market folly

Anthony Scaramucci and Gary Kaminsky this week on Wall Street Week interviewed Marc Lasry of Avenue Capital, which now has $14 billion in assets under management after initially starting with around $7 million.  Lasry likes to take fixed income risk but generate equity-like returns.


Lasry noted that he's been seeing "huge opportunities" in the energy sector, mainly due to the fact that oil's gone down.  He says you don't want to be an equity holder, but you want to be a senior debt holder.

He's also finding some investments in Europe as the banks over there are deleveraging.  Avenue is buying assets at 60-70 cents on the dollar from people who are required to sell due to regulatory pressure.

On what he looks for in an investment:  "We're trying to buy something we think is worth 100 cents for 60 cents on the dollar.  So you're always trying to buy something at a discount to what you think the asset value is.  And you can only do that when you're buying from non-economic sellers... someone who's nervous or somebody who has to sell.  So you need to have a lot of drama or issues around the world."

Embedded below is the video of Marc Lasry's appearance on Wall Street Week:



Be sure to check out previous Wall Street Week episodes like their interview with David Rubenstein as well as Steve Einhorn here.