Founded in 1976 with a focus on acquiring and optimizing companies, our goal was to create long-term value by transforming good businesses into great ones, ultimately generating alpha for the investors who entrusted us with their capital. However, today, private equity represents only around a third of the assets we manage, reflecting the strategic diversification we've undertaken.
Our journey toward diversification began in earnest in 2004 with the launch of our credit business, but the seeds of this evolution were planted much earlier. Our global deal-sourcing funnel consistently uncovered compelling investment opportunities that lay outside the traditional capital base of private equity. These opportunities often multiplied during periods of market volatility, such as the technology bubble and the Enron collapse in 2001. Unfortunately, some of these deals slipped through our fingers, most notably one in 2002 with Williams Companies, an energy firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, burdened by a heavy debt load.
