Daniel Zwirn on Finding Value in the Biggest Bubble in History

04/14/22 • 42 min

Macro Hive Conversations With Bilal Hafeez

Dan Zwirn is the Co-Founder, CEO, and CIO of Arena Investors LP. Arena is a $3.4 billion global investment firm focusing on special situations asset and credit investments in corporates, real estate, structured finance, and corporate securities. Before founding Arena in 2015, between 2009 and 2015, Dan founded and/or led several specialty finance enterprises including Applied Data Finance (a consumer finance company), North Mill Capital (an asset-based lender), and Lantern Endowment Partners (an investment fund). In 2001, while a founder of the Special Opportunities Group at Highbridge Capital Management, Dan, along with Highbridge, co-founded D.B. Zwirn & Co., a global special situations firm, which grew into a $6 billion enterprise. In this podcast we discuss, the problem with niche investors, why global bottom-up investing works, the big risks for the next 12 months, and much more.

Previous Episode

Josh Young on $200 Oil and the Structural Energy Supply Problem

This podcast is sponsored by Masterworks, the first platform for buying and selling shares representing an investment in iconic artworks. They are making it possible to invest in multimillion-dollar works from artists like Banksy, Kaws, Basquiat, and many more.

Josh Young is the Chief Investment Officer and Founder of Bison Interests – an investment firm that focuses on the publicly traded oil and gas sector. He has over 15 years of experience in investment management, 10 of which were focused on publicly-traded oil and gas securities. Josh became Chairman of the Board of RMP Energy in 2017. After refreshing the board and management team and rebranding the company (Iron Bridge Resources), it was bought out at a 78% premium in 2018. Before this, Josh was a management consultant to Fortune 500 companies and private equity firms, and then an investment analyst at a private equity fund. Josh worked as an energy investment analyst for a multi-billion-dollar, single family office. In this podcast we discuss:

Understanding the energy sector, the cost of drilling, impact of ESG on the energy sector, and why oil input isn’t higher. He also discussed the structural supply issues for the energy sector, the investment needs to maintain supply, the regulatory pressures on supply, if the Middle East can step up supply, and the best to get exposure to energy. On a more personal note he also revealed the books that influenced him the most: The First Billion Is the Hardest (Pickens) and Fooling Some of the People All of the Time (Einhorn).

Next Episode

John Butler on Stagflation, Financial Instability, and World Wars

John is a commodity guru amongst other things. He has 25 years of experience in international finance. He has served as a Managing Director for bulge-bracket investment banks on both sides of the Atlantic in research, strategy, asset allocation, and product development roles, including at Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers. He has advised some of the world’s largest institutional and private investors in matters ranging from wealth preservation to enhancing returns through a wide variety of innovative strategies, and he has been ranked the #1 Investment Strategist by Institutional Investor magazine. His past publications include his popular Amphora Report investment newsletter and The Golden Revolution (John Wiley and Sons, 2012), and The Golden Revolution, Revisited In this podcast we discuss why the inflation pressures will remain, why the dollar is vulnerable, risks of escalating global conflicts, and much more.