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We sat down with Ron Biscardi, the CEO and co-founder of iConnections, live at Global Alts Miami to get the skinny on what's happening with fund managers and allocators in real time. Last year, private credit was the undisputed darling of investment strategies. Now, on the heels of Blue Owl headlines and concerns about cracks within the private credit markets, headlines seem to suggest a tough road ahead.   

But reality is far more nuanced. Ron synthesized both emotional reactions and hard data from investors responding to new perceived stresses in the sector in ways that might surprise you.  We also learn where smart money is pivoting, where it remains steadfast, which asset classes and investment strategies stand poised to benefit, and how allocators are positioning for highly volatile markets this year. 

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Kristen and Jen tackle two major stories in this double emergency episode. First, Kristen breaks down latest update in the Warner Bros saga — how Paramount outbid Netflix with a $31/share offer, why Netflix walked away, and what the deal means financially. They cover the cursed history of Warner Bros. M&A deals, the staggering leverage Paramount is taking on (potentially the largest LBO ever), the accretion/dilution math that made this a non-starter for Netflix, and why it's an existential move for Paramount. They also get into the ticking fee structure, the $7 billion breakup fee, and why so many people are nervous about this outcome.

Jen then covers the weekend's military action in the Middle East and how it's hitting markets on Monday. She walks through the relatively muted equity reaction, the split between defense stocks and travel names, the divergence between WTI and Brent crude, and why treasuries initially rallied before selling off. The yield curve is bare flattening as the market prices out near-term Fed cuts, since sustained oil price shocks would feed through to broader inflation beyond just energy. Gold is catching a bid as the classic risk-off trade, while Europe looks more vulnerable than the US to prolonged disruption given its energy dependence.

Coming later this week: episodes recorded at the I Connections conference, including an Investor Relations 101 conversation and a look at where allocators are directing capital this year, with equity long/short and macro funds gaining ground over last year's private credit buzz.

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It's a bittersweet day at The Wall Street Skinny, where we are recapping the SEASON FINALE!! While this one is lighter on finance than most episodes this season, we still dig into the mechanics of closing out a massive short position without spooking the tape. We also break down how hedge fund fees actually work — the industry-standard "two and twenty" structure where managers earn a 2% management fee on assets under management plus 20% of profits — and use that framework to reverse-engineer what this three-person fund operating out of a hotel room should have actually earned versus what got paid out. The numbers don't quite add up, and we have thoughts.

This finale also takes a hard pivot into politics, power brokering, and some very dark territory for one of our favorite characters. We trace every reference and detail — from Walt Whitman to the Talented Mr. Ripley, George Orwell to Henry VIII — and debate what the show is setting up for its next chapter. Character arcs that have been building all season reach their breaking points, alliances shatter in stunning ways, and the episode forces us to ask whether people are truly capable of change or destined to become the very thing they fought against.

We share our honest reactions to what worked and what left us frustrated, revisit our season-long theories one final time, and give our last bullish and bearish calls of the season. Thank you to every single listener who joined us on this ride — your feedback, theories, and insights made this our favorite recording day of the week. See you next season.

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We teamed up with Guy Adami and Dan Nathan to discuss two major developing market stories ahead of meeting in Miami for the iConnections Global Alts conference. The first topic is stress in private credit, centered on Blue Owl’s retail-focused semi-liquid vehicle (Blue Owl Capital Corp II) facing heavy redemptions and gating, highlighting the liquidity mismatch between retail redemption needs and long-dated loan assets. They contrast the gated evergreen structure with Blue Owl’s publicly traded BDC that was trading roughly 20% below NAV, discuss Blue Owl’s reported loan sales near NAV, and explore why the issue is pressuring related stocks like Blue Owl and Blackstone despite an S&P 500 that appears indifferent. The group connects the private credit conversation to how AI/data center buildouts are financed, including references to Meta-related structures and concerns about CoreWeave’s ability to raise capital for data center obligations, and notes that credit markets often reprice quickly only after complacency breaks. The second topic is prediction markets, focusing on Kalshi and its partnership with Tradeweb to publish analytics and potentially enable institutional trading of binary outcomes on events like Fed decisions and macro data, raising questions about democratized access, liquidity constraints, regulatory gaps, spoofing, and the role of insider information, along with implications for politics and whether more information is always better.

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In this episode, we're breaking down Season 4, Episode 7 of Industry, "Points of Emphasis" — and we have a lot of feelings. We walk you through all the major plot developments, from Whitney's attempted escape and his terrifying confrontation with what appears to be his foreign handlers, to Yasmin's ruthless political maneuvering to bring down Lisa Dern and protect herself as Tender collapses around her.

Along the way, we dig into the finance: what a hostile takeover actually is and why Whitney's stock-for-stock bid for PierPoint is more smoke and mirrors than strategy, the real-world Porsche-Volkswagen story that inspired Whitney's synthetic position playbook (and why it still wouldn't be legal today), and why Harper's team is covering their short carefully as the stock craters.

We also get into the emotional core of the episode: Lord Norton's heartbreaking decision to let Henry face the consequences, the long-awaited Harper and Yasmin reconciliation, and what Yasmin's admission that she's "never been necessary" might be setting up for the season finale.

Share your theories and let us know where you think this all ends for our characters!

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Kristin Olson, Goldman Sachs’ Head of Alternatives for Wealth, sits down with us for the most candid, no-fluff conversation about private equity and private credit we've ever had. .

She walks us through the very real benefits of investing in private capital while also answering the cynical questions: do “retail” investors in private equity products like evergreen funds and perpetual funds get the A-team investors? Are those structures getting the best deals? How do the fees compare to the fees on products for institutional investors? Plus, If more buyers flood the market, does that push prices up and compress returns? 

Kristin breaks down for us how this whole ecosystem actually works, she discusses the biggest shift in private markets right now, and the pros and cons of newer structures that aim to make private assets feel more like “normal investing.” 

Finally, we go deep on what investors should actually ask before putting money into private equity and private credit. Kristin talks us through how fees can be misleading, when carry is taken, hurdle rates, gating/redemptions, and what “liquidity” really means when markets get stressed. This is an episode every investor should listen to before putting private capital into their portfolio.

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In the sixth installment of He Said, She Said on the Risk Reversal Podcast, Kristen and Jen are joined by CNBC's Dan Nathan and Guy Adami to talk century bonds, Paramount / Warner Brothers update, and the existential angst surrounding AI. The episode kicks off with a listener question about Alphabet’s recent $32 billion debt issuance, including a rare 100-year sterling bond, prompting a deep dive into who issues century bonds, who actually buys them, and what locking in ultra-long-term rates signals about corporate views on term premium and fiscal risk. 

From there, the group pivots to an update on the Warner Bros–Paramount–Netflix saga, Finally, the crew tackles the market’s rapidly shifting narrative around AI. What was once a universal tailwind for SaaS and hyperscalers now feels like a sector-wide threat, with investors “shooting first and asking questions later.” The group weigh in on productivity, unemployment fears, private market risk, and whether today’s selloff in software names is a buying opportunity or a warning sign. 

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Recap & Breakdown of HBO's Industry season 4 episode 6,

Harper launches her assault on Tender at the Alpha Conference, delivering a devastating short thesis complete with a DCF analysis and sum-of-the-parts valuation. We break down every piece of the finance, from enterprise value vs. equity value, what a price target of zero really means, and the real-world fraud parallels to Enron, Valiant, and Luckin Coffee. We also discuss why Tender's "convertible bond" is actually a putable bond (a la Succession Season 1). 

Meanwhile, Whitney's relationship with Henry takes some deeply unsettling turns, and cracks in Tender's armor start showing from directions nobody expected. The episode's biggest revelations reshape everything we thought we knew, which would have been unbelievable had it not come directly from the Wirecard scandal. A bunch of our theories come true but sadly...and we discuss new theories and hopes given a shocking exit by one of our characters. With only two episodes left this season, the battle lines are drawn. Whether you're here for the finance masterclass or the character drama, this one has it all.

Did you know we have a 25-hour Investment Banking & Private Equity Fundamentals self study that covers exactly what new hires get when they start on Wall Street? Step-by-step modeling, valuation, accounting, and more, delivered by Kristen who taught this exact content at firms including Blackstone, Morgan Stanley and more for over a decade. Check it out here: 

https://thewallstreetskinny.com/investment-banking-private-equity-fundamentals/#investment-banking

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We're back with The Skinny On...three wild stories: confusing jobs data, Japan's equity market rally, and why everyone's freaking out about AI killing SaaS companies.

Confused by the latest Non-Farm Payrolls report? So were we. The blowout headline number was nothing compared to the massive downward revisions to 2025's data. Yet somehow, bonds still sold off and the market has priced out March rate cuts. Huh?? We're not buying it.

Then we jump to Japan, where the Nikkei's been ripping. Everyone's talking inflation, but the real story is decades in the making: Japan's finally ditching "holder capitalism" (where companies hoarded cash and protected jobs) for actual shareholder value. Prime Minister Takaichi's landslide win just accelerated reforms that started under Abe. With an aging population, pension funds need equities to work — so corporate Japan has no choice but to unlock value.

Next: the "SaaS-pocalypse." Software stocks got obliterated on fears that AI will replace them entirely, pushing many loans in the tech sector into distressed territory. But remember: corporate cash flows don't vanish overnight. We share lessons from the past that suggest the current panic feels overblown, even if the existential threat is real.

As our philosophical debate continues over the appropriate role for AI in the workplace, we bring on Charlie Schilling, CEO of Macabacus, to talk about how his company (creators of a beloved Wall Street productivity toolkit) is navigating this chaos and what AI actually means for financial modeling.

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Kristen and Jen are joined by Guy Adami and Dan Nathan of CNBC's Fast Money for the fifth installment of "He Said, She Said." The conversation kicks off with the so-called "SaaS Apocalypse" — the brutal selloff across software stocks — and unpacks how the market narrative shifted in just one week from "when will AI spending pay off?" to "what happens when AI destroys your core business?" The group debates whether the repricing is justified or overdone, digs into the credit market spillover with $17.7 billion in SaaS-related loans hitting distressed levels, and discusses what it all means for private credit exposure.

From there, the panel takes on Bitcoin's collapse to $60,000 — roughly half its all-time high — and asks whether the "digital gold" thesis is officially dead now that crypto fell apart while precious metals hit records. They also break down the equity rotation into financials and energy, the irony of banks rallying on AI-driven deal flow while AI-adjacent companies crater, and what enterprise adoption of AI could mean for the hyperscalers longer term.

The episode wraps with a look at Elon Musk's latest consolidation play, SpaceX acquiring xAI ahead of a rumored mega-IPO, and a macro check-in covering weak seasonals, a deteriorating jobs picture, rising 10-year yields, and the historical pattern of markets testing every new Fed chair.

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In this Infrastructure 101 episode, we sit down with Mike Dorrell, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Stonepeak, to unpack how infrastructure investing evolved from a niche corner of finance into one of the most important asset classes shaping the global economy. We walk through the origins of modern infrastructure investing --- from Macquarie’s early toll road and airport deals in Australia to the rise of private capital stepping in where governments once dominated --- and explain why infrastructure sits at the intersection of private equity, private credit, and project finance. Along the way, we break down what makes these assets unique: high barriers to entry, essential services, regulated cash flows, and long-duration returns.

The conversation digs into the technical mechanics behind infrastructure deals, including project finance structures, equity versus credit exposure, the role of regulation and tax policy, and why governments are both critical partners and key sources of risk. We explore how infrastructure investors analyze energy markets, power pricing, traffic patterns, and permitting risk, and why changes in “the rules of the road” can make or break long-term investments. From municipal bonds to privatized airports, toll roads, utilities, and power plants, this episode connects the financial structures to the real-world systems people rely on every day.

We also tackle the biggest theme driving headlines today: the AI data center boom. Mike explains why AI is accelerating massive investment across digital infrastructure and energy, what it means for power grids and electricity prices, and how investors distinguish between contracted, de-risked data centers and far more speculative builds. Woven throughout is Mike’s personal story --- from growing up in rural Australia to helping build a global infrastructure platform --- and a candid discussion of what it takes to build durable businesses, invest through cycles, and think long term about both capital and legacy.

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