A New Year
As we enter a New Year, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for your partnership, share our perspective, highlight some of our team’s accomplishments, and discuss what’s on the horizon for Weatherford Capital in 2022.
With the start of a New Year, there is always a sense of excitement and a certain reset that takes place. We look forward to the opportunity to work alongside family and friends, and we are grateful to be on this journey with you. Faith, family, community, and excellence continue to be the guiding values of our firm. We also continue to seek the virtues of humility, kindness, and the pursuit of justice through our actions. These virtues and values serve as the bedrock of our firm and have served as the catalyst to building a mission-driven organization. Having a mission-driven organization has never been more necessary than now. For an investor to keep pace in a rapidly changing and often unpredictable world, one must also seek to understand the times with wisdom. That is to approach our investments with the discipline and discernment to see around corners and recognize the multiple opportunities and challenges before us.
The New World
We are living in a unique and historic time. The acceleration of innovation and the digitalization of everything we do is now a reality. The world continues to get more complex, requiring more creative solutions from leaders and innovators. As an example, despite the incredible challenges posed by Covid-19, America still finds itself with historic low unemployment and strong economic growth. We are also seeing for the first time in a long while real wage growth and a noticeable power shift from the employer to the employee in the form of what has been referred to as “The Great Resignation” (try hiring a software engineer). This competition for labor and talent is an arms race unlike we have seen in a long time. At Weatherford Capital, we believe that this dynamic brings challenges in the short term but the Invisible Hand has a way of dealing with such things. Most importantly, entrepreneurialism in the US and around the world appears to be as strong as ever.
Amidst this moment of transformation, we face a multitude of challenges. Geopolitical strife continues to emerge between the US and China, who together make up over 40% of the world’s GDP. We face a supply chain squeeze that may take years to overcome. We continue to learn to live with Covid-19 with the recognition that it will mutate and reinvent itself with rapid and unrelenting speed, as the Omicron variant has recently done. Domestically, we face calcifying political trench warfare. Our political culture now lives off what Dr. Arthur Brooks called a “culture of contempt,” where we learn to disregard and even hate those we disagree with. This distrust has led Americans of all political creeds to lose faith in their systems of government. In many ways, the challenges we face in America are not political but rather cultural. Politics is downstream from culture, and for far too many, the cultural issues are often weaponized within a political infrastructure that increasingly rewards those who yell the loudest. Those of us who want to be a part of the solution should try and listen to an opposing point of view without disregarding their opinions out of hand because of their political affiliation. Progress can be made when our society becomes better at listening to one another, discerning multiple dimensions to people's motives and character, rather than putting everyone into the binary categories of "good people'' and "bad people".
Weatherford Capital
While the realities of Covid-19 and the political backdrop may not be inspiring, my partners and I still see significant opportunities in the future. Some of America’s greatest successes have come from its most challenging times. Think post-Civil War reconstruction, WWII’s “Greatest Generation,” or even how Americans rallied together after 9/11. Last year, Sam, Drew, and I decided to read David McCullough’s “The Wright Brothers.” It’s an amazing story about their journey to be the first to commercialize flight. Orville Wright is famously quoted in the book saying, “A bird cannot rise in a calm.” At Weatherford Capital, we aren’t intimidated by the noise or the winds around us. As we maintain our focus we continue to find opportunities and create value amidst the storms of uncertainty.
As we look back on 2021, we will remember it as an important milestone in our firm’s growth. In April, we had our final close for Weatherford Capital Fund I, our first committed capital fund structure with $355 million in committed capital and well above our target of $300 million. Just prior to that we led an investment into SOMA Global at the end of January. In August, we led an investment into High Definition Vehicle Insurance (HDVI), which was shortly followed in October by leading another investment into Coterie Insurance. As the year comes to a close, we’re humbled to announce that Weatherford Capital has become the largest private investment firm in the Tampa Bay region with approximately $700 million of capital under management. Most importantly, we continue to build a strong, values-aligned team with outstanding talent. In 2021, we welcomed four new teammates to the firm who are committed to our shared mission and desire to build something special.
2022 and Beyond
As we focus on the future, we could not be more excited about our prospects as a firm. Our early success in many ways is predicated on the quality of companies and leaders with whom we partner. The formula for a Weatherford Capital deal continues to be very straightforward. We look for incredibly talented leaders whose company is solving a real problem in a large segment of the marketplace, within an industry where there are macro tailwinds behind it. That formula is simple but yields powerful results. Perhaps the most exciting thing for us is that we feel like our company is still in its infancy. We have come a long way over the last few years, but we are just getting started.
Thank you for your trust, partnership, and commitment to us. We look forward to working together in the new year.
Happy 2022!
Will, Sam, and Drew Weatherford
