In short
Dipan Patel (Permira co-CEO/co-managing partner) explains Permira’s “artisanal” private equity approach, how AI changes the investment landscape, and how the firm manages liquidity/exit performance via DPI.
Guest backgrounds
Dipan Patel is co-managing partner and co-CEO of Permira (global PE/credit firm ~ $100B AUM). He worked at Arthur Andersen during the Enron era (2002) and at Lehman Brothers during the 2008 crisis. He joined Permira in 2009.
Key claims
AI accelerates outcomes: commodity-data, commodity-UX businesses decline faster; proprietary data, network effects, strong brands, and vertical-specific UX benefit. Permira’s edge is dense Europe networks, equal US/Europe footprint, “digital core” investing, and growth-first value creation. Culture should be antifragile—improve after stress. Liquidity matters: industry needs ~20–25% DPI per year; Permira reported ~22% DPI over the last 12 months.
Notable examples
Renaissance Learning (taken private; transitioned to SaaS; shut hardware division; sold after ~2.5 years for >4x). Ancestry.com (taken private; nearly 4x). Mentions AI firms/models (Anthropic) and “Dario” as a proxy for AI model updates.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Impact of AI on Business Success
0:00 to 0:43
Learn how AI affects company performance based on data ownership and user experience.
“What are the best things that are going to do?”
Dipan's Early Career Experiences
1:08 to 1:51
Discover Dipan's formative experiences at Arthur Anderson and Lehman Brothers.
“So everyone remembers their first job, but yours must have been especially memorable.”
Understanding Pamira's Unique Position
1:51 to 3:00
Learn about Pamira's history, capital raised, and global presence in private equity.
“For those who aren't familiar, what makes Premier unique?”
Pamira's Investment Strategy Explained
3:00 to 4:28
Explore Pamira's focus on mid-market investments and growth-oriented strategies.
“The first thing is Pemira raised the first pan-European fund in the late 90s.”
The Benefits of Being a Private Firm
4:28 to 5:18
Understand how Pamira's private status influences culture and talent retention.
“In the end, when you're selling businesses, particularly selling businesses to strategics, you are trying to convince someone that there is a long growth runway.”
The Artisanal Approach to Investing
5:18 to 6:30
Dipan explains the artisanal versus factory models in investing and their implications.
“So Premier is built by investors for investors.”
A Notable Investment Success Story
6:30 to 9:06
Dipan shares the story of successfully taking Renaissance Learning private.
“Was there any particular deal from early in your career that you're especially proud of?”
Transitioning Leadership at Pamira
9:06 to 11:01
Learn about the leadership transition process and Dipan's partnership with Brian.
“Yeah, I love the story how it originates with a call to Goldman Sachs.”
Decision-Making Dynamics in Investment
11:01 to 11:51
Explore how Dipan and Brian make key investment and exit decisions at Pamira.
“I would say the most important thing, and of course, Brian and I, we have our splits and obviously across geography and sectors and things like that.”
Navigating AI's Impact on Private Equity
11:51 to 14:00
Dipan discusses AI's effects on companies and the private equity landscape.
“Sounds like a great partnership and a longstanding partnership.”
Show all 21 chapters
Navigating Challenges and Opportunities in Investment
14:00 to 15:43
Dipan discusses current investment challenges and opportunities in various sectors.
“side of AI and is not benefiting every time a new model is released.”
The Importance of Structural Trends in Private Equity
15:43 to 17:05
The focus on being on the right side of structural trends for investment success.
“And that will completely change and change the way that companies speak to consumers and how they get into consumers' wallets.”
Liquidity Issues and Exit Strategies in Private Equity
17:05 to 19:51
Dipan elaborates on managing liquidity and exit strategies within private equity.
“Yep, that was a thoughtful way to analyze it.”
Cultural Reflections on Past Market Cycles
19:51 to 22:31
Exploring how past failures shaped the culture and decision-making in private equity.
“So every investment firm talks about culture, but culture is often forged and built during periods of stress.”
Antifragility in Business Culture
22:31 to 24:57
Insights on how an antifragile culture can improve organizational performance during crises.
“and bounded entrepreneurialism is really important.”
Philanthropy and Corporate Culture at Pemira
24:57 to 26:48
Discussion on Pemira's philanthropic initiatives and their cultural significance.
“And that's the core of our strategy today that we prosecute through our sectors.”
Future Directions for Private Equity Leadership
26:48 to 28:00
Dipan reflects on the evolving landscape of private equity and leadership aspirations.
“So you and Brian are part of a new generation of private equity leaders.”
Striving for Superior Outcomes
28:00 to 28:38
Learn about the challenges of maintaining consistent business excellence.
“superior outcomes over the long term and doing that consistently.”
Lessons from an Immigrant Family
28:38 to 29:49
Discover how a founder's journey shaped investor perspectives.
“And I think that's what we're most excited about doing.”
Lightning Round: Investor Insights
29:49 to 30:22
Gain quick insights into the investor's strengths and inspirations.
“actually my dad always tells me that i won't ever understand what that really means to go to bed at night and have on your shoulders an organization in that way.”
Excitement in Today's World
30:22 to 32:16
Explore the investor's views on the current landscape and future prospects.
“So I'd like to end these conversations with a lightning round.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00What are the best things that are going to do?
0:04Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Good things happen to good companies and bad things happen to bad companies. And I think what AI is doing is just accelerating those things. So if you're a business that aggregates commodity data, sells it through a commodity channel with a commodity UX, you are probably already on a decline curve. And if you're a company with proprietary data and with network effects, an incredibly strong brand, and you've built a user experience which is built for the idiosyncrasies of a vertical, probably you're going to be on the right side of AI.
0:42Dipan Patel:Welcome to Goldman Sachs Exchange's Great Investors. I'm Alison Mass. I'm about to sit down with Dipan Patel, co-managing partner and co-CEO of Premira, a global investment firm spanning private equity and credit with approximately$100 billion in assets under management.
1:04Dipan Patel:So welcome to Great Investors. So great to have you here.
1:07Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Thank you for having me.
1:08Dipan Patel:So everyone remembers their first job, but yours must have been especially memorable. You worked at Arthur Anderson in 2002, and then after university, you went to Lehman Brothers. Those must have been fascinating experiences. So tell us a little bit about that.
1:24Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Yeah, that's right. I worked at Arthur Anderson in 2002 during the Enron scandal, and then Lehman Brothers in 08, obviously during the global financial crisis. formative. To see two iconic companies struggle and then eventually fall before us 30 was something that once you see it, it's hard to unsee it and leaves lasting memories and a lot of learnings.
1:48Dipan Patel:Yeah. So tell us about Premier today. For those who aren't familiar, what makes Premier unique? And maybe tie in some of the lessons that you learned from earlier in your career that have helped you lead Pamira today?
2:01Goldman Sachs Exchanges:So Pamira started in 1985 as four people, $48 million from Schroeder's bank. Over the last 41 years, if you wind the clock forward, the business has raised more than$100 billion of capital. We have about 500 people, 250 investors, 16 offices globally. We invest in private equity and in credit. Our private equity business invests really across four sectors, consumer, healthcare services, and technology. It does it primarily across the mid-market, so I think businesses in the kind of 200 million EV up to 2 billion EV range. And everything we do is really significant minority, so governance with teeth, all the way through to full control, and so very active owners.
2:47Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Then our credit business invests across private credit through to liquid credit and right through the risk return spectrum. You asked the question around what makes us unique and what's our edge. I'd say it's a few different things. The first thing is Pemira raised the first pan-European fund in the late 90s. And as a result, we built boots on the ground right across Europe and just dense networks, relationships, footprints. And that served us really well. That's 50 % of our investing today. At the same time, we're probably one of the very few firms that have an equal-weighted US and European business.
3:26Goldman Sachs Exchanges:About 50 % of our people sit in the US, 50 % are in Europe. 50 % of our capital deployed and capital returned have come from both regions. So that's one. We have what we call digital core multi-sector, so we're very deep in digital. But the most interesting aspect of our investing has always been at the intersection of digital and our real economy sectors, so consumer healthcare and services. And that's where we have a particular edge, like a real economy business where there is a significant value creation under right in the realm of digital is Power Alley for Pamira. We have a very strong growth DNA, so we've probably got one of the fastest growing portfolios in the larger cap end of PE.
4:08Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Our portfolio consistently grows organically, low teens, top line, and significantly higher at the bottom line. That's by design. We over-index to growthier businesses. The typical Pemira business will be under-levered, under-margined and over-growth. And we really like that formula. In the end, when you're selling businesses, particularly selling businesses to strategics, you are trying to convince someone that there is a long growth runway. And you don't get there by under-investing in a business and milking a business over your investment period. So we tend to invest really deeply in new products, new channels, new geographies.
4:48Goldman Sachs Exchanges:We often do business model transitions. But growth underwrites are central to anything that comes through our investment committee. And then the last thing is we are a private company. It's not unique. There are a bunch of scale private equity funds. It's increasingly becoming important. Over time, we're a private partnership. Since inception, that's not changed. We're owned by our partners and that goes ultimately to outcomes and performance and incentives and alignment. In what ways does being private and remaining private help with your investment culture and with retaining talent and recruiting talent?
5:28Goldman Sachs Exchanges:So Premier is built by investors for investors. And so we want and attract people who are craftspeople. right so I think of the industry is bifurcating between more like factory models and and artisanal models right and you're an artisanal model yeah you know there's no right or wrong in these models and both these models will will work but they are definitely different and they attract different types of people and if you're someone who likes to craft an investment thesis think differently work a deal is comfortable with really long gestation periods wants to be an absolute expert in their space, is frankly comfortable not doing deals and not being in the cadence of just allocating assets, Primera is going to be the place for you.
6:14Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And if you want to build new products and new channels and new business lines, there'll be other firms that are better homes for those people. But Primera is a craftsman's place of work.
6:26Dipan Patel:Yeah, that's a great way to describe it. So thank you for that. So you've been at Primera since 2009. Was there any particular deal from early in your career that you're especially proud of?
6:38Goldman Sachs Exchanges:We did a deal taking a company called Renaissance Learning private in the U.S. It was an ed tech company. It was sold into 70 ,000 schools and ended up selling it in two and a half years. We made more than four times the money, did a range of things with that company, and I was fortunate to be involved in it. But the reason why it's special for me was, and I think it actually says a lot about our firm. When I joined, and I think we do this a lot with our junior talent, we really encourage thematic, thesis-driven work from right at the beginning of people's career journeys in the firm. And I went off and I started working on a thematic piece in edtech.
7:20Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I remember coming up with something called the Global Top Ten, these companies that I thought would be interesting.
7:24Dipan Patel:And Renaissance was on that Top Ten.
7:25Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Renaissance Learning was on that Top Ten. And, you know, I was relatively new to the industry, and I went to my principal at that time, who now actually is a partner in the firm, and said, look, I've been doing this work, and what do you think? And actually, funny thing, I'd reached out to a guy called Barry O 'Brien, who was, I think then, probably a VP at Goldman Sachs.
7:46Dipan Patel:Yes, who now runs our TMT business globally.
7:48Goldman Sachs Exchanges:and he put me in touch with Terry and Judy Poole who owned the company and I said to the guys there well what should I just go and they said sure just go and I was an associate in the firm they said just call this guy on the west coast because it's a US thing and so I called a guy called Brian Ruder and we went along to the meeting it was in Denver and one thing led to another and we ended up prosecuting that deal and taking that company private and you know the great thing about it for me was and I think about it a lot with the junior talent we have in the organization is that idea came from a junior person it also came because that junior person was encouraged to go take that thread as far as they possibly could it was fascinating for me because the things we did with that business we shut down a hardware division And we transitioned the whole business model to SaaS.
8:46Goldman Sachs Exchanges:We entered a new country. We invested in this whole new math product. We did that all in the course of about three years and got rewarded for all of it. So it was a vignette of good stuff. I got spoiled because I probably ended that and thought, this is easy. This is how privexy works, right? And so, yeah, special place in my heart, that investment.
9:06Dipan Patel:And thank you to Barry. Yeah, I love the story how it originates with a call to Goldman Sachs.
9:11Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Yeah.
9:11Dipan Patel:I'm going to have to tell Barry that. And Brian, the first deal with Brian. So now you share the top job at Primera with Brian. How did that come about, and how do you split up responsibilities or look at being co-managing partners?
9:24Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Yeah, so Brian and I have worked together for a long time. So actually, after we did Renaissance Learning together, Brian called me at some point and said, take a look at this business called Ancestry.com. And long story short, we took that company private, made nearly four times the money on that investment. And in the middle of that, he said, why don't you come out to the West Coast? So I moved out to the West Coast. What year was that? That was in 2012. And I was in our Manly Park office, which is now 40 people. But at the time, it was four or five of us. And so I got to know Brian there. And we worked together on lots and lots of deals, you know, Ancestry and then many other deals together after that.
10:04Goldman Sachs Exchanges:So we had a long, very long working relationship. Pamira has done five leadership transitions in its 41 year history. The common themes have always been the two co-managing partners or the new co-managing partner has been in internal promote. And the existing leadership or leader has stayed in the organization for a handful of years and been very active. So that's been very consistent in terms of the way that this leadership transition has worked. Brian and I, as I said, we've worked together for a long time. He's based in the US, I'm best in Europe. We both grew up in tech, but he co-ran tech.
10:41Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I went on to co-run the consumer teams. That's two of our biggest sectors. And we tend to have a co-leadership model. We like that model.
10:48Dipan Patel:I think Goldman Sachs has a fair amount of co-leadership
10:52Goldman Sachs Exchanges:in your sectors and geographies too. It was a natural evolution a couple of years ago when Kurt moved up to executive chairman and Tom had left the business. I would say the most important thing, and of course, Brian and I, we have our splits and obviously across geography and sectors and things like that. The most important thing is we make eight to 10 really important investing decisions every year. We make about eight to 10 really important exit decisions every year. And less important is how we split the this and the that of the organization. And more important is how we come together and the investment committee comes together to make just as many world-class decisions as we possibly can.
11:33Goldman Sachs Exchanges:As I said earlier, we're a private company and most of our economics are tied up in the outcomes that we drive and those decisions are the most important things we do every single year. And if we get them right, we can get a lot of other things wrong. And if we get them wrong, there's any number of things we can get right and it won't make up for it.
11:51Dipan Patel:Sounds like a great partnership and a longstanding partnership. So as you mentioned, Premira has built dedicated sector teams in tech and consumer services and healthcare long before that was standard practice in private equity. So how does AI affect that calculus? There's a perception that a lot of private equity-backed companies stand to be disrupted by AI. So how do you take that into account in your investment committee process? So good things happen to good companies
12:20Goldman Sachs Exchanges:and bad things happen to bad companies. And we think of good companies as companies with strong moats and bad companies is companies that lack lack modes. And obviously that's a spectrum. I think what AI is doing is just accelerating those things. So if you're a business that aggregates commodity data, sells it through a commodity channel with a commodity UX, you are probably already on a decline curve and AI is going to accelerate that. And if you're a company with proprietary data, and with network effects, an incredibly strong brand, and you've built a user experience, which is built for the idiosyncrasies of a vertical, probably you're going to be on the right side of AI and you are probably succeeding anyway.
13:11Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And AI is going to allow you to add an intelligence layer on top of what you already have and then monetize that. The private equity industry has probably got a mixture of good and bad companies. And, you know, I think the metric that we think about in our firm is how much of our nav is, do we feel happy about when Dario opens his mouth or when Anthropic drops a model? And honestly, that number was, you know, we were figuring that out probably two or three years ago and we were probably on the defense. Today, we're definitely on the offense on that. And that metric is only going up and to the right.
13:50Goldman Sachs Exchanges:But if I look out across the entire private equity industry, I don't know the stats, but the reality is there is a mixture. And for sure, 100 % of the NAV sitting in the private equity industry is not on the right side of AI and is not benefiting every time a new model is released.
14:08Dipan Patel:So are there specific sectors or subsectors where you're looking to deploy capital now?
14:14Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Yeah. So first of all, just zooming back, it's a fascinating time to be alive. It's also a very stressful and sometimes confusing time to be alive. and I always like the McKinsey analogy of you've got the microscope in one hand, you've got the telescope in the other. And when you look down the microscope, the list of problems or the wall of worry is endless, right? You have government indebtedness, you have potential rate hikes, you have more armed conflicts in the world today than any time since Second World War. You have the threat of unemployment from AI, and I could go on and on and on. At the same time, you've got a major platform shift, which is super early innings and is going to reshape industries and reshape profit pools.
14:59Goldman Sachs Exchanges:You have energy transition where power demand is going to double over some period of time. And at the same time, half of the grid capacity is going to need to be retired. You have major advances in the medical field. You have a country in India, which is going to come online and drive very significant growth over the next 20 years. So you've got these kind of two things in your hand at the same time. And I think as a leader, you've got to take a distanced view of the stuff that's close up and a close view of the stuff that's far away. And that's what we try and do in the organization and just think really long term and think about our exit environment and try and skate to where the puck's going rather than where the puck is.
15:42Goldman Sachs Exchanges:all of those things and those big let's call it telescope things they'll be expressed through our sectors I think in different ways I think within software it's going to be about adding an intelligence layer and monetizing that over time I think within services there will be fascinating things to do in engineering services in blue collar services in consumer I think AI is going to radically transform personalization. And that will completely change and change the way that companies speak to consumers and how they get into consumers' wallets. Healthcare, there's something like 10 ,000 known diseases and only 600-ish target medicines, target drugs for those.
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16:28Goldman Sachs Exchanges:There will be major advances in those fields over time. So we like our bets. We like where we invest. and we will express these big telescope type things through our sectors in different ways. But we've always found the key thing is you have to be on the right side of these big structural trends. Even if it means paying up and paying more and feeling uncomfortable when you pay up, like over the long term, back to what I said around good things happen to good companies, you just tend to expose yourself to good luck when you're on the right side of these structural trends and you tend to be inundated with bad luck when you fight those things.
17:05Dipan Patel:Yep, that was a thoughtful way to analyze it. So you mentioned that you and Brian spend most of your time focusing on the most important investment decisions that you're going to make each year and the divestitures, the monetizations. So what about the much-talked-about issue of liquidity in private equity and the exit backlog that we all talk about? How do you see it and how are you managing Premier through that?
17:30Goldman Sachs Exchanges:So look, the industry and the model, it only really works if there's about 20 to 25 % DPI per annum. And the industry's not been delivering that. And it's not been delivering that for coming up to a handful of years now, right? I think that stat's probably 10-ish percent. And that can't continue if the business model is to work and flourish. So first of all, yes, I think it's problematic. We just take our data points in the last 12 months, our status is 22%. And so we've realized 22 % of our nav over the last 12 months. And we've done that through a variety of different exit routes. It's not easy, but it requires you and your organization to have the mindset that DPI is an operating rhythm.
18:22Goldman Sachs Exchanges:It's not an event. and frankly, and it's uncomfortable for people, but the truth is it's ancient history the second you send the money back, right? And you need to be focused on the next set of things that you're going to be monetizing and bring to market. You know, we have a centralized target setting system. We have an exit committee. We drive really big accountability down the organization. We set incentives that are linked to achieving those things. But the single most important thing really is just having good companies. And it's cliche and it's easy to say, but good companies sell themselves and bad companies just get stuck.
19:02Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And the single biggest reason why we've got excess liquidity over the last 12 months, the last 24 months, actually, if you go back, is actually not our processes and our incentives and our systems. It's actually that we've got businesses that are desirable. You know, they're businesses that people want to own and the reason that they want to own them is they have very long growth runways at exit. they're not over-optimized businesses.
19:23Dipan Patel:For our viewers, can you discuss what DPI is? What does it stand for?
19:28Goldman Sachs Exchanges:So, you know, DPI is really just money being sent back to investors. I think that's the easiest way to describe it. When we talk about percentage of NAV, that's the percentage of your unrealized net asset value. And the way that we tend to look at it, and I think the industry tends to look at it, is how much money you're sending back as a percentage of your unrealized net asset the value that you're sitting on. That metric ought to be at 20 to 25%. Got it.
19:52Dipan Patel:Thank you for clarifying. So every investment firm talks about culture, but culture is often forged and built during periods of stress.
20:01Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Yeah.
20:01Dipan Patel:So how has Premier's culture evolved over past market cycles and how does it guide your decision-making today? So Lehman Brothers and Arthur Anderson, two different companies, two different times,
20:14Goldman Sachs Exchanges:two different factors, two different faces at the top of those organizations. The common theme in those organizations was, in my view, was the same thing that led to extraordinary success for each of them, led to extraordinary downfall. So in the case of Arthur Anderson, they had built a really strong business, cross-selling consulting services into audit clients. And then that caught them out with Enron when they pushed that too far. uh lehman you know lehman wasn't a bank it was a broker dealer it was borrowing short and it was investing that very aggressively on the other side and that led to huge success over a couple of decades until it didn't right and then the question you ask yourself is so why you know why why was that allowed to to happen and at least in my view it was you know they're both examples of just like culture failing at scale.
21:14Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And I think if you walked around both of those companies, and I was a very junior person in both of those companies at the time, so I was nowhere near the top table, but there's a feeling you get being in organizations, it doesn't matter what level you are. And I think the common themes in those organizations was probably you had charismatic leadership, you had really big growth ambitions, you had a ton of confidence, You probably also had a culture of risk-taking that had gone too far, sort of risky practices that were normalized. You had probably people that couldn't speak truth to power. You had incentives in the wrong place.
21:53And that would have been common between both of those companies.
21:58Dipan Patel:Yeah, those are dangerous things to have.
21:59Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Right. And you know, because you've built an amazing business in Goldman Sachs, there would have been a set of things that would have led to that success and continue to propel the company forward today but if the culture isn't one that welcomes diversity of thought the speaking of truth to power structures that actually risk manage any company including Goldman Sachs will run into the same problem over time so that kind of like cultural underpinning and bounded entrepreneurialism is really important. So I think that now coming back to your question around Pemira and culture, I think that, you know, you sort of, you live your life forward, you understand it backwards.
22:44Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And I certainly wasn't taking notes during Arthur Anderson or Lehman Brothers, but by osmosis, I think those things would have impacted the way I think about culture. Pemira is an organization, and the number one thing I love about the organization is it gets better out of stress. So I've always loved the book Antifragility, the Nassim Taleb book, and it's kind of a complicated book. But the core idea, I think, is quite simple. And it's that there are robust systems and they tend to endure crisis and stress. And then there are antifragile systems that get better out of crisis and stress. And Pemira, without question, has got better and much better, much faster out of peak stress moments.
23:30Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And I could go through a list of those moments over 40 plus years. I think the one that was most probably visible to me and I lived through and a huge part of our history was obviously the global financial crisis. We had a fund at that time, which was, you know, full of businesses, actually pretty good businesses, but cyclical, too much cyclicality, too much leverage at the wrong time in the cycle. We had invested too quickly. And when the cycle turned, you know, we, when I joined Pamira, I remember sitting in a, actually it was Tom had put up a slide and he put the fund mark up and I thought it was a typo.
24:14Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And the organization, you know, we didn't lose anyone. The investors, the partners dug deep into their own pockets as we sort of had a down round in terms of the next fund cycle. We held the keys to our businesses. We monetized at the right time. We did some great investing in the rest of that fund. Actually, things like Renaissance Learning and Ancestry were part of that fund too. That fund ended up emerging as a top quartile fund.
24:42Dipan Patel:Wow, that's spectacular.
24:44Goldman Sachs Exchanges:And we got better out of that. We also pivoted our strategy at that time to much higher quality businesses, resilience, growth, structural growth. And that's the core of our strategy today that we prosecute through our sectors. And so, yeah, I mean, culture for me, and that's the thing that I'm most focused on, probably those two things. One is not running into that Lehman, Arthur Anderson problem, right? having the confidence to know what you do and do well and drive deeper and deeper into that and always re-evaluating first principles whether what you're in and doing is the right thing on the one hand and then making sure we've got an organization that is able to not just endure but come out of stressful situations in a better place yeah so it's the confidence with humility
25:35Dipan Patel:Exactly. So that culture also expresses itself beyond your portfolio. And Primera has made a significant commitment to philanthropy through its foundation. How did that initiative begin? And what makes it important to the firm today?
25:49Goldman Sachs Exchanges:We set up the Primera Foundation 10 years ago. We back today about 35 organizations. 80 % of the professionals in our organization have donated significant time and are donating significant time to pro bono to these organizations. so it's really important culturally for us. We just took the decision this year to make the foundation a permanent carry holder in our funds.
26:15Dipan Patel:That's interesting.
26:16Goldman Sachs Exchanges:So we think we're one of the very few firms, maybe the only firm that at least I know of that has done that and that's quite a big ask to go to our partners and say permanently we want this foundation to be aligned with the outcomes that we drive. So yeah, it's an important thing. Thank you for asking about it because we never really get to talk about it But it is important inside our organization. We do talk about it. And most often we only talk about it inside our business.
26:40Dipan Patel:Yeah. Well, it's showing a lot of leadership in the industry. I have not heard of anyone putting Kerry in their foundation. That's fantastic. So you and Brian are part of a new generation of private equity leaders. Yeah. And looking at across the industry more broadly, where do you think your generation of leaders will take private equity over the next decade?
27:01Goldman Sachs Exchanges:It's a great question. I mean, look, the industry is bifurcating, right? That's no secret. And you have two very distinct business models emerging. And you have people that are generally private, generally very narrow and deep in what they do. And they live or die on whether they perform or not. And there are pluses and minuses of that model. and then there are firms that are building their businesses through newer and newer business lines scaling their products and breadth is really important to those firms the retail channel is really important to those firms but it's like a different set of considerations i can't speak to both i can only really speak to what we're doing and probably what the set of people new leadership in this part of the world are thinking about i'm just really excited about a really simple thing, which is building an organization with a really distinct investing culture.
27:58Goldman Sachs Exchanges:It becomes the talent magnet for people that want to be craftspeople and just generating superior outcomes over the long term and doing that consistently. And that is no mean feat. That's really hard to do. It requires just a persistent level of dissatisfaction with every single part of your business and just constantly turning stones up and asking why we can't be better and pushing and investing and thinking long term, being willing to skate to where the puck is going, not where it is today. Those things are easy to say. They're really hard to do and force yourself to do every day. But I've been with the firm 17 years.
28:35Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I'd love to be with the firm another 17 years. And Brian, I know, feels the same way. And I think that's what we're most excited about doing. That's great.
28:43Dipan Patel:So on a personal level, you grew up in an immigrant family and watched your father scale a business from the ground up.
28:51Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Yeah.
28:52Dipan Patel:How did that firsthand look at entrepreneurship shape your worldview and your approach to backing founders today?
28:59Goldman Sachs Exchanges:My dad, he came into the country in his probably mid-20s, had a single store, long story short, scaled that to about 60 stores in really prime locations across London. These are grocery stores. Did a very small P2P, a public-private. In the middle of that, sold that business to Tesco in 2000. He found another business, scaled that over about 20 years, sold that to Apex France, a roll-up they were doing there and you know he's 75 now and he's looking for the next thing to do i think i was relatively kind of street smart probably from an early age just from seeing that kind of stuff ground up i also just developed an empathy for founders i i'm not a founder and actually my dad always tells me that i won't ever understand what that really means to go to bed at night and have on your shoulders an organization in that way.
30:00Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I think that's just a completely different thing. But the grit, just the sheer work ethic of just watching that was huge. The sort of the risk-taking and the calibration of that risk-taking and the confidence and paranoia that that takes, you know, it's stuck with me.
30:17Dipan Patel:Makes total sense. Really an impressive entrepreneurial background. Yeah. It's fabulous. So I'd like to end these conversations with a lightning round. Just to ask you some short answer questions. So what do you think your personal greatest strength is as an investor?
30:33Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I'd say knowing what I don't know and knowing where to get it.
30:36Dipan Patel:Okay. What was the very first investment you ever made?
30:40Goldman Sachs Exchanges:That was actually before Renaissance Learning and another private equity fund that I started with. It was a company called Sagem. It was a carve out from Siemens.
30:49Dipan Patel:What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
30:53Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I think in the investing sphere probably I always think about the Howard's I think it was Howard Marks phrase the four most dangerous words in investing are this time is different.
31:05Dipan Patel:We talked about that earlier with your investment committee. How do you spend your time out of the office?
31:09Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I've got three kids 9, 11, 13 and you know I mean this job is it's seven days a week and it's very intense and so virtually all my time I try and spend with my wife and my kids. That's the first priority. If I'm not doing that, I love sport. I love life sport. I'm a season ticket holder at Liverpool. I've traveled the length and breadth of the country and countries to follow the team and that's the most likely place you'll find me is Anfield if I'm not with my family.
31:43Dipan Patel:Which investor do you admire most?
31:45Goldman Sachs Exchanges:I think Chris Hone probably for the way he thinks. Buffett for his temperament, probably Munger in the same breath, and Howard Marks for sort of like risk management. So yeah, the standard grades, I'd say.
31:59Dipan Patel:Very impressive investors. And finally, what are you most excited about in the world right now?
32:05Goldman Sachs Exchanges:The whole thing. Everything we talked about. It's a great time to be alive. It's a great time to be alive.
32:11Dipan Patel:Yeah. Anyway, Dupont, thank you so much for joining me. This was a great conversation.
32:16Goldman Sachs Exchanges:Thank you. Really enjoyed it.
32:17Dipan Patel:Thank you all for listening to this episode of Goldman Sachs Exchange's Great Investors, which was recorded on July 28, 2026. I'm Alison Mass. If you enjoyed this show, we hope you'll follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and leave us a rating and a comment.
32:40Dipan Patel:The opinions and views expressed herein are as of the date of publication, subject to change without notice, and may not necessarily reflect the institutional views of Goldman Sachs or its affiliates. The material provided is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation from any Goldman Sachs entity to take any particular action, or an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any securities or financial products. This material may contain forward-looking statements. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Neither Goldman Sachs nor any of its affiliates make any representations or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or information contained herein, and disclaim any liability whatsoever for reliance on such information for any purpose.
33:17Dipan Patel:Each name of a third-party organization mentioned is the property of the company to which it relates, is used here strictly for informational and identification purposes only, and is not used to imply any ownership or license rights between any such company and Goldman Sachs. A transcript is provided for convenience and may differ from the original video or audio content. Goldman Sachs is not responsible for any errors in the transcript. This material should not be copied, distributed, published, or reproduced in whole or in part, or disclosed by any recipient to any other person without the express written consent of Goldman Sachs.
33:44Dipan Patel:Disclosures applicable to research with respect to issuers, if any, mentioned herein, are available through your Goldman Sachs representative or at www.gs.com slash research slash hedge dot html. Goldman Sachs does not endorse any candidate or any political party. Copyright 2025 Goldman Sachs. All rights reserved.
From the publisher
Dipan Patel, co-CEO of Permira, joins Goldman Sachs Exchanges: Great Investors to discuss how Permira’s sector-specialized investment approach and private partnership structure differs from firms which have grown through platform scale and breadth. He also discusses Permira’s strategy for transforming portfolio companies and what has made those assets attractive to strategic buyers, and he shares how Permira assesses technology risk in its portfolio.
The opinions and views expressed herein are as of the date of publication, subject to change without notice, and may not necessarily reflect the institutional views of Goldman Sachs or its affiliates. The material provided is intended for informational purposes only, and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation from any Goldman Sachs entity to take any particular action, or an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any securities or financial products. This material may contain forward-looking statements. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Neither Goldman Sachs nor any of its affiliates make any representations or warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or information contained herein and disclaim any liability whatsoever for reliance on such information for any purpose. Each name of a third-party organization mentioned is the property of the company to which it relates, is used here strictly for informational and identification purposes only and is not used to imply any ownership or license rights between any such company and Goldman Sachs.
A transcript is provided for convenience and may differ from the original video or audio content. Goldman Sachs is not responsible for any errors in the transcript. This material should not be copied, distributed, published, or reproduced in whole or in part or disclosed by any recipient to any other person without the express written consent of Goldman Sachs.
© 2026 Goldman Sachs. All rights reserved.
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