Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries announced plans to launch Eldridge, a streamlining of existing businesses managing $74B in assets into two divisions focused on capital management and wealth solutions.
The firm has been focused in recent years on building its businesses across alternative asset classes, and "because of the themes and the trends that are going on and because of the value of scale, we are now consolidating all of that and putting it under one holding company," Boehly said in a December 5 interview with Bloomberg. He believes the move is well timed, as Eldridge is optimistic about the coming year, and the reorganization is expected to be completed in January 2025. “We’re very bullish on M&A, we’re very bullish on the activity, the velocity of capital moving around, going forward,” Boehly added.
The new business will be set up through an asset management and insurance holding company structure, with Eldridge Capital Management focused on four investment strategies – corporate credit, GP solutions, real estate credit, and sports, media, and entertainment – and Eldridge Wealth Solutions serving as a consolidated insurance and retirement solutions platform that brings together the firm’s wholly owned insurance companies, Security Benefit and Everly Life.
Eldridge Capital will be led by Tony Minella, co-founder and president of Eldridge Industries, as CEO, and he will be supported by Todd Gilbert and Stonebriar CEO Nicholas Sandler as co-presidents. Eldridge Wealth will be led by Doug Wolff as CEO and Security Benefit CIO Joseph Wittrock serving in that same function for the new business. Boehly will chair a newly formed executive committee tasked with managing Eldridge.
Eldridge Capital will bring together existing businesses and teams, including Maranon Capital, the corporate credit team from Security Benefit, the commercial finance team from Stonebriar, the real estate credit team from Cain International, and Panagram Structured Asset Management. It will be set up as four branded business units: Eldridge Corporate Credit, co-led by Jeffery Forlizzi and Sandler; Eldridge GP Solutions, led by David Lee; Eldridge Real Estate, led by John Cole; and Eldridge Sports, Media, and Entertainment, led by Jeff Wilbur.
With much of the new business units’ focus on private credit, a space increasingly in the spotlight, Boehly noted in the Bloomberg interview that it is an asset class that is both robust and evolving. “The evolution of the markets I think will continue to allow for more and more private credit,” he said. “But as private credit becomes a solution, you know, it’s just one more option. I think we’re going to continue to see markets embrace private credit, whether it’s asset finance like at Stonebriar or private corporate credit like at Maranon, we think those are big opportunities in markets that are going to continue to develop, especially geographically.”
In terms of geographic expansion, another notable aspect of the reorganization is that with it Eldridge will also be opening its first office in Abu Dhabi, and Boehly told Bloomberg the firm is looking at further plans for expansion, including in Saudi Arabia. “We've been in business with many people in the [Middle East] for a long time, and now we want to continue to extend and expand those relationships,” he said, noting that the region will “be one of the most important places in the world over the next several decades.”
Eldridge plans to have offices in New York, Greenwich (CT), Beverly Hills (CA), Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Overland Park and Topeka in Kansas, Des Moines in Iowa, London, and Abu Dhabi.
Sources:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241205643580/en/Eldridge-Industries-to-Launch-Eldridge-an-Asset-Management-and-Insurance-Holding-Company-with-74-billion-in-AUM
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-12-05/in-full-boehly-on-new-asset-manager-m-a-2025-risks
