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Ask Carlo™ | Private Equity, Simplified

Ask Carlo™ | Private Equity, Simplified

By: Carlo Schneider
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How do investors turn millions into billions? Every Tuesday, one real deal - the strategies, the industries, the outcomes. From leveraged buyouts to venture capital. Manufacturing to fashion. Infrastructure to classic cars. Thirty years inside European private markets, now shared through storytelling. Economics Management Management & Leadership Personal Finance
Episodes
  • Episode #7: Secondary Buyouts – From £18M to $1.35B in 16 Years: THE JIMMY CHOO STORY

    Episode #7: Secondary Buyouts – From £18M to $1.35B in 16 Years: THE JIMMY CHOO STORY
    Mar 16 2026
    Venice Film Festival. Red carpet. A woman in a crimson gown catches the light — and so do her shoes. Jimmy Choo. The brand that turned footwear into art. But here’s the remarkable bit: it began in a small East London workshop in 1996, valued at just £18 million. Over the next 16 years, four private equity firms would each buy it, transform it, and sell it on — every time at a higher price. The final exit: $1.35 billion. A 75-fold increase. In this episode, you’ll discover: How Phoenix Equity Partners spotted an £18M brand hiding inside a couture workshop — and what they did to make it scalable The “relay race” of ownership: why Jimmy Choo changed hands four times in 16 years, and why each buyer paid more Lion Capital’s playbook: leverage, Asian expansion, and turning a shoe brand into a full luxury lifestyle house How TowerBrook survived the 2008 financial crisis, doubled the store count from 60 to 120, and still delivered a 2.8x return Why Labelux (JAB Holding) paid £525.5M, took Jimmy Choo public on the London Stock Exchange, and then sold to Capri Holdings for $1.35 billion Entry and exit multiples explained: how Lion Capital doubled their money even as the valuation multiple compressed The house renovation analogy: understanding secondary buyouts in 60 seconds What Tamara Mellon’s criticism tells us about the tension between brand purity and PE-driven growth This is Ask Carlo™ | Private Equity, Simplified. Real deals. Real strategies. Real billions. No jargon, just compelling stories from 30 years inside European private markets. ————————————————————————— TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 – Cold Open: The Red Carpet and the £18 Million Brand [TIME] – Introduction & Disclaimer [TIME] – Act One: The Setup – East London Workshop to Sex and the City Sensation [TIME] – Act Two: The Relay Race – Phoenix, Lion Capital, TowerBrook & Labelux [TIME] – Act Three: The Outcome – $1.35 Billion and the Pattern of Luxury PE [TIME] – Jargon Buster: What Is a Secondary Buyout? (The House Analogy) [TIME] – Ask Carlo: Isabella from Milan – Who Actually Loses in the Relay? [TIME] – The Numbers: Entry vs Exit Multiples Explained ————————————————————————— LINKS: TikTok: @ask.carlo Instagram: @travel.renaissance.man #AskCarlo #PrivateEquity #SecondaryBuyout #JimmyChoo #LuxuryBusiness #EuropeanFinance #Investing #LBO #Buyouts ————————————————————————— NEXT WEEK: The Channel Tunnel — the most ambitious infrastructure project in European history. A £4.6 billion estimate that ballooned to £9 billion. A financial disaster that nearly bankrupted everyone involved. And how patient infrastructure capital eventually turned it into an €8 billion success. That’s infrastructure investing. —————————————————————————
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    16 mins
  • Episode #6: Growth Equity - The Founder who refuses to sell

    Episode #6: Growth Equity - The Founder who refuses to sell
    Mar 9 2026
    London, 2018. A 33-year-old former Lehman Brothers trader sits in a modest flat, running a banking app with 3 million users. Traditional banks dismiss him. Regulators are cautious. Most venture capitalists want board control.DST Global sees something different. They invest €234 million for a minority stake at a €2 billion valuation – without taking a single board seat. Seven years later, Revolut is valued at €75 billion.Here's how. You'll discover:- Why Nikolay Storonsky's experience at Lehman Brothers during its collapse shaped every decision that followed- How DST Global structured a €234M minority investment using protective provisions instead of operational control- The four pillars of Revolut's scaling strategy: geographic conquest, product explosion, brand warfare, and infrastructure- Why growth equity sits between venture capital and buyouts – and why it's the fastest-growing segment in private equity- Revenue multiples explained: why Revolut trades at 31x revenue while Barclays trades at 1–3x- The luxury watch analogy: understanding valuation multiples in 60 seconds- How minority investors protect a €234M position without a board seat. This is Ask Carlo™ | Private Equity, Simplified. Real deals. Real strategies. Real billions. No jargon, just compelling stories from 30 years inside European private markets.
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    17 mins
  • Episode #5: Both Sides of the Table: From Entrepreneur to Investor

    Episode #5: Both Sides of the Table: From Entrepreneur to Investor
    Mar 9 2026
    What does an entrepreneur see that a career investor might miss? And what changes when that entrepreneur crosses the table to become the one writing the cheques? In this episode, I welcome Shanu Sherwani — a private equity professional with a rather distinctive trajectory. He started as an entrepreneur, moved into fund management, and now serves as Chief Investment Officer of a single family office. That dual perspective — operator and capital allocator — shapes everything: how he assesses opportunities, how he reads people, and how he thinks about risk. We cover considerable ground: — The shift from founder to funder: what surprised him, and what stayed exactly the same — Decisions driven by instinct rather than consensus — and when the numbers alone simply are not enough — The gap between PE theory and the rather messier reality of deploying capital — What people consistently get wrong about risk (not the textbook version — the lived one) And in the spirit of genuine conversation, Shanu turns the questions on me. We discuss managing across multiple disciplines, the European perspective on private equity, and a few things I wish I had known rather earlier. Whether you are curious about private equity, considering a career shift from operations to investing, or simply enjoy an honest exchange between two professionals who have been on both sides of the deal — this one is for you. This is Ask Carlo™ | Private Equity, Simplified. Real deals. Real strategies. Real billions. No jargon, just compelling stories from 30 years inside European private markets. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly episodes every Tuesday. 📬 CONNECT: Instagram: @travel.renaissance.man 💬 SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NEXT EPISODE: next week – growth equity. How DST Global invested €234 million in Revolut at a €2 billion valuation in 2018 and watched it grow to €29 billion. The strategy, the scaling, the returns. But first, next week: our first Ask Carlo Interview. A family office executive, former fund manager, and entrepreneur shares their personal story in and around private equity. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT ASK CARLO™: I have spent 30+ years co-managing billions across European private markets – buyouts, venture capital, growth equity, real estate, infrastructure. Every Tuesday, I share one real deal to help you understand how sophisticated capital actually works. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, or any other type of professional advice. Always consult qualified professionals before making investment decisions. Educational only. Not investment advice. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #PrivateEquity #RealEstate #LuxuryProperty #Milan #HeritageRestoration #PropertyInvestment #Finance #AskCarlo #InvestmentStrategy #EuropeanPerspective #REPE #ValueAdd © 2026 Carlo Schneider. All
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    34 mins
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