Robin Wigglesworth

speaker

1,983 appearances 13 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 12 Aug

Robin Wigglesworth’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 13 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 5.

Appearances

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The Story of Money · The 1980s Garfield buyout that changed corporate finance · 1 Jul 2026 podcast

Yeah. voice-verified

I mean this is kind of it's not even just LBO, it's like LBO maxing almost to use the the modern vernacular where you you're borrowing basically almost all the money and the tiny little sliver of equity you're putting in actually is covered by the fees almost instantly that the company itself is paying you. voice-verified

Which sounds incredible. voice-verified

But so how did the deal play out? voice-verified

How did how I'm guessing they made out like bandits, right? voice-verified

A 200 times return in 18 months sounds pretty incredible, right? voice-verified

Yeah, that is and it is fascinating that they didn't really sort of do anything. voice-verified

Because, like you say, that is such a core part of the narrative back in those days, and obviously today, that you know, private equity with the r the right incentives, the right management team, uh, the the uh a more hard-headed approach to capital allocation, they'll turn, you know. voice-verified

you know, coal into diamonds. voice-verified

And and then this case it was just basically luck. voice-verified

And also a few of the Gibson's competitors went bankrupt in those 18 months, right? voice-verified

And we are back. voice-verified

So, uh it's nineteen eighty-three. voice-verified

News of this Gibson greeting cards deal's success has spread across Wall Street like wildfire. voice-verified

It made William Simon quite rich, actually very, very, very rich, without very much work either on his end. voice-verified

And it seems everyone is now looking for ways to replicate this success. voice-verified

Yeah, because I I looked up the numbers here and in nineteen eighty one, before these rules had been introduced, uh LBO funds raised two hundred and fifty million dollars, which was, you know, real money back then, but not massive. voice-verified

But by nineteen eighty-seven, they'd raised fourteen point six billion dollars. voice-verified

So clearly it just is a massive change. voice-verified

And there is one more component here, right? voice-verified

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