Putting a Katz amongst the pigeons

Jason Katz, a renowned investment banker who turned his hand to private equity, visited Imperial College to share his knowledge and advice in an event organised by the Imperial Speaker’s Club and the Imperial Investment Club.

Katz, clad in casual business attire, began to address the audience in his characteristic relaxed and affable manner, outlining how he, a history graduate from Bristol University, became managing director at UBS within 10 years of joining the firm, a feat that had never before been achieved at the firm.

Having secured a graduate job at SG Warburg (later to become part of UBS) Katz recalled how he was in a pool of about 60 first year analysts, all at the beck and call of senior associates and MDs, working up to 100 hours per week with little recognition in what was a fast-paced and impersonal environment. It was only after spending a few days working on David Freud’s (now Lord Freud, and indeed grandson of Sigmund Freud) team that Katz first started his rapid progression up the banking hierarchy. Having requested to stay on Freud’s team, he was now part of a smaller team and was allowed to make much bigger contributions and meet clients regularly. This idea of initiative and boldness was one that Katz continued to emphasise throughout the talk and it became clear it was an ethos he has lived by since. Only a few years after joining the firm, Katz suggested the creation of a hotel and leisure division, an area that accounted for 10% of GDP but did not its own specialist division yet, much to everyone’s disbelief. Despite now leading his own desk, his superiors refused to make him a MD straight off the bat as he and his team were essentially thought of as “a bunch of kids taking charge of a new division”. His only way of impressing on to them that he deserved the title was to secure clients and complete deal after deal, which is precisely what he did. The main thing budding investment bankers must always bear in mind is that “you’re being paid for you commercial judgement and will be judged solely on performance”.

In the following years, Katz successfully led the division from strength to strength, working with clients such as lastminute.com, Fitness First Centre Parcs and working on many other deals with an aggregate value of $40 billion. He made the idea of ‘empire building’ very clear to the audience, highlighting the fact that whilst sheer numerical and analytical skills were essential, there was no substitute for style, consistency and even humour.

a bunch of kids taking charge of a new division

Katz then continues to explain how he found himself somewhat bored of the daily office grind and decided in 2007, when the economic landscape was still flourishing, to start up a private equity firm and continue to use his experience of the leisure and travel industry.

Having left the bank and founded ‘Kings Park Capital’, Katz readily admitted that he and his team no longer enjoyed quite as lavish a lifestyle as his former IB colleagues. Not to say that he is doing particularly badly, having flown in to London from Cape Town that day and heading to New York City the morning after the event.

The differences between working as a dealmaker in an Investment Bank and in a private equity firm were frequently highlighted. With only 7 people working in the office and his own money at stake Katz remarked on how much more personal his everyday business became, and the increasing selectiveness that he and his partner have had to exercise when choosing a company to invest into. In fact, KPC sees approximately 200 investment opportunities per year but on average only invests in 2 to 3 of those. However raising the money to invest into these couple of opportunities has not been an entirely smooth road. Of the total 400 entities approached, only 50 agreed to put money behind the new company, raising a total of £60 million, a long shot from the £200 million that was the original aim. Despite this Katz seemed optimistic for the next fundraise, emphasizing how important the fact was that KPC was now no longer a new company with no clients, increasing the likelihood that institutional investors would consider them this time round.

As the evening drew to a close with a Q&A session, Katz responded to a suggestion that there was nothing left to explore in private equity by joking that the exact same would have been said after the invention of the wheel and electricity, highlighting that there were always going to be new opportunities in the market, some simply requiring more resourcefulness and patience than others, leaving the audience with the distinct impression that this was a man who still had many a goal to accomplish, despite already achieving so much in a very short amount of time.