CoVenture Credit - Esoteric Credit with Ail Hamed, Brian Harwitt, and Marc Porzecanski - [Invest Like the Best, EP.108]

My guests this week are Ali Hamed, Brian Harwitt and Marc Porzecanski who work together at CoVenture Credit. When I first had Ali on as a podcast guest, we discussed the many aspects of what his firm does, ranging from venture, to crypto, to credit. We glossed over the lending side of the business, but having since learned a lot from them on the topic, I was excited to get the chance to talk with members of their credit team for today’s longer exploration of esoteric high yield lending. I am always proselytizing the value of investor education, s this week we have a podcast first. The CoVenture team has prepared a long series of posts that correspond to our conversation and go even deeper into the topic of credit investing. You can find them in the shownotes at investorfieldguide.com/credit This is entirely differently from any conversation I’ve shared before, so I hope you learn as much as I did. Please enjoy my discussion with team CoVenture Credit. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes 1:42 - (First Question) – The formation of their unique credit business 7:09 – Their advantage in seeing both the equity and credit side of their investments 10:23 – Looking at the Returnly deal as an example 14:07 – How they view these deals and are able to sustain them as long-term investments 18:09 – Their interest in payroll deduction lending 20:08 – Finding unique types of default risk 21:31 – What stands out in a platform that makes CoVenture want to take a deeper look 26:43 – Most interesting types of problem they have come across that they have yet to do a deal in 31:35 – What is going to change to make for more thoughtful underwriting of subprime lending 35:51 – Major structures of asset backed lending 39:49 – Whether the home serves as an interesting playground for credit opportunities and whether people will own anything again 42:44 – Mark’s experience working at a huge firm vs his experience at CoVenture 44:31 – How does the current credit cycle impact their view 47:04 – Lending against bitcoin 50:06 – Who is interested in these loans against bitcoin 50:57 – How to set interest rates against a weird asset like this 53:00 – What are the key determents of success in this business 1:02:27 – Kindest thing anyone has team for the team 1:03:52 – How to treat people that you pass on Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag