Building a $5.5B Mid-Market Private Equity Firm: Brent Belzberg, Founder of Torquest Partners

This week, I was humbled to be joined by Brent Belzberg, Founder & Senior Managing Partner of TorQuest Partners, a mid-market Private Equity firm that he founded in 2002 that has since grown to ~$5.5B in assets under management. In 2018, Brent was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest civilian honour, for his work as a business leader and philanthropist.

In our discussion today, we discuss the difficulty of relinquishing control as your company grows, whether more people and steps lead to better decisions, the differences between experienced and first-time CEOs, how to select your investors, Private Equity "playbooks", the usefulness of 100-day plans, the merits and risks of inorganic growth strategies, why margins always seem to decrease in the year after closing, how leaders often intertwine their identities with that of their company, and many other topics.

Please enjoy!

Building a $5.5B Mid-Market Private Equity Firm: Brent Belzberg, Founder of Torquest Partners