What makes someone in their late 20s leave a safe career and bet everything on themselves?
Started in finance in the City of London. I mean, in my early 20s, I got to meet my co-founding partner, Antoine Flamarion. I'm a first-year analyst, a second-year analyst. And then you do the all-nighters in these cubicles for years. And then you look at what's happening here in the U.S., the emergence of what one would call today alternative asset managers, and you go, why don't you give it a try?
And when you started Tikehau, did people around you just think you were crazy?
Actually, I even think that the FT at some point quoted us as a "crazy French pair," but that's for the record. But I mean, certainly, we started Tikehau, we had EUR 4 million of AUM, as you would call today, right? So it's a lot of money, in absolute terms, but in relative terms for the business we're in, that was very modest. So actually, a lot of people, when I told them I was moving on, that we were going ahead with Antoine, certainly, some people thought we were crazy.
And was there a point after setting out where you and Antoine thought actually, this might work?
Certainly, what does not kill you makes you stronger. We started in 2004. And then very quickly, the ramp-up to the -- what we call now the GFC, right? But effectively, if you remember what was happening back then, this exuberance, Wall Street and finance being extremely creative, abundant, all these new products. And we enter as a firm, back then, we had EUR 400 million, I think, of AUM when we get into September, October '08, okay? And then we had the near-death experience because you've got this liquidity squeeze, you've got some names on Wall Street, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, who we used to work for where we met with Antoine, who have to be bailed out over a weekend. So having this experience, young -- I mean, as a young professional, but early on in an entrepreneurial journey, I think that was probably the best experience, looking backwards, that could happen to us. And I would add to that, that the people who were working with us back then, maybe the firm is, I don't know, 40 people. And most of them are still with us today, almost 20 years later.
Can you remember that time around 2008 quite vividly?
Almost every single day. I wouldn't say every single hour, but every single day. The -- I mean, here's the story. So September 15, '08, the Lehman Brothers day. That's a Monday. And back then, you've got the Pope in Paris this weekend. And the Pope delivers a massive speech on Saturday morning, and it's kind of questioning the finance world and all that in his own way, if I may say. And so like it's -- you're thinking about that over the weekend because there's a lot of stress in the system and Bear Stearns bailed out already a few months before. Lehman Brothers, that no one saw going sideways so quickly. And then you go to the office on Monday morning, and Lehman Brothers, by the way, was one of our custodians, like a custodian. And so you start the day and basically, they're telling you that the assets you were supposed to be having with the custodian are gone because they've used the rehypothecation clause that a lot of people discovered at that time and the mother company here in New York had basically sucked up all the liquidity that they could find around the world. So yes, I mean, long answer to tell you, yes, I can remember every single -- actually, hour now.
Yes. Would you say the most stressful period in your entire career?
It was certainly stressful. We're in our early 30s. We went all in, as you said, because that's also the model of Tikehau is we were not only managing someone else's money and we hit the wall because there is a once-in-every-century crisis. We have our own money there. Like I mean, we have a second mortgage on a house -- on a flat to be able to be in this business. And we're like we're not letting that go that easily because people are telling us, well, it is what it is, right? And so we are in this moment where you're fighting every single minute, where you start getting your lawyers, where you start going after some large institutions on Wall Street actually. Looking backwards, I remember some lawyers telling us, oh, we don't want to work for you because we cannot go against some of these institutions, but you had to fight for what is yours -- that was fundamental for us. It was existential.
It's crazy. You're in your early 30s.
You've got a second mortgage on your property. And you're fighting against the biggest names on Wall Street.
I think nobody ever experienced that. And by the way, it took that day, and I don't know maybe you'll be discussing that, but the period we're in when some people say, oh, maybe it's another 2008 and all that, effectively, there's one thing we learned for a fact that you cannot cheat with experience. And experience comes with this type of situation where you are in the extraordinary. And for you, what you thought was effectively the going concern of your business is all of a sudden being turned upside down and something you've never experienced. And we were surrounded back then by some partners who had joined us who were slightly older than we were. We started our career in the late '90s, and some of them had started their career and they went through '87. They went through the -- from the Black Monday of '87. And even if it was totally different because it was purely an equity market sell-off when '08, it was more credit-driven, which was more our background, and subprime and all this good stuff. That's when being surrounded by this type of people who could tell us not to sit down and relax or to keep and carry on because that was not that simple. But that's where having these partners, mentors, shareholders, investors surrounding you was very valuable, not to -- I would say effectively not to panic because when you're in the unknown, that's where normally you lose the rationale that should be driving any decision you're taking.
And to take you back, you've raised, let's say, EUR 4 million, a large amount of money at the time. Did you ever think that all these years later, you could build something so huge?
Listen, that was certainly part of the ambition. As I said, when we started, we like to use this anecdote that we started in 2004, we're managing EUR 4 million. And back then, Blackstone, the best of the breed and who's been for many an example in building a firm, they're managing $40 billion. And $40 billion is a large amount of money, but in the grand scheme of things of where they are today and where the industry is today, it's a fraction, right? I mean we're at whatever, $60 billion today in dollar terms. And so because we're watching this very entrepreneurial platform, I think that there is one common theme around those very large alternative firms that effectively made such a difference over the past 20 years or 40 years is that they've all been built by entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs are still at the helm of the -- I mean, they are driving the bus in many circumstances. And we're watching them. We're watching them and it's getting -- it's very inspiring as a young professional. And so there was certainly the ambition. The plan was not to be the biggest. And certainly back then, we couldn't think about that, managing it. But there was this ambition, I think the drive, hopefully, a little bit of vision and also being able to adapt because post-GFC, a lot of things changed. They changed in the U.S., they changed all the more in Europe. And the whole financial industry has been reshuffled in some way, it evolved in a different regulatory environment. And Europe as a playground is still one that I believe you can build the next generation of the relevant financial industry players. So I don't know if it was about if we ever thought we will be there now, but there's always been this constantly strong ambition. Yes.
On that topic, everyone seems to say Europe is in decline. Do you agree with that statement?
Well, I mean, a lot of people say that here in the U.S., right, because it's helping the cause. But if we're being -- you're seeing in London, I come from Paris, we've got some operations across Europe with boots on the ground everywhere, in Milan, in Madrid, in Amsterdam, in Brussels, in Frankfurt, you need boots on the ground. You need to be connected with the local community, with the entrepreneurs, with the asset owners. And so regardless of the geopolitical environment we're in, I don't think Europe is going anywhere, but are there some benefits and merits for Europe when it comes to part of the energy transition that is required because of what we're going through, all the defense themes. On the pure financing side, on the private credit side, when you look at the structure of the European market relative to the U.S. market, you've got so much to build. So I think you cannot paint with a big brush, black or white, the type of situation. We might be entering a world where it's somehow a bit less interconnected, which, by the way, in my view, will lead to maybe some reallocation of some of the large savings pools from the asset owners. And so if you are well positioned there, you can take advantage of that, be relevant to your clients, your investor clients, the companies you're investing into, the companies you're financing. And that is, in our view, a massive opportunity structurally there. And I would add that, that's maybe the slight negative, the public markets in Europe are certainly lagging the U.S. market, and that makes even more the case for private markets players to be the relevant alternative.
Have you heard this thing Euromaxxing?
It means like it's kind of like everyone says Europe is in decline, don't go to Europe and Europe doesn't produce anything compared to the U.S. It's the kind of counterculture to that. So it's like people in Europe online putting that they're in a cafe in Paris. They're doing a hike in Frankfurt. It's kind of like pushing back on the narrative that everything is going bad and it's horrible. But it's quite cool.
Yes. Well, I mean, this time of the year, you'll be surprised how many American friends are telling me -- asking me for some advice as to where they should be going between Spain, Italy or the French Riviera. So at least we still have that.
Do you think that ambition, the ambition that you've shown, has come at a price to you?
