Niche Assets: Tax Receivable Agreements feat. Andy Lee - Aspen Funds
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Niche Assets: Tax Receivable Agreements feat. Andy Lee

Andy Lee from Parallaxes Capital joins in this episode to discuss a fascinating and often overlooked asset class: Tax Receivable Agreements. Learn what it is, and why family offices, foundations & endowments are making allocations to this asset class.

Connect with Andy Lee on LinkedIn ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-andy/
Connect with Ben Fraser on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/

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Transcription

Introduction

Ben Fraser: Hello, Future Billionaires. Welcome back to a new episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast. 

Understanding Tax Receivable Agreements (TRAs)

Ben Fraser: I have a fun interview for you today with a gentleman named Andy Lee of Parallaxes Capital and a very fun discussion all around one particular asset class that you’ve probably never heard of called TRAs, Tax Receivable Agreements and a really cool background. He tells a story of why he got a Masters in Taxation really as a way to appease his dad and just not have to do a lot of work, but it actually ended up really working in his favor, finding a very unique asset class of C corps that kind of creating these receivables and it gets all into it really cool stuff.

But again, with our goal here, investing a billionaire, we like to do a lot of different things. One of them being educated around unique. Interesting asset classes that you maybe never heard of and things that are very interesting and happening in the alternative finance space. 

The Importance of Due Diligence

Ben Fraser: Gotta give the caveat as they do with anybody coming to the podcast that is potentially raising capital.

I’ve not done any due diligence. I brought them on to our podcast. Purely out of curiosity, just one to understand what they’re doing. So we didn’t really get into any of the specifics. If you have interest, you can do your own due diligence, reach out to them and check it out, but just want to be clear.

We’ve got the age of diligence and this is purely out of curiosity to bring them on and talk about something very interesting with that. If you are enjoying the show and you’re not already subscribed, please do and if you can relieve us to review, that really helps us get the word out, get bigger guests onto the show so we can keep adding more value. Packed content. And I hope you enjoy the show. Thanks. 

The Invest Like a Billionaire Podcast

Ben Fraser: This is the Invest Like a Billionaire Podcast, where we uncover the alternative investments and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth. The tools and tactics you’ll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build legacy wealth. Join us as we dive into the world of alternative investments, uncover strategies of the ultra wealthy, discuss economics, and interview successful investors.

Free Economic Report

Ben Fraser: Looking for passive investments done for you? With Aspen Funds, we help accredited investors that are looking for higher yields and diversification from the stock market as a passive investor. We do all the work for you, making sure your money is working hard for you and alternative investments. In fact, our team invests alongside you in every deal, so our interests are aligned. We focus on macro driven, alternative investments, so your portfolio is best positioned for this economic environment. Get started and download your free economic report today. 

Interview with Andy Lee of Parallaxes Capital

Ben Fraser: Welcome back to another episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire Podcast. I’m your host, Ben Fraser. And I’m joined by my friend, Andy Lee of Parallaxes Capital, very excited for this conversation.

Andy’s team reached out and said, Hey, we had anyone talk about TRAs and I first thought what the heck is a TRA? And then second, no, we haven’t. So I’m excited to bring Andy on. He is the founder of Parallaxes Capital. He was previously with Lone Star Funds and spent his career early on at Citigroup. Lives in New York in the heart of finance and doing a really cool thing in this space called TRAs or Tax Receivable Agreements. And I think you said it before on our other call that you focus on esoteric financial instruments or something like that. And so this is something that’s very different, right?

Very unique in the, even within the alternative space, but something that is not well understood, but. It has some really unique, cool dynamics that I’m excited to dive into. 

Andy’s Journey into the TRA World

Ben Fraser: Andy gives us a little bit of background on you and how you found your way into the TRA world. 

Andy Lee: Absolutely. And thank you for having me.

So look, I’m from the middle of nowhere, not too far from you. I’m from Champaign, Illinois, and I had the option to go to college a little early. I went to college when I was 15. When I graduated, I was too young to sign a lease in New York city. And so my dad refused to let me go. I really wanted to pursue a PhD.

I refused. I didn’t want to join the family business in that regard. But he had obviously dominion over me at that point of time. And I was forced into a compromise. And I, so I did, instead of a PhD, I did a Master’s. I did a Master’s in Taxation. The reason for which, frankly, was twofold. One, it had no coursework participation grading.

Whereby you didn’t need to go to class to get your A, and it had an open book exam at the end of the year. So for someone who didn’t want to go to want to go to class, it was an absolute godsend. I did that. I started my career off at a city group. And there, I advised two companies who were undertaking a transaction to resolve their TRA.

Cloud Peak, a coal mining business, and Realtynto, a major miner. And in that regard, I was like, this is a fascinating opportunity set and an interesting instrument. Someone should provide third party liquidity for the opportunity. When Dow Joppa got Lone Star Funds down in Dallas, Texas. And they said, the only way you get promoted here is for you to create something.

And so there are a number of things that we ideated around. The one that got furthest and off us off the ground was in monetizing tax receivable agreements and what I do today. And the firm said, this is a fascinating concept. How much do you deploy annually? I said, a hundred million dollars thinking that was a large number.

And they said, I’m missing several zeros around that. The firm is calling a hundred billion dollars zip code from an asset management perspective. And the partners basically said, Andy, why don’t you go do this? We’ll give you money to go do it. And if it doesn’t work, come back in two years. That was 2017.

We’ve raised a number of vehicles since and built a team around the opportunity set. But it’s a labor of love and a lot of growing pains. 

Ben Fraser: Man that, that’s a great story. So you fell into it by accident, looking for the shortcut to get out of school and learned really, I’m sure a lot of things that help you in your business today.

So a little bit about what is a TRA, right? This, you’ve got a little more context, some more conversation to where I get the base understanding of it, but it is a little complicated. So let’s. Explain it at a very high level, just keep parties involved, why it’s created and how it works. So just set the stage for us here. 

Understanding the TRA Market

Andy Lee: So in terms of what a TREE is, and relative to some of the analogies that you likely have brought onto your show over the course of the last year or so, there are, it reminds many of what pharmaceutical royalties were in the 2000s and what musical royalties were in the 2010s.

So long dated. annuity-like cash flows that are uncorrelated to broader markets. And so that’s at least what we do. In terms of the asset itself and the opportunity set, let’s call it a 30 billion opportunity and growing with increased adoption. We like to say as a firm that not only are there riches in the niches, but it is also the largest opportunity set that people have just never heard of, tax.

So across a number of things. Think about us almost buying the standard deduction, a concept that many are probably familiar with but for corporations. Names in our portfolio that we’ve transacted with include the likes of a Remax, a Shake Shack, a Duff Phelps. So public issuers that people have seen understand their propositions, they’re not small businesses, they’re relatively large and they’re public companies in nature.

In terms of the product, It is a long data annuity stream that is one, uncorrelated to cash yielding, and three serves as a call option on higher corporate tax rates. Those are attributes that are interesting to many, and it’s created by just a misunderstanding of tax more broadly. Primarily on the front of, how often do you look forward to going to your dentist?

Ben Fraser: Not very often, we’ll say that. 

Andy Lee: In the same way, most people run away from tax season. And that’s one of the misunderstandings, driven by the fact that most people don’t want to have to deal with much in the way of tax. And tax professionals, unfortunately, for my brethren in this space, rarely have ever spoken English.

And that creates an incredible challenge, but also an opportunity for us to bring light to this overall opportunity set. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, not so interesting. And what I love about this whole world of alternative investments is. As we see these new things start to percolate over time, like he’s mentioned, music royalties, I’ve seen other things as, unique is investing in distilleries and, casts off for wine or harder liquors.

I’ve seen buying fractional shares of horse racing horses. And it’s really creating liquidity, creating markets around. Assets that have different characteristics, but being able to bring it to a different audience to where maybe there was no market, right? And in this case, you’re one of the first in creating a market to transact on these assets that are created that the companies that have on the balance sheet don’t really want to hold because it’s not.

Very advantageous to them from an allocation of capital or resources standpoint, and there’s not a whole lot of buyers out there. I’m assuming we’ve talked a little bit about just what you have to do to go to drum up these types of assets. It’s difficult to find and explain all that.

So you’ve created this very unique niche that is totally uncorrelated to the markets and has some other unique aspects. 

The Process of Transacting TRAs

Ben Fraser: So let’s give an example here of how this is created and two of the kind of key parties are in, what the transaction might look like just at a high level.

So use some kind of just more of a case study, but just use simple numbers. So we can get a sense of how this works. 

Andy Lee: Absolutely. There is a fundamental tax transaction that occurs whenever a company goes public. Many businesses here in the U. S. are formed in several formats. That being passed through entities, might be a limited liability corporation, a partnership, or an S corporation.

And so whenever you go public here in the U. S., unless you are electing for an MLP or a REIT designation for tax purposes, you ultimately have to become a C corp. As a result, you undertake a tax transformation and there is a taxable transaction known as an upseed transaction that occurs. That transaction results in the pre IPO shareholders paying a large tax liability and as a result, also creating and delivering to the newly public company, a large tax asset for which they share it by a tax receivable agreement.

So the key stakeholders in this transaction are one, the public company, which received a large tax asset, and two, the pre IPO shareholder, who not only paid a large tax liability, but also received a large tax asset in the transaction. Many of these parties. Our private equity funds. So think about them as having many portfolio companies that they take public on a regular basis.

And for private equity funds, they have 10 year fund lives. They may take a company public in year six of their fund. And over time, as the company grows and they sell down their exposure, they Then are at the tail end of their funds and these tax assets might survive 10 years after that. And so some of the holders that we’ve transacted with, they run the gamut from management team, co investors, private equity funds, and they’re just looking to wrap up finite fund life vehicles.

So in that sense, we are almost helping them provide liquidity or a somewhat misunderstood asset in order for them to deliver. Proceeds back to the iron busters, one, and two, reduce the administrative burden we’re closing down on. 

Ben Fraser: Okay. Let’s break it down a little bit further because there’s a lot of information there.

So what you’re saying is, on these companies that are going IPO, they go onto an exchange, become publicly traded. You have to change the structural ownership of your firm, right? And most stocks and companies that are traded on exchanges are C Corps. That’s a requirement unless you have an exemption, either being an MLP, Master Limited Partnership, or a REIT.

But most of them are C Corps, right? So when you go public, you have to convert the structure, but you’ve had your legacy structure, which most people You know, when they’re building businesses that are private and not publicly traded, they’re usually using limited liability companies, LLCs, limited partnerships, other types of partnerships or S corps, like you said, because you’re not generally gonna start with a C corp unless you have to, right? That’s the idea. 

Andy Lee: I bet you have a bunch of people back for it. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, there are reasons. There are times that it makes sense. But as you’re making this transition, what you’re saying is you have this, you said tax transformation that is creating this transaction that, between the new publicly traded company and the older company or the old shareholders.

So talk a little bit about that. So basically the shareholders of the pre IPO company, They have a receivable from the new publicly traded company. Is that correct? 

Andy Lee: That’s right. 

Ben Fraser: So what they’re doing is they now have an agreement between these two parties where they’re going to be receiving. X amount of cash per year over a set period of time.

What you were just saying at the end is that there are a lot of shareholders of these pre IPO companies, their funds, and they have designated fund terms, and if they’re liquidating these assets. Through the IPO, they’re getting a nice big, capital event in the fund.

They now are winding it down potentially, and they don’t want to have to hold on to this kind of probably small asset as a percent of the overall fund that now is a receivable over a long period of time, and there’s an administrative burden. It’s just, you have to send K 1s for the next 10 years to your investor.

So it creates this. Annoying, pebbles in the shoe that they don’t want to deal with. And so they’re willing to sell this asset at potentially a discount. Am I right so far? 

Andy Lee: Absolutely. So yeah, we’re a secondary market. Purchaser of these assets. 

Ben Fraser: So up to this point, there hasn’t really been a market for these assets, right? Talk a little bit about what the market looks like? Is there a market? If there has been, I’m sure it’s been very, haphazard or idiosyncratic. 

Andy Lee: Absolutely. So it’s been a large growing opportunity set, even though these assets have been around almost 30 plus years.

They. Are just relatively too many participants in novels despite their age. And most people don’t quite understand the opportunity set and there are several reasons why. So the first of which is the domain expertise necessary to underwrite the opportunity. And we talked a little bit about that.

My brethren have not done a good job of translating text into English. One, helping people understand the value of these. Two, is around duration, whereby the market hasn’t formed around that primarily because private capital vehicles. are many times ETFs and whatnot, where money can come in and out very quickly.

In order to hold this piece of paper, you need to have 10 plus year capital, where you have locked up vehicles. Most private credit funds have a four to six year paper. They can’t hold that. The third reason is around return expectations. If you’re doing private credit, or what you’ve interviewed others, like they’re delivering consistently 12 to 14 percent.

It’s a well understood market, it’s not a terrible amount of brain damage, very liquid, relatively liquid. You all of a sudden look at that and you’re like, if I won’t, I can do something simple and get a 14 percent and I have to undertake all sorts of brain damage to do this, like I want to get paid more.

And so there’s been a big bid ass spread between sellers and potential buyers on the opportunity set. And the overall opportunity as a result makes it incredibly challenging to drive capital formation. Primarily because you need someone who came from the deal world who also understands tax and is relatively commercial to bring it all together.

And that hasn’t quite existed in the same body bar very long. And so for our many sellers who are looking for liquidity are just finding a void in the space. And that’s really where we’ve stopped. 

Ben Fraser: Got it. Yeah. So you’re basically trading with the pre-IPO shareholders. Hey, I’ll pay you a lump sum. At a discount to hit a return threshold that I want to hit and you don’t have to deal with the kind of tail of this annuity like payment stream, right?

And so they can, take a one time payment and be done with it, close the fund, move on. And you can underwrite this asset and purchase it and receive the kind of payment stream over a set period of time. And so what you’re really doing, in the most simplest form is you’re buying a receivable from a publicly traded company.

And so you’re really underwriting the credit worthiness of the payee, right? In this case, like you said, Remax and Duff Phelps and others. And so talk about kind of the process when you get to, get the parties to agree what. The asset is the value of it and you get them to transact, but then you also have to do the underwriting and make sure, it’s a risk reward reward profile that makes sense for investors.

What kind of discounts do you generally purchase these TRAs at from the shareholders? 

Andy Lee: So we typically pay between 25 to 40 cents a dollar, which translates into a rip, an annual return in the mid to high teens from a target. And so that to many as attractive primarily because of the comparable debt that one of these holders one of these obligors might have.

A remix or a straight track is in the six to 8 percent zip code. And so like earning a thousand points on top of that, they find it to be very compelling. So do you look at these businesses? They say they doubt the public, they are investment grade, near investment grade. And I have the potential to capture a thousand points of spread on an uncorrelated asset relative to the overall performance.

Because if I buy the stock, I’m very earning sensitive here. We can see a significant deterioration relative to the earnings power of a business before we experienced any deterioration. And so they find that to be a compelling sale in that regard. And so that’s at least how we think about our opportunity set.

There are fundamentally three risks that we underwrite. The first that you mentioned, bankruptcy risk, which is a company remaining a going concern. And so for us, obviously the attributes being IG or near investment grade are very valuable. The second risk is around corporate tax rates. We have a linear relationship with tax rates.

If the tax were to go down, we have our, we see a downward movement in our returns. Correspondingly, on the way up, we have an upward movement to our returns. So that’s the inverse to almost everything. So some of our investors view us as a tail risk hedge to the rest of the portfolio. The final risk is the extension.

What I might describe as you never lose a tax asset, you merely defer. So if you can’t use it in a certain year, you get to use it whenever you are profitable again. So think about it. Your MOIC. Although cash on cash remains constant, your IRR is just deteriorating as a result of it being a time weighted measure.

Ben Fraser: Got it. In this case, using just names to make it easier, Remax, they may not have a good year. Hey, interest rates are up, transaction volumes are down, we have a net loss. We are choosing to defer paying this because it’s not. Creative to the bottom line and you don’t have a whole lot of ability to force them to pay.

Obviously you’ll get paid at some point, but either that’s what you’re talking about. Is that accurate? 

Andy Lee: That’s right. 

Ben Fraser: Okay. 

Andy Lee: So do you really have a choice? And so far that obviously penalties associated with such a deferral but for many of them, they are. Repeat treating part of the benefit that you receive from the IRO.

And so far , it’s just a transfer of value away from what they might otherwise have paid. 

Ben Fraser: Okay. Okay. You have an agreement that’s already in place, and there’s penalties that they don’t pay, but that penalty might be less than what they’re going to get, from a tax loss and not having to pay the IRS.

They might choose to have that penalty incurred, be incurred and not pay it out. But it’s still, they’re not. You still have to pay it back at a certain point. So it’s not a matter of if, it’s just a matter of when and then you go back and see, cause you mentioned at the very beginning that this is a call option on corporate tax rates, right?

And so what you’re saying is you have a positive correlation to tax rates. And so if tax rates go up, that increases your returns and if they go down, it decreases them. And so a lot of investors use this as a tax hedge because. And most investments would perform inversely to the tax rates, right? So that makes sense. And what has been the trend on tax rates? 

Andy Lee: We are at the lower limit from a corporate tax rate perspective here in the U S. We are at 21 percent federally today. In the past, obviously before, as a result of the Trump tax cuts prior to that, it was 35 percent and then it’s been as high as in the 90s.

I’m dating back to early in the century and so in the U. S. in the U. S. We’re just out of curiosity. What do you think the corporations pay in terms of the overall U. S. federal budget? 

Ben Fraser: Corporate pay? What do you mean by that? 

Andy Lee: What percentage of the U. S. federal revenues do you think are corporations? 

Ben Fraser: Oh, good question. Let’s say 25 percent. 

Andy Lee: I might shock you by sharing that it’s closer to And going down. Okay. The vast majority of taxes are borne by social security, individual and personal taxes among them. 

Ben Fraser: Interesting. Interesting. Hey we’re running deficits.

Andy Lee: Yeah, we’re just going down, right? But there is a chance that in the world that we live in and based on where we are in society, we might see potential changes in corporate tax rates to the upside as well. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah. Interesting. Are you seeing the bid ask spread? Why was our contract based on a kind of political regime, like red? We’re in a political year in 2024 here, and you could have some things that are going on.

Does that impact the price discovery of when you’re in transactional assets or not so much. 

Andy Lee: Yeah, we originate as Republicans and we asset manage as Democrats. The elements there are like we can’t price a change in corporate taxes. That’s fundamentally also a risk. That our investors want that exposure to, so let’s say like someone that we were buying from, like a cell phone, you might be like, here, let’s have a sharing arrangement if tax rates would move up, then I get, I capture X value. But if I did that, then my. Investors wouldn’t get the benefit of that outcome, right?

Which is the hedge that they’re looking for in their broader portfolio. And so in that context, it’s hard for us to give up that change in value in order to meet a bid. And so it’s an education sharing how we think about that with the seller to arrive at a transaction. You’re not wrong.

There are many transactions that may get held up as a result. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah. Interesting. When you’re trying to create opportunities from a deal standpoint. Yeah, I’ve had a lot of chicken and eggs, right? Because you’re buying these as one offs, or maybe you have a fund, I think you have a fund. So do you have capital at the ready to go buy these? Or, is it deal specific as you, get to a deal that you’re going to raise the capital for, or is it a little bit of both? 

Andy Lee: So we have four flagship funds within access of 300 million of capital under management. Think about them primarily from leading endowments and foundations.

And so we’re looking to do it if we have committed capital vehicles that we can deploy capital out of immediately. And, or should the opportunity arrive? So that enables us to be relatively nimble. What some might know as the independent sponsor model where they’re going out to raise capital against an opportunity.

So ours is more in a committed plunge. 

Ben Fraser: Okay, got it. And then when you’re reaching out to these companies too, try to transact on their TRAs. Yeah, I think you showed me a screenshot of someone you reached out to. I don’t even know what that is. You’re probably talking to the wrong guy.

So what’s that process like? I know there’s a lot of education involved, but what’s, how difficult is it to unearth a good deal that you can actually transact on a good basis. 

Andy Lee: So I think it’s more so to your point, a big educational element. As to what we do and that’s a function of the nascency of our opportunities set in the minds of capital market participants.

And so a big part of, as we engage with holders like that our job is to demonstrate to them that they have it one, two, to give them a compelling offer for them to pay attention. So for many of them. When we say, we’re willing to give you 10 million sites unseen, sorry. I didn’t even know I had a valuable asset.

So what is it? How do I assess it? If it’s 10 million, and at which point of time we go down the rabbit hole with them, helping them uncover the value of their asset. And for many of them, they are incredibly thankful because they’re like, this is almost found money for us. And in many regards, and so that element is a big educational push whereby.

We have these over hundreds of conversations and they might not sell today, but over time. They may have considerations as it pertains to selling. Might that be the finite fund life consideration? But also for many holders, it’s complexity and estate issues. Where similar to a mineral royalty, you might not want to distribute your mineral royalty to your four kids.

For many of them, they’re like, we just want to distribute cash to our kids. Let’s just sell this to you and move on. Or they might have an even more compelling option. We spoke with the former CEO of a large business and they were like, I am about to invest and be CEO of a new concept that I’m incredibly excited about.

And I want to personally invest a ton of money. So you’re telling me that you’re going to earn. Pay me 40 dollars for this asset. If I’m going to make a hundred times my money on this I’ll do that each and every day. And so it’s as an opportunity cost that he is way in his situation. And so it’s a little bit unique to each underlying pattern that we are engaged with.

But our job is to help roll the market longer term. And when the time comes, we hope to be able to be the liquidity provider of choice. Whenever someone finally desires liquidity. 

Ben Fraser: Got it. Very cool, Andy. This is very unique asset that I didn’t even heard of until you reached out to me and not to say that, I’m aware of everything out there, but it’s definitely cool to see a interesting asset class that you’re providing liquidity to that is a pretty big market and growing and you’re still able to purchase a pretty significant discount.

So very cool. And it sounds like you raise a lot of money for institutional investors. Do you work with more high net worth retail investors as well? 

Andy Lee: Yeah. Absolutely. So we’ve worked with a number of thoughtful investors, especially many stakeholders in our space. What is actually shocking is that there have been a bunch of holders of these GRAs who have actually sold us their GRA and subsequent to that, given us money and our funds.

Because they’re like, what you do is so unique and so cool I just want to be part of your story. And so that’s been incredible. With a validation but we also produce for many of these smaller investors, like an income stream like the cash yielding nature of our product that’s uncorrelated, they find to be incredibly valuable.

And from a tax characteristics perspective, it’s tax deferred and we pay out long term cap gains. And so they’re like, okay, so it’s an income-like product that’s primarily capital gains that is incredibly valuable to many holders. And so that’s a big part of what we seek to do. And it’s a big part of market adoption in order for us to create longer term, more TRAs, we need people to be educated about the opportunity.

A great way to educate them about the opportunity is to get them invested, and put money in their pockets. And they then say Hey, how do I make it? I’ve invested in several private equity portfolio companies. How do we bring this to them whenever they go public? 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, makes sense. 

The Future of the TRA Market

Ben Fraser: What do you see as the market maybe matures and becomes a little more efficient?

Like right now you have the advantage of a major lack of education. There is no liquidity, but. Liquidity and a more efficient market drives down returns generally, right? So what do you expect the life cycle of this to be? Is this an opportunity set that’s going to be available for the next decade because it’s just so difficult to transact in or do you see we have a short window here to buy as much as you can on the basis that you’re talking about before things become a little more efficient?

Andy Lee: Competition is not a if, it’s a when just like in every asset class, niches end up getting exploited. What I might articulate is some niches are harder to exploit than others. So I’ll give the instance, one avenue that many within the tax realm are relatively familiar with, it is, do you know that H & R Block is the largest factory of tax receivables associated with your tax refunds?

You probably. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah. 

Andy Lee: You, the IRS might pay you in 30 days. Each and every block has a billion dollar, multi billion dollar business lending people money or giving you that money now in return for more money in the future. Not many people have tried to disrupt that because they’re like. 

Ben Fraser: They’re just such a big player in that space.

Andy Lee: And I don’t know when’s the last time you went to Europe, but if you, you or your wife did any shopping. Oftentimes, you’ll be entitled to what is known as a value added tax refund. And when you go to the airport, and instead of waiting for the money from the EU government, you would say, Global Blue, give me 0. 90 on the dollar for it. Same as what H&R Block basically does. And they do the exact same thing. Like ours is the largest asset block that people just have never thought of, that just sits in plain sight. It’s just because of that. Underlying product is relatively not the most interesting in the world.

That’s the fault of professionals. But the fact that it’s just a very misunderstood opportunity. So yes, as the more intellectual capital comes into our space, that will be incremental competition, but it is such a large space, every dollar that you make as a professional, the U S and the taxes are 40 percent of.

Whenever you sell your business, that’s 25 percent of it, whenever you sell a stock or anything like that. It is the largest opportunity set that people are just not thinking about. Relative to everything else, musical royalties. Everyone can associate themselves with musical royalties. Not many people come out of college saying I want to be a master of the universe in the text world.

That’s just not a thing. 

Ben Fraser: Yeah, makes sense. Andy, this has been really fun. 

Conclusion and Contact Information

Ben Fraser: Thank you so much for helping just uncover this really unique asset class. And sounds like you guys are doing some cool stuff over there and hope for the best for you. What’s the best way for people to learn more about what you’re doing?

Andy Lee: Absolutely. I know. And thank you for the time. Like the best way to reach us on LinkedIn where people can reach out. We’ve been relatively active on that, right? Providing educational materials. On our Facebook, because as they might get, it is incumbent upon us to edit the universe. And so a big part of what we do is trying to share, what we do, how we go about doing it and ultimately being a good steward for the industry. 

Ben Fraser: Awesome. And what’s your website again, for those who want to check it out? 

Andy Lee: Parallaxes which is https://parallaxescapital.com/

Ben Fraser: Awesome. Andy, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. 

Andy Lee: Thank you for the time, sir.

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