We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carl Hart a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Carl, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Since the beginning of 2020, I have been reading and hearing about the “Great Wealth Transfer” taking place all across the world.

I came to realize that it is a real thing happening after witnessing and observing some of the wealthiest and powerful people in the world bequeath their empires to the children or successors. Some exchanges of what I am talking is Rupert Murdoch stepping down as Chairman of Fox Corp and News Corp and instilling his son Lachlan as the new Chairman. We saw the same thing with George Soros stepping down from OSF (Open Society Foundation) and handing leadership to his son Alexander Soros. I saw the same with Ray Dalio at Bridgewater Associates describing his succession as a ” Dream come true”. We see Jamie Dimon actively looking his successor for JP Morgan Chase. This transfer of wealth and influence is happening at all levels; I have given you some of the most notable ones, but this new phenomenon is happening also across the spectrum of wealth and influence.

As I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I saw this movement as a once in a lifetime opportunity with a short window to partake in this wealth transfer. Now came the question of how? How do I make this happen.

I always say I came into finance through the back door, as I didn’t go to school to get any of the fancy degrees. I launched my first business in the Alt space through observation, common sense and pure grit. The only PHD I attained is in failure, each set back has been a steppingstone into a new dimension, provided empirical insights and built my resolve and made me even more hungry for success.

I deduced there was a large pool of baby boomers who had built great businesses over the last 3 decade; however, they have come to their retirement age but face a big problem; No succession. Their children do not wish to take over the unsexy, boring business which has funded their trust funds … They would much rather go become a youtuber or an influencer on IG… I knew that was my way in using Private Equity as a vehicle to acquire these midsized businesses. The majority of these businesses are operationally derelict, but profitable, I saw the growth potential in modernizing the archaic systems, streamlining the process and procedures using AI, erecting new verticals and expanding into new markets.

PE since 2022 had been in inertia, due to high interest rates, geopolitical instabilities and questionable post covid valuations… These factors caused fund managers to sit on the sidelines for some time, hence why there hasn’t been very few IPOs …
Things a starting to go back to pre-covid norms; The bigger PE firms are looking for deal flow with an appetite to write large cheques. This led me to craft our investment thesis. Which solves a problem for both the larger PE funds and baby boomer business owners. Our solution was, find businesses in a fragmented sector, exit the business owners on good, thrift negotiated terms, amalgamate these companies into what’s called a platform and sell the platform to a strategic buyer.

I did some diligence to deduce which environment was most enabling with a burgeoning market, I chose Dallas Texas, because it ticked all the boxes i.e. population growth, centrally positioned in the US, tax incentives, Texas Stock exchange opening… It is a state open for business and willing to immensely reward courage, guts and solution providers.

All of the above led me to relocate from London, England to Dallas, Texas to form Millbank Capital.

Carl, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

In my adolescent years, my dream was to play basketball, I dreamt of getting a scholarship to the US playing at college and eventually making it to the NBA. In retrospect, the probability of a 6.3” average 15-year-old kid in the Uk making it to the NBA was extremely small. But my drive and hunger overruled the reality… They call it “blind optimism” a very necessary mental posture any true entrepreneur must adopt at some point if you really want to see you vision come to fruition, because that’s the only thing that keeps you going when all hell’s breaking loose.

I got badly hurt during a training session, which subsequently lead to the demise of my basketball aspirations… For a little while I lost my sense of direction and drive, because I had only one plan.. To make it to the league. Now that wasn’t going to happen, I had to pivot and figure out what I was going to do with my life.

I attended a seminar one day, and sat next to a stranger, now a very good friend named Haydn. Haydn asked me what brought me to this seminar, I replied, I wanted to get into business and become a successful businessman. He then said something to me which changed the trajectory of my life.
Hadyn said to me ” Carl success leaves clues” I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that. So, I asked, what exactly does that mean. He said, Here’s some homework for you. ” Go and study 5 successful businessmen you know about and the industries they are in” If you see a successful pattern, follow it.

So, I did, I devoted time to learning about successful figures I revered. I stared with Athletes who transitioned from the court to the boardroom guys like Michaell Jordan, Magic Johnson, Arod… I observed that all these guys started or had a sizable real estate portfolio amongst other assets, but the common denominator was Real Estate. I saw that as my clue and decided I was going to get involved in the real estate game. But I had one big problem. I had no money. Money is essential to have if you are going to purchase anything, especially in Central London.

I came up with a strategy to get me going. Set up a brokage firm, find cash rich, time poor investors. These are your lawyers, dentists, C suites who make a lot of money but have no time … I’ll do all the leg work in sourcing and putting the deals together for single family investment opportunity, on the close of the deal, they’ll pay me a sourcing fee. I got really good at this. Then changed I changed the structure of the deal, I negotiated rather than my clients pay me a fee, we’ll do a profit split instead. They invest the money, I’ll do the heavy lifting on the project and we split the profits. Whilst this was happening my brokage business was evolving also, using my gregarious nature and gift I ingratiated myself with fund managers and family offices principals who mandated me to source bigger commercial real estate deals and other alternative investments. This opened me up into a whole new world of high finance, international business, travelling and deal structuring.

Fast forward today, what undergirds our business philosophy is the importance of relationships, I personally invest the time scrupulously to cultivate genuine relationships with our clients, partners and colleagues. This leads to trust and collaboration and a joint effort to deliver the results we set out to achieve.

Our moto in the Company is “Expansion, Always, In All Ways”; My vision for Millbank Capital is to become one of the new vanguards of our times. Financing the 5th industrial revolution across all industries. The likes of Larry Fink at Blackrock and Steve Schwarzman at Blackstone have created the blueprint we can use as a base to model global expansion. These guys are now stepping into their twilight years, they will not be around for too long. New players are emerging, I certainly see myself as one of the new faces in the business world, ready, willing and able to pick up the baton, and I’ll even go as far as saying usurp power and influence from the incumbents if necessary.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I remember in 2017, I was representing a big real estate developer in central London who wanted to buy a portfolio of central London flats in Mayfair, Kensington and Knightsbridge. The portfolio was owned by a Saudi Princess I was friends with; she was going through an acrimonious civil case and needed to divest. This was a very tough situation because the portfolio was structured incorrectly, proper management wasn’t in place, contracts were expired, she handed power of attorney to her lawyer. The deal was worth $14M my commission for delivering the deal was 10%. I was set to make $1.4M Life changing sum. So, I dedicated all my effort and time to getting all of these issues resolved.

I thought this deal would have been an easy deal to close as I knew the owner pretty well, but she handed all decision making to her lawyer who was hell bent on frustrating the deal closing. I hang his law office every day for 7 months, he never took any of my calls. It became a thing where I would ring and his receptionist knew my number off by heart, she would pick up the phone and say ” Hi Carl. Mr….. is not available to speak with you, we would then spend a few seconds chatting, then I’ll say, okay, speak with you tomorrow. This went on and on for weeks, months.

One day I had enough. I decided to jump in my car and drive to Reading, about 45 mins from London. I stormed into the office and refused to leave until I had spoken with the lawyer. I finally met with him as he was leaving the office…I managed to speak with him and convinced him to move forward with the deal.

I drove 45 mins back to London feeling accomplished, I had allocated my $1.4M commissions to various things I wanted and needed. I pulled up to my buyer’s office to inform him about the good news and what I just pulled off. He looked at me with a placid expression and said, I won’t be going ahead with this deal any longer Carl. I wanted to rip his fucking eyes out. It felt as though someone just punched me in the gut and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to let it go, pick myself up and move on to the next deal.

This was a big learning curve, this taught me, time is the biggest killer of deals getting done. Do not be attached to deals, do not spend the money in your head until the deal is signed, sealed and the wire has cleared in your account. You can do everything right and still not have the outcome you hoped for. This should not change or influence your work ethic; it’s a training ground to work on your craft and polish your skills.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Introductions from existing clients.

Nothing enables access and gives credibility faster than an introduction from a credible source. That’s the cheat code to growing a customer base. that’s half of the job done.

This only happens by under promising and over delivering for your clients, how you make people feel becomes your business card.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.millbank-co.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlhart_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-hart-5bba6661