Greg Lippmann on unemployment
From Beyond 60/40 Ep. 19: Structured Credit and Scaling Alternatives · · iCapital
“If unemployment stays low, defaults on these securitizations are gonna stay low and they're gonna be resilient.”
On , Greg Lippmann, CEO & Co-Founder at LibreMax Capital, spoke about unemployment during Beyond 60/40 Ep. 19: Structured Credit and Scaling Alternatives on iCapital.
About Greg Lippmann
Greg Lippmann, CEO and co-founder of LibreMax Capital, has discussed the current opportunities in structured credit, describing the market environment as favorable for structured products. In a December 2024 appearance on the podcast "Beyond 60/40," Lippmann stated that commercial real estate challenges, particularly in office space, are "in the price" and that the consumer sector is resilient, noting that 80% of U.S. mortgages have rates of 5% or lower. He also said that if unemployment remains low, defaults on securitizations will stay low, and he predicted that the next recession would be "led by the corporate sector." Lippmann described his firm's portfolio yield as being in the "low double digits." In earlier interviews, Lippmann has emphasized that his firm is not focused on finding a "next Big Short" trade, but rather on constructing a portfolio that generates returns while surviving market corrections. He has stated that structured products are unlikely to be the epicenter of a future crisis, arguing that consumers are less leveraged than before the 2008 financial crisis while corporates are more leveraged. Lippmann has also noted that higher interest rates benefit his firm's strategy, as two-thirds of its portfolio is floating rate and purchased at a discount. He has described structured-products investing as a data-intensive business that requires significant spending on analytics and scale.