Minuk's Musings and Guitars

If I know my readership well, and I think I do, then just like me, you are a big fan of bluegrass music.

 

In the vibrant world of bluegrass in 2024, there is one name that dominates the charts.

 

Billy Strings.

 

Billy turns 27 this month and is already the best “picker” of all time (in my humble opinion).

 

You can hear one of my favourite songs called Taking Water on YouTube (click the pic below).

 

 

 

 

Billy’s guitar brand of choice is a Taylor. I tried to look up the stock for the company but discovered that Taylor is 100% employee owned so the company doesn’t trade publicly.

 

 

Me personally, I own a Gibson guitar. But Gibson is owned by KKR, a giant private equity shop. So again, I can’t buy the stock.

 

 

Then there is the iconic Fender which is the choice of many greats including Jimmy Hendrix (interesting fact: Jimmy flipped his guitar and strung it upside down because he was a lefty). Fender is owned by Servco, Hawaii’s largest privately held company.

 

 

Last try, what about Ibanez – privately owned too.

 

 

You may be surprised to know that 80% of US companies with revenues over $100M are privately held businesses and not public stocks in the stock market.

 

So, how can we invest to get exposure to private equity?

 

There are two ways. The first is through private equity funds which are available through investment advisors like yours truly.

 

The second is by buying stocks of large private equity investment firms (like KKR who owns Gibson) that do trade on the stock exchanges.

Here are some of the largest firms.

 

1 Year Total Return %

 

• KKR & Co (ticker KKR) = + 155%
• Apollo (ticker APO) = +76%
• Blackstone (ticker BX) = +87%
• Carlyle Group (ticker CG) = +87%

 

 

Hope you have a nice weekend.

 

Rich

Investment Advisor