June 16, 2025 • 11 mins
Incoming Moelis CEO Navid Mahmoodzadegan says the forces driving M&A activity are still intact amid the recent tariffs and geopolitical threats. He speaks with host Sonali Basak.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
After founding an investment bank that is catapulted to one
of the world's most well known, Ken Mollis is stepping
down as CEO of his namesake firm. The incoming CEO
joins Bloomberg's Global Finance coursepond At Shaneli Basik for his
first interview since that announcement.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Sali Scarlett, thank you so very much. I am joined
now by Navid ma Muzad again. Of course, he's the
incoming CEO of Mollison Company. Will take over on October first.
Congratulations first of.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
All on the room, Rotnalie, appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Now. Your founder, Ken Mollis has told me that this
isn't the end of an era, it's the start of
a new one. What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Well, look, first of all, I'm really honored and excited
to take over as CEO. The firm is in an
incredible spot, given our talent base, a lot of the
investments we've made and making sure we're staying cutting edge,
the culture which is phenomenal at the firm, and I
think Ken looked at it and said this is a
(01:03):
great time to hand over the firm to the next
generation of leaders, and I know there's a lot of
excitement throughout our company about all the opportunities that's going
to present for me and for many of the people
within the company.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
To the extent that there's something new about the way
you're going to run the company. What should investors be
looking out for, what should incoming talent be looking at for?
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Well, look, I've been with Ken for thirty years. We
founded the company together, and the strategy that and the
building blocks of the firm have been very consistent throughout
the founding of the company. A lot of that's going
to continue with the core of what we do, putting
clients first, Hiring and developing the best bankers in the world,
(01:46):
and creating a culture that supports those bankers is not
going to change. I'll bring obviously a different energy to
it and a different leadership style to it, but the
core of our strategy is going to very much stay
intactity of.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
It too, is that you're taking over at a very
complicated time, both in markets and in the world. As
we sit here today, there have been four days of
missile strikes between Israel and Iran, and Molism company has
a big presence in the Middle East. What are your
clients saying about the uncertainty that's building around this regional conflict.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Well, first of all, Shanali, we have Molu's employees, parts
of our MOLAS family in the Middle East, and our
first priority, in our first area of focus is making
sure you know, they're safe and sound, and thankfully we're
in constant contact with them and they're doing well so far,
So that's our number one priority. Look, we're in a
world that's changing rapidly all the time. I've been bullish
(02:41):
on the return of M and A and the steady
improvement that we've seen since April.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
The Middle East conflict.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
The latest Middle East conflict is early days and is fluid,
and so we'll have to monitor that really carefully. But
I continue to be optimistic that the forces that are
driving M and A are still very much intact. You
will see how it plays out, but that's still my perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Do you think that the geopolitical tension has the opportunity
to really throw a wrench in some of the activity
that's been coming back.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Well, sure, Look, geopolitical risks and things like wars always
have the potential to create bad outcomes.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
But again it's really early days.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
We're monitoring the situation carefully and we're obviously hoping for
the best.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
At the same time, here in the US, investors have
been responding to tariffs as well. CEOs have been changing
their business lines around the president's plans. How concerned are
you and your clients about the impact of tariffs?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
So when you look at the companies and financial sponsors
and capital providers, Look, there's a whole swath of those
of industries and areas and companies that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Have very little to do are very little impacted by
things like trade and tariffs.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
We're seeing still a lot of activity in those areas
as you get closer and closer to manufacturing and companies
that are in the heart of some of the trade
impact areas. Clearly that's more difficult to do M.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And A today.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
And look, I'm hoping that we'll reach an equilibrium here
on the terriff issue soon so that CEOs and capital
providers can kind of gear into what that new world
looks like, and so you know that uncertainty comes out
of their thought process.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I hear a lot from deal makers that there's this
pen dep energy under the surface for some people who'ven
record pipelines, what does that look like.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Look, we're seeing it in our business. We're at our
near record highs as well. When you talk to our bankers,
there's activity all across the firm. There's lots of client dialogue.
And I agree with you. I think clients, private equity clients,
corporate clients really do want to do transactions. They see
transactions as a useful tool to supercharge growth, to get efficiencies,
(04:45):
to improve their market positions, and to deal with innovation.
You know, we have a massive wave coming in terms
of the impact on things like AI and our economy,
and people want to be well positioned for that.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Now, M and A this year isn't what everybody hoped
it would be. But you yourself have been on transformative
transactions for example, paramounts guidance is when I know that
you've been involved in, what does the deal activity that
we've seen so far say about the deal activity that
might still be to come.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Look, as I said, I think there's just a lot
of demand to do transactions. The environment hopefully will get
more conducive to doing even more and having a wider
aperture on the kinds of transactions that could happen. Again,
hard to predict all of those things, But what I
can tell you in our conversations are people want to transact,
they want to lean into deals. There's lots of capital
available to do that, and is if the conditions improve,
(05:37):
I think you're going to see a big pickup in
announced transaction activity.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
What about restructuring activity in particular, you see kind of
both sides of the economy in that way. When things
go well, people might want to do deals. When things
go wrong, they might have to look at either restructuring
or even bankruptcies. Do you see any trouble under the surface.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Look, we have a top franchise in this part of
the world restructuring, liability management, capital solutions. There's generally a
pretty steady stream of activity in that space if you
have a top franchise. Clearly there are spikes when you
get periods of economic turmoil or turmoil in.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Industries or high default rates.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
We're not in one of those periods today, but generally
there are companies that need solutions either too over levered
balance sheets. We had a bunch of over levered balance
sheets created post COVID. A lot of the work that
our teams have been doing over the last couple of
years has been dealing with pushing out maturities and giving
companies more breathing room.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And for the people who don't know, you were a
huge part of what had pushed Molism Company into private
capital in a bigger way. A big part of advisory
work during COVID era of financings when private capitals stepped
in to help companies out. Is this anything like COVID?
Are there echoes of it where you could see private
capital step in for big rescue financings.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Look, one of the big revolutions that I've seen over
the last ten years is just the huge number of
alternative asset managers who are they're raising big pools of money,
very flexible pools of money to invest up and down
the capital structure.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
We welcome that. We think that's great for the economy.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
It's great for business, and it's great for firms like
ours because there's now many more sources of money and
we're there to help advise clients tap into those sources
of money.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
You know, another interesting thing about your focus is here
on structuring m and A private capital is that it's
also taking you into new areas, and you've hired during
times of frankly crisis. For others, you hired from credit suites.
You're hired out of Silicon Valley Bank's demise as well.
And now is another moment where global banks are in
the process of cutting hundreds of jobs. Do you see
(07:45):
an opportunity to bring people on.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Look, one of the foundational philosophies that we've had from
the beginning is to be opportunistic and to hire great
talent even when times were a little murky. So the
firm was really built through the global financial crisis. We've
generally been contrarian. When talent is available, even if it's
not the best market, you have to seize that opportunity.
(08:08):
It's one of the reasons why we keep a pristine
balance sheet to give us the financial flexibility to do that.
And yet, and yes, once again when the regional banking
crisis hit, we use that as an opportunity to really
bulk up and hire teams in technology and an oil
and gas. And we're doing that again now with the
build we have in a business we're calling PSA Private
(08:30):
Solutions for the private equity world.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
So what does that mean in terms of the new
teams you're willing to bring on at MOLUS.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, well, look, we've made some major hires in this space.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You know, private equity firms have evolved.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
We've always been in the business of buying and selling
companies to and from private equity firms, but now we're
getting into the business in a big way in terms
of primary fundraising for their vehicles and then as well
as also being able to service them in GP LED secondaries,
LP LED secondary continuation vehicles. You know, those are major
growth areas for US, major market opportunities for US, and
(09:05):
the recent hires we've announced will enable us to have
a top franchise in those areas, we hope.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
You know, another really interesting area that Molis has really
been forging into a sports You yourself have been personally
involved in the stake sale that is ongoing of the
New York Giants as well as the Phoenix Suns in
recent years. So how big of an opportunity is this company?
Why you yourself have been on deals, But is this
something that is going to be a massive area for MOLAS.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
We have a major effort in a big franchise in sports.
There's the velocity of transactions has really been astounding, not
just with teams, but also in the ecosystem of sports
companies that are providing services into the sports space, whether
that's sports betting or facilities management and things of that nature.
(09:51):
You're right, we've been lucky to work on some landmark transactions.
I spend a lot of time on it myself. And
one of the things that's driving a lot of the
number of transactions is not just the increase in valuations,
but these big pools of money, many of which are
private equity focused, that understand that sports is a beautiful
way to invest in non correlated growth assets. And so
(10:13):
we're seeing a lot of money flocked to the space,
and we're there to hopefully help put transactions together for
our clients.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It's certainly been a very interesting one to watch now.
Almost a decade ago, I wrote a story for Bloomberg
BusinessWeek called how to Automate an Investment Banker. At that time,
I talked to your firm about what's possible and what's
not possible, And at that time there are some things possible,
but a lot that was not.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
How far have we come?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
What role is AI going to be? As you start
to let's say build out Molus two point zero.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Look, it's very critical for us to being on the
cutting edge of technology and innovate and to adopt technologies
that will help us serve our clients. AI has massive
potential to help us be more efficient.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
It has massive potential to.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Give us tools to be able to present better ideas
to our clients and to help us execute those ideas
on their behalf. Again, it's all about the clients, and
you know, one of the things I'm excited about is
to make sure within our organization we're staying on our
front foot to incorporate those tools in our work to
make sure that we're doing the very best job, you know,
(11:18):
servicing our client base.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Navid, we thank you so much for joining us here today.
That is, of course Navin Momus out again of a
Molism company. The incoming CEO Scarlett in his first interview
since their role was announced.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Thank you Schnoli Bask for that exclusive interview.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
After founding an investment bank that is catapulted to one
of the world's most well known, Ken Mollis is stepping
down as CEO of his namesake firm. The incoming CEO
joins Bloomberg's Global Finance coursepond At Shaneli Basik for his
first interview since that announcement.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Sali Scarlett, thank you so very much. I am joined
now by Navid ma Muzad again. Of course, he's the
incoming CEO of Mollison Company. Will take over on October first.
Congratulations first of.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
All on the room, Rotnalie, appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Now. Your founder, Ken Mollis has told me that this
isn't the end of an era, it's the start of
a new one. What does that mean?
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Well, look, first of all, I'm really honored and excited
to take over as CEO. The firm is in an
incredible spot, given our talent base, a lot of the
investments we've made and making sure we're staying cutting edge,
the culture which is phenomenal at the firm, and I
think Ken looked at it and said this is a
(01:03):
great time to hand over the firm to the next
generation of leaders, and I know there's a lot of
excitement throughout our company about all the opportunities that's going
to present for me and for many of the people
within the company.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
To the extent that there's something new about the way
you're going to run the company. What should investors be
looking out for, what should incoming talent be looking at for?
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Well, look, I've been with Ken for thirty years. We
founded the company together, and the strategy that and the
building blocks of the firm have been very consistent throughout
the founding of the company. A lot of that's going
to continue with the core of what we do, putting
clients first, Hiring and developing the best bankers in the world,
(01:46):
and creating a culture that supports those bankers is not
going to change. I'll bring obviously a different energy to
it and a different leadership style to it, but the
core of our strategy is going to very much stay
intactity of.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
It too, is that you're taking over at a very
complicated time, both in markets and in the world. As
we sit here today, there have been four days of
missile strikes between Israel and Iran, and Molism company has
a big presence in the Middle East. What are your
clients saying about the uncertainty that's building around this regional conflict.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Well, first of all, Shanali, we have Molu's employees, parts
of our MOLAS family in the Middle East, and our
first priority, in our first area of focus is making
sure you know, they're safe and sound, and thankfully we're
in constant contact with them and they're doing well so far,
So that's our number one priority. Look, we're in a
world that's changing rapidly all the time. I've been bullish
(02:41):
on the return of M and A and the steady
improvement that we've seen since April.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
The Middle East conflict.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
The latest Middle East conflict is early days and is fluid,
and so we'll have to monitor that really carefully. But
I continue to be optimistic that the forces that are
driving M and A are still very much intact. You
will see how it plays out, but that's still my perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Do you think that the geopolitical tension has the opportunity
to really throw a wrench in some of the activity
that's been coming back.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Well, sure, Look, geopolitical risks and things like wars always
have the potential to create bad outcomes.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
But again it's really early days.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
We're monitoring the situation carefully and we're obviously hoping for
the best.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
At the same time, here in the US, investors have
been responding to tariffs as well. CEOs have been changing
their business lines around the president's plans. How concerned are
you and your clients about the impact of tariffs?
Speaker 4 (03:34):
So when you look at the companies and financial sponsors
and capital providers, Look, there's a whole swath of those
of industries and areas and companies that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Have very little to do are very little impacted by
things like trade and tariffs.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
We're seeing still a lot of activity in those areas
as you get closer and closer to manufacturing and companies
that are in the heart of some of the trade
impact areas. Clearly that's more difficult to do M.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And A today.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
And look, I'm hoping that we'll reach an equilibrium here
on the terriff issue soon so that CEOs and capital
providers can kind of gear into what that new world
looks like, and so you know that uncertainty comes out
of their thought process.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I hear a lot from deal makers that there's this
pen dep energy under the surface for some people who'ven
record pipelines, what does that look like.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Look, we're seeing it in our business. We're at our
near record highs as well. When you talk to our bankers,
there's activity all across the firm. There's lots of client dialogue.
And I agree with you. I think clients, private equity clients,
corporate clients really do want to do transactions. They see
transactions as a useful tool to supercharge growth, to get efficiencies,
(04:45):
to improve their market positions, and to deal with innovation.
You know, we have a massive wave coming in terms
of the impact on things like AI and our economy,
and people want to be well positioned for that.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Now, M and A this year isn't what everybody hoped
it would be. But you yourself have been on transformative
transactions for example, paramounts guidance is when I know that
you've been involved in, what does the deal activity that
we've seen so far say about the deal activity that
might still be to come.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Look, as I said, I think there's just a lot
of demand to do transactions. The environment hopefully will get
more conducive to doing even more and having a wider
aperture on the kinds of transactions that could happen. Again,
hard to predict all of those things, But what I
can tell you in our conversations are people want to transact,
they want to lean into deals. There's lots of capital
available to do that, and is if the conditions improve,
(05:37):
I think you're going to see a big pickup in
announced transaction activity.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
What about restructuring activity in particular, you see kind of
both sides of the economy in that way. When things
go well, people might want to do deals. When things
go wrong, they might have to look at either restructuring
or even bankruptcies. Do you see any trouble under the surface.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Look, we have a top franchise in this part of
the world restructuring, liability management, capital solutions. There's generally a
pretty steady stream of activity in that space if you
have a top franchise. Clearly there are spikes when you
get periods of economic turmoil or turmoil in.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Industries or high default rates.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
We're not in one of those periods today, but generally
there are companies that need solutions either too over levered
balance sheets. We had a bunch of over levered balance
sheets created post COVID. A lot of the work that
our teams have been doing over the last couple of
years has been dealing with pushing out maturities and giving
companies more breathing room.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
And for the people who don't know, you were a
huge part of what had pushed Molism Company into private
capital in a bigger way. A big part of advisory
work during COVID era of financings when private capitals stepped
in to help companies out. Is this anything like COVID?
Are there echoes of it where you could see private
capital step in for big rescue financings.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Look, one of the big revolutions that I've seen over
the last ten years is just the huge number of
alternative asset managers who are they're raising big pools of money,
very flexible pools of money to invest up and down
the capital structure.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
We welcome that. We think that's great for the economy.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
It's great for business, and it's great for firms like
ours because there's now many more sources of money and
we're there to help advise clients tap into those sources
of money.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
You know, another interesting thing about your focus is here
on structuring m and A private capital is that it's
also taking you into new areas, and you've hired during
times of frankly crisis. For others, you hired from credit suites.
You're hired out of Silicon Valley Bank's demise as well.
And now is another moment where global banks are in
the process of cutting hundreds of jobs. Do you see
(07:45):
an opportunity to bring people on.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Look, one of the foundational philosophies that we've had from
the beginning is to be opportunistic and to hire great
talent even when times were a little murky. So the
firm was really built through the global financial crisis. We've
generally been contrarian. When talent is available, even if it's
not the best market, you have to seize that opportunity.
(08:08):
It's one of the reasons why we keep a pristine
balance sheet to give us the financial flexibility to do that.
And yet, and yes, once again when the regional banking
crisis hit, we use that as an opportunity to really
bulk up and hire teams in technology and an oil
and gas. And we're doing that again now with the
build we have in a business we're calling PSA Private
(08:30):
Solutions for the private equity world.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
So what does that mean in terms of the new
teams you're willing to bring on at MOLUS.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, well, look, we've made some major hires in this space.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You know, private equity firms have evolved.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
We've always been in the business of buying and selling
companies to and from private equity firms, but now we're
getting into the business in a big way in terms
of primary fundraising for their vehicles and then as well
as also being able to service them in GP LED secondaries,
LP LED secondary continuation vehicles. You know, those are major
growth areas for US, major market opportunities for US, and
(09:05):
the recent hires we've announced will enable us to have
a top franchise in those areas, we hope.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
You know, another really interesting area that Molis has really
been forging into a sports You yourself have been personally
involved in the stake sale that is ongoing of the
New York Giants as well as the Phoenix Suns in
recent years. So how big of an opportunity is this company?
Why you yourself have been on deals, But is this
something that is going to be a massive area for MOLAS.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
We have a major effort in a big franchise in sports.
There's the velocity of transactions has really been astounding, not
just with teams, but also in the ecosystem of sports
companies that are providing services into the sports space, whether
that's sports betting or facilities management and things of that nature.
(09:51):
You're right, we've been lucky to work on some landmark transactions.
I spend a lot of time on it myself. And
one of the things that's driving a lot of the
number of transactions is not just the increase in valuations,
but these big pools of money, many of which are
private equity focused, that understand that sports is a beautiful
way to invest in non correlated growth assets. And so
(10:13):
we're seeing a lot of money flocked to the space,
and we're there to hopefully help put transactions together for
our clients.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It's certainly been a very interesting one to watch now.
Almost a decade ago, I wrote a story for Bloomberg
BusinessWeek called how to Automate an Investment Banker. At that time,
I talked to your firm about what's possible and what's
not possible, And at that time there are some things possible,
but a lot that was not.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
How far have we come?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
What role is AI going to be? As you start
to let's say build out Molus two point zero.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Look, it's very critical for us to being on the
cutting edge of technology and innovate and to adopt technologies
that will help us serve our clients. AI has massive
potential to help us be more efficient.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
It has massive potential to.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Give us tools to be able to present better ideas
to our clients and to help us execute those ideas
on their behalf. Again, it's all about the clients, and
you know, one of the things I'm excited about is
to make sure within our organization we're staying on our
front foot to incorporate those tools in our work to
make sure that we're doing the very best job, you know,
(11:18):
servicing our client base.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Navid, we thank you so much for joining us here today.
That is, of course Navin Momus out again of a
Molism company. The incoming CEO Scarlett in his first interview
since their role was announced.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Thank you Schnoli Bask for that exclusive interview.
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