Howard Marks

And David Swenson, who ran the endowment at Yale, used to talk about the need to do things that are uncomfortably idiosyncratic.

You have to be idiosyncratic to split tax and to win.

And for many people, it'll be uncomfortable because they'll be out of step with so-called common sense, but you got to do it anyway.

Well, it was really a dream transaction for us.

Brookfield approached us and said that credit was the obvious omission in their list of alternative investment categories that they were providing.

And they could build it, but it might take 10 years and they might end up with less than we had.

So they wanted to invest in Oaktree.

At that time, this was 2018, we were half owned by the public and half owned by the founders, current and former employees.

So they proposed to offer a fair price to take out the public, that's half, and to buy a fifth of our half.

So they started with just over 60%.

But we had criteria for a transaction that we would contemplate.

We've had them for 20 years and they were never fulfilled before.

And Brookfield hit them all, which is that Oaktree would continue to exist, would continue to be an independent entity.

that we would run it, that Brookfield wouldn't tell us what to do, and that Brookfield wouldn't try to interpose itself between us and our clients.

They would be Oaktree clients tended by Oaktree.

So it was really ideal for us.

Also, as I said, they bought 20% of my stake, Bruce's stake, et cetera.

And the former employees will sell an eighth of a year until they're done.

Starting this year, it happened already.

The current employees have the option to sell an eighth, but they don't have to.