Transcript
Introduction
Patrick
My guest today is Brent Beshore. For those that don't know Brent from his frequent appearances on this podcast, he runs Permanent Equity, a unique private equity firm that buys and holds companies indefinitely. Brent has also been a close friend for more than five years. Brent and I revisit our conversation from the depths of the COVID crisis one year ago, to touch on key lessons learned and where that leaves us today. Brent sits at a unique area of the economy. So I particularly enjoyed his anecdotes on inflation and how to operate around these dynamics. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Brent Beshore.
The Economy Post-Covid
So Brent, the last time we did this on the record, although we've probably talked a hundred times since, was in the depths of COVID and concerns over its impact on the economy. And I was doing this series with ... I tried to get someone from every part of the market, from credit, from public equities, with you on private equities. And I think it would be fair to characterize that last conversation as pretty dour and dire, that we were both really concerned about the knock on effects that COVID might have. And here we are basically a year later, and I think it's gone about as well from an economic standpoint as we ever could have hoped in our bull case last year. I'd love you to begin by describing why you think that is. From your seat, you see a ton of businesses, a ton of sort of main street businesses all across the country. I'd love you to just talk through what's happened over the last year, what it feels like today, and what's driven the change.