in it. It's a little unstable. Sometimes they didn't know exactly how to control the steam engine, potentially very, very dangerous, right, could blow up, could cause some damage. But it's tremendously helpful. It took a long time to figure out how to harness the steam engine, which ultimately became most of the engines that we have today. It's very good at being efficient and increasing efficiency. But all these tools fall short of what I think is the most important value added here which is creativity.
You know, AI can be a helpful tool for Brevet success, right? We're doing a lot of things that have a lot of scale, we do 1000s of transactions, right? So, humans aren't great at repetitive processes. And we do already use some big data methods and machine learning, you know, predecessors to AI. But like, they are just like many other technologies. They're great for making processes better and more efficient, just like robots. But the true value add is the creativity that comes up with solving the problems because I don't think AI is actually going to ever really figure out how to do something that hasn't been done before. Because a lot of AI is based on what's actually been done, and trying to put it together in ways that maybe you're just going to replicate the past. But it's hugely valuable in efficiency. I just don't think it is really good at creativity, which is, if you’re talking about Alpha, that's what alpha is, right? Alpha is a differentiated return, so, creativity is a way of creating that.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 18:38
So, you envisage the evolution around the machine working with the human as opposed to the machine taking over entirely?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 18:49
Yeah, I'm still hopeful that whether it be the leather cobbler on Main Street or it'd be the person who's creative, I still think that human nature has a unique way of constantly evolving beyond its past and maintaining it through creativity. Look at what goes on in the space race these days. The creativity is amazing. AI doesn't help much there.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 19:30
Is it Fischer Black that says the past is not a predictor of future returns, right? But let me digress for a moment and talk about another disruptive trend, which is ESG, responsible investment. I know you do a lot of that at Brevet but how do you then view that ESG and sustainable investment through the lens of what your strategy is at Brevet?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 20:03
Obviously, we follow the industry guidelines for what is important to stay consistent with what the market investors are looking for. But we've been actively involved in incorporating ESG for over 10 years, one of the very earliest players, and it's embedded throughout what we do. It is a little easier because the space that we're in working with governments has a bit of that inherent in the business. And I guess the only way to say whether or not we're doing it right or wrong, or at least moving it in the right direction is that we're proud to say that last year we were recognised as hedge fund manager of the year 2022 for environmental finances sustainable investment awards, right. So, we definitely are doing something right. And like I said, we try to do good while doing well. I think that's just part of what's embedded in our philosophy as a firm and as I said, during our hiring of people.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 21:13
So, looking at the wider picture for the industry itself, when we're thinking about the alternative investment industry, on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the most optimistic, 1 being the least optimistic and most pessimistic about the industry. Where do you see the alternative investment industry in the years ahead in terms of that scale of 1 to 5 level of optimism?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 21:48
Given I worked with Fischer (Black) and as I heard the best response from a humanoid, an actual machine, I guess they might call it. The response was always, it's very hard to have a view because there are so many variables. One thing I can tell you is that I'm very optimistic. One thing for certain is that will continue to have change, right. My expectation is that, look around, we're probably going to have a lot more change in the coming months, maybe even years than I think we've all been used to, for probably the last 15 or 20 years. I think it's pretty clear that we're in the middle of another pivot or redirection or direction of change. As I said, before, you know, it is this type of environment that we flourish in. Who knows what the impacts of things like technology, AI, will have, but I think part of this change is going to be a lot more transparency, and a lot more opportunities that maybe weren't seen or weren't sought after prior to the changes I think we're going through as we speak.
John Budzyna, KPMG 23:13
When you reflect on these changes, what do you think are some of maybe the biggest opportunities or some of the largest headwinds that the industry is facing if you have to cite a few?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 23:26
Change creates opportunity, regardless of when that occurs. I think we've probably heard that from 1000 philosophers over the years. I think that change is actually coming around to the government space. Because I think people do realise it's probably one of the biggest parts of almost any economy in any country. It's going to require agility and experience to be able to see what those opportunities are and to navigate and profit in these changing times. I think old models will go away and new ones will be created. One thing I can guarantee you is that in times of change like this is that governments are not going to get smaller, they're not going to pull back. They're not going to change what they've been doing. If anything, I'd expect their influence to increase. So, its almost a necessity whenever there's change, they look to bring stability.
I think maybe an interesting takeaway I had just recently was when I was listening to a quarterly call of one of the large credit funds and they made an interesting statement, which I think is part of this move of change, which is they said, the world has thought that private credit was reaching a US$1.5 trillion size. But they made a really good statement and said, we don't believe that's true. We believe that credit is actually a much larger industry that's US$44 trillion, because credit includes asset-based lending and all these other areas. That's a change that's really important because, in that change, government and government-related activities are suddenly coming in sight. I couldn't agree more with their assessment that I do believe that the market is bigger, we've been living in it and I'd be surprised if US$44 trillion includes government activities because it is a very large part of the market measured in trillions.
So, I think the change that's coming and what are the opportunities, fund management investment activities is again, broadening into a wider definition of what credit is and where that capital could be deployed.
John Budzyna, KPMG 25:42
What about headwinds? Where do you see the headwinds coming from?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 25:46
You know, headwinds. It's interesting because being in the fund space, one thing you learn relatively quickly being on Wall Street is that doing nothing is actually the worst possible situation. When things are uncertain, and markets are moving, is when you make money and when there are opportunities. So, whether it's headwinds or tailwinds. It's just a matter of perspective of if you’re a contrarian and then headwinds are your friend, and if you're not then you're the opposite, right, so I don't necessarily have a view one way or another. All I know is that change is good. Change creates opportunity and change creates improvement. So, I think there are good opportunities and a positive outlook ahead.
John Budzyna, KPMG 26:37
Well, let's stay on that concept of headwinds and tailwinds for you are an avid cyclist, right? So, how do the skill sets and the athletic demeanour of your sport complement what you do in your professional experience?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 26:59
Purvey itself as a word embodies kind of these beliefs, purvey as we use it, the French term is from a banking organisation that precedes Tour de France and is focused on long-distance amateur bike rides, and these are long-distance amateur bike rides with the goal to challenge the fundamentals of a biker. It's not a race, it's the personal goal achievement to outperform one's abilities. These bike rides are unsupported which means you don't get any help along the way. They are 1200 miles long. So, we did an assessment one day if I started at Penn Station in Manhattan, it would be biking from there to the Ohio border, and back. And you'd be a little short of 1200 kilometers if you had to do that for 90 hours. And so, there's no amount of technology or money that I believe is really going to help you in that. But what they are designed to do is to push you further than you normally would go to achieve a milestone.
Brevet capital has that same belief, right. Regardless of the market conditions, headwinds or not, we look to achieve goals we set out to achieve right when we do what we say we're going to do. So yeah, it's about endurance. It's about experience. It's about mission. But look, similarly, I'm a level three amateur rocket license holder. And just like randonneuring, rocketry requires a lot of skill and perseverance. But more importantly, it requires a lot of imagination, and a driven passion to do what you want to do to succeed where others have actually failed it because you're trying to push something that somebody else has most likely tried before. I think we saw SpaceX do that on Saturday.
What I enjoy is that rocketry really liberates the imagination. It encourages a bit of humility, which I think is really important, particularly in fund management, because not everything goes your way. I think it's more saleem than biking, right? The difference is, is that success is very apparent in rocketry, right? When you're doing rocketry, there's no hiding rockets out in the field. It's on a launch pad, you hit the button, it either blows up or launches into the sky. And just like the rest of what Brevet does, we look for absolute affirmation that says what we're doing is the right thing, that we're actually hitting the mark and we're achieving it. One of our examples has been that we did so well on this governors assist program in Australia that the Australian Government turned around and asked us to go help run their program to eliminate fraud and everything and make it more efficient. So that's just like rocketry, right? It's very apparent that it's working. So, a lot of perseverance, a lot of skill, and a lot of great outcomes. I think that's what randonneuring and rocketry bring to me, and I think you'll find some very unique skills and the rest of my team as well.
John Budzyna, KPMG 30:11
Well, hopefully that rocketry will get you those 1200 miles. How many hours a day do you have to bike?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 30:21
Oh, so 90 hours is not very long when you think about it. The hardest part, I think is when we have done it casually, is riding through the night, say 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning on the second day, and try not to fall asleep on the bike while you're biking. And that is the challenge. So, it's a bit of what you always learn in life, which is sometimes the simplest things matter the most. It's really about mental state conditioning and being consistent in your preparation. That's what gets you through 1200 miles and or 1200km. But it gets you through these rides. We do some of these rides that are set up to be in snow and rain and so it's about being prepared and it's about having confidence in what you're doing.
Tom Kehoe, AIMA 31:12
Very, very elegant analogy, Doug, the rocketry and the cycling, and how that all ties into how you think about things that prevail. I mean, you've achieved so much and we've talked about a little bit of this in today's episode. So, my final question is, what else is on your is on your list both professionally and personally? You have rocketry, cycling, any other pursuits outside of Brevet? What are your goals for the firm as well?
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 31:45
Look, I've had a tremendously fortunate career, winding up at Goldman when I didn't even know who they were. And as you may have gathered, I'm a big believer that everyone has skills. That's why we don't necessarily just look for people from the fund industry or credit. A lot of those things are trainable. The thing is most people don't really realise they have those skills. And so, one of our missions here, you can see we do this with governments or at least government programs, is we bring the proof that you do have the skills and that you can just follow our path. So, we enjoy challenging people to embrace the skills that they achieve. I personally love this because I love to see the people who don't believe, like everybody doesn't really believe that government programs are going to be successful, right? There's a lot of cynics out there. We're not cynics. Oh, by far, we are definitely believers. What really I think we need is there to be more people like us to bring solutions, and to show them how to do it.
As you mentioned I coach robotics. Hey, let's focus on it for a minute. This was a sixth-grade team at a public school that's located in Chinatown, Manhattan. This was a worldwide competition. It's by city state, go country and then worldwide. This team was facing a ton of challenges that all the other teams didn't have to face for a million reasons. But this team tied for second place in the world, right? This was a bunch of sixth graders who went against high schoolers and well-heeled people, people who had travel buses. We were going down in a bunch of rented cars for these competitions, right? They went further than they ever thought possible. And that team prior to these competitions, didn't ever think that any of those kids would ever go to college. The lead student? Well, she just entered MIT. So, it's that type of success and think about that type of outcome for a government program.
When somebody says look, you know, it's hard to pass laws. It's a hard job. I mean, we get pretty close to Washington. That is a difficult thing. It's difficult to convince Congress to pass laws and everybody knows the song in a Schoolhouse Rock, right? You know, I'm only a bill. Well, take that Bill and get it into law and actually then apply it to 380 million citizens in 50 Different states and 35 million businesses across the United States to get it to actually have an impact is a massively complex problem. It's not like they're not trying. I mean, they're definitely trying. I think there's this need to have a bridge, which is this bridge that maybe brings a commercial mindset to some of it to help just parts of it. Remember, the credit opportunities we were talking about are much larger because of this. Investors are looking for this. And as we said, it's apparent in almost all the investors we talked to that this need is out there.
It is interesting as we talked about the rocketry success and not blowing up, one of the best moments of our firm was when we stood before one of the state pension funds’ panels, a very intimidating experience where you're on camera, and it's on TV, and you're going through a bit of questioning by a panel and one of the people on the panel stopped after reading all the materials, asking lots of questions and said, you know, we're putting purvey in this category of public-private partnership (PPP). I adamantly disagreed. I had no idea where this was going. They sit up and said, I'm looking at this, and the amount of stuff that we have done to solve problems for the state as well as good investing, they turned around and said, I wanted to create a category called 1P, just partner, right? And that's what matters to me, right?
So, I'm excited about the future of the industry. Change, I think is going to create more of these opportunities, maybe AI will simplify credit working with governments. That would be interesting. I love the fact that big funds are now saying the credit market isn't US$1.5 trillion. There's a lot more of it out there because we're sitting out there and one of those categories. As I look forward, I'm looking forward to bringing the solutions, changing the way governments are perceived and looking forward to the constant seasons of change, because I think that's what's upon us.
John Budzyna, KPMG 36:41
Thank you, Doug, for joining us today. We really appreciated the insight of your comments and look forward to speaking to you again.
Douglas Monticciolo, Brevet Capital 36:51
Great, well, thank you for your time and thank you for the invitation.