Sunday, December 3, 2017

American Soul by PEU Bono

Blessed are the arrogant for theirs is the kingdom of their own company
Blessed are the superstars for the magnificence in their light we understand better our own insignificance
Blessed are the filthy rich for you can only truly own what you give away,  like your pain (pain)
Blessed are the bullies for one day they will have to stand up to themselves  Standup
Blessed are the liars for the truth can be awkward
Standup
Under Bono's superstar light can we understand our insignificance?  Paul Hewson is a private equity underwriter (PEU) for Elevation Partners and a special partner with TPG Growth'a RISE Fund.

Paul/Bono sits on the RISE board with TPG founders David Bonderman and James Coulter. 

David Bonderman:  "Europeans don’t care about growth, no matter what they say… Europeans only care about social stability. They care about the social compact."
Private equity is all about growth.  As for any implied social compact billionaire founders grew wealthier while worker pay stagnated the last two decades.


TPG's James Coulter spoke at a Delivering Alpha conference in September.

The meeting delivered over $2.2 trillion of investable assets represented by over 100 influential institutional investors.
A CNBC article on Coulter's talk mentioned the following:

Law firm Covington-Burling delivered a report to Uber with 47 recommendations to improve its culture, which has been plagued by criticisms of widespread sexism

TPG partner David Bonderman quit Uber's board in July after taking heat for a sexist remark. The ride-hailing company has been under investigation for its workplace culture. 
Bono's PEU peers are the self-serving, politically connected greed and leverage boys.  Their world is private and they run the board.  Any of their bad behavior will need a snitch, who can be bought off.

Bono intends to do good and make big money off the RISE fund, just as he did with a $43 million profit from Facebook.  Facebook has come under fire from insiders over its addictive design:

“It literally changes your relationship with society, with each other … It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
Four years ago David Bonderman said:

The real problem with Africa is that the markets are small… The only two countries that really have markets of any size are Nigeria which has a whole set of problems and South Africa which has a whole set of problems. What is attractive with Africa is that it’s starting from a very low base.

A lot of these countries are moving the most and improving the most because they are the worst.
So TPG wants to help the worst rise while making bank

The Rise Fund is committed to achieving social and environmental impact alongside competitive financial returns.  
Competitive PEU returns is a definable metric.  The transparent RISE team refused to share their target figure.  Is that arrogant for filthy rich PEU superstars to not share their desired multiple of money?  Or does it make them liars and/or bullies?

Bono shows us those with the gold, platinum and double platinum can rule.