CEO CEO suddenly left behind: Wall Street PE giant's successor inheritance problem is to be solved

21st Century Business Herald reporter Chen Zhi Shanghai report

Since August, CEO has suddenly resigned, shocking the entire equity investment market.

Earlier this week, Core Group announced that CEO Keewsong Lee had left, and it took effect immediately. While looking for Li Yisheng's official successor, Bill Conway, the co -founder and non -executive chairman of the Carey, will serve as a temporary CEO.

The Core Group pointed out that although Li Yisheng's five -year hire agreement will expire at the end of the year, he and the board agreed that now they are now looking for new CEOs and leading Carey to the next stage of growth.

The reporter was informed that in order to find the new helm in Corolia, the Carey Group established the recruitment committee and the CEO office, which will assist Bill Conway to seamlessly connect to Essence

CEO CEO suddenly resigned the cause

According to the data, Li Yisheng has worked in Huaping for more than 20 years and served as a partner and executive management committee member. In 2013, he officially joined the Carey Group as the deputy chief investment officer of the Core Enterprise's private equity business. Since 2016, he has also served as the head of the Core global credit business. Since 2017, he has been promoted to the CEO of the Core Group.

It is worth noting that in 2017, the founder team of Carey Group handed over the joint CEO to Li Yisheng and Glen Yang Jin, but the latter left in September 2020, making Li Yisheng "standing alone".

A partner of an equity investment fund revealed to reporters that the reason why Li Yisheng's sudden departure shocked the entire PE market because many PE institutions had previously believed that he would insist on the end of the contract at the end of the year.

"To a certain extent, the absence of Li Yisheng's sudden resignation may be that there may be some differences and contradictions in the business strategy of Carey." He analyzed. For a long time, Li Yisheng is committed to re -shaping the revenue structure of Care, which has made Corey's business income stable, and as much as possible to avoid the impact of the external market environment.

An investment director of an venture capital institution revealed to reporters that this is also a major problem that many PE institutions need to solve. Although PE equity investment has a cyclical characteristics, for PE institutions, its performance still has strong periodic performance. ——If the economic growth and the corporate IPO market is active, the PE institution can earn a lot of excess revenue income; otherwise, if the economy falls into a recession and the corporate IPO market is cold, the PE institution will decrease due to the decrease in the project withdrawal and the valuation of the enterprise plummeted. Facing the risk of face change.

In this case, Li Yisheng has been committed to adding Carey Global credit business to achieve a more stable income structure by realizing the re -balance of credit+equity investment+asset management business.

According to the data, Core Group currently has 26 offices around the world, managing private equity and private credit funds, and ALPINVEST, a private equity asset management company. As of the end of June, the company's total assets managed $ 376 billion, of which 260 billion US dollars were charging assets, and capital for future investment reached 81 billion U.S. dollars.

However, Li Yisheng continued to reorganize the architecture of the Core business team and appointed "new faces" to enter the senior management, or caused the business philosophy of him and the founder team of Corolia. , Realize business growth.

A person familiar with the Core Group revealed that the fuse that led Li Yisheng's sudden departure may be the "incompetence" of Corolia's performance and stock price. Data show that although Kele's performance is slightly better than Blackstone, Apollo and other large -scale PE institutions, the stock price of Carey has fallen higher than the latter since the beginning of the year. This situation is easy to be questioned by some senior executives of Corolia's business adjustment strategy, which has not been recognized by the capital market and triggers his sudden departure.

Wall Street PE giant's succession problem

In fact, in recent years, many private equity institutions in the United States have encountered problems with successors. Whether it is KKR, Black Stone, Apollo, Sequoia, etc., as their founders have decided to retire due to their age, how to find the right successor. It seems that these PE giants are very hurtful.

However, the successor of the American private equity giants seems to be very different.

At the beginning of April this year, Sequoia Capital Global Advanced Perspective Partnership Doug Leone announced his steps down and appointed ROELOF BOTHA, the head of Sequoia, and Europe as his successor. The new appointment will take effect on July 5, 2022.

From the perspective of the industry, it means that Rolov Bota will become the "successor" of Sequoia Capital.

In fact, the succession plan of Sequoia Capital has been deployed for more than 5 years. In 2017, Bota was promoted to the head of Sequoia American business, and consolidated its position in Sequoia Capital through YouTube and Instagram's investment and was included in the successor candidate. Over the years, he has been in a low -key, and has invested in the investment of institutions such as Square, 23andMe, MongoDB, Square and Unity. It has continuously enhanced his prestige of Sequoia Capital and inherited the investment concept of Sequoia Capital, and eventually stood out in the successor campaign.

In order to cultivate successors, KKR also spent more than 5 years.

At the end of last year, KKR co -founder -78 -year -old George Roberts and 77 -year -old Henry Kravis resigned as the joint CEO of the co -CEO together. Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall took over. In fact, Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall were appointed as joint president and co -chief operating officer of KKR in 2017 to achieve successor inheritance in order to steadily.

It is worth noting that George Roberts and Henry Kravis continued to be the executive co -chair of the board of directors after leaving office. Before the end of 2026, the voting control of KKR was completely abandoned. It is believed that they will also "auxiliary" Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall successfully realize the "power transition".

In contrast, the successor training plan of large PE institutions such as Apollo is relatively bumpy. Because of the long -term CEO of Apollo CEO, Leon Black (Leon Black) has a financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the financial relationship of Jeffrey Epstein The resignation was resigned, leading to the "publicization" of Apollo co -founder Josh Harris and Marc Rowan in search of successors.

In addition, Steve Schwarzman, co -founder of Blackstone Group, has not announced the retirement plan, but the market rumors of another founder Tony James handed over the location of the black stone to the real estate supervisor of Blackstone Jonathan Gray, the latter, is regarded as a powerful successor of Su Shimin.

Many people in the venture capital industry pointed out how to find a suitable successor to achieve a smooth transitional transition and the sustainable and steady development of the business, and then to inherit the investment concept and entrepreneurial spirit of the older generation of founders, which are becoming the biggest challenge facing the large PE institution in Wall Street Essence After all, once these "new successors" cannot erected the corresponding industry prestige and excellent performance, not only will the PE institutions fight continuously, but also more and more large LPs who have more and more long -term capital injection may also leave the field.

"Behind this, PE investment highly relies on individual investment level and investment vision. Even if it is a large PE institution in Wall Street, it also relies heavily on the personal reputation of one or two founders to attract various capitals and promote business development. Once these founders retire As a result, the aura effect of the PE institution star has faded, and who will reshape their reputation's reputation is a big test. "A large domestic venture capital institution management partner bluntly said.

- END -