Law And More

Apollo Global Management - In Vision, Still the Gunslinger We Love

For Q2 2021 Apollo Global Management crushed it. 

As The Wall Street Journal reports, its private-equity portfolio increased faster than what had been happening in the broader market. In net income, it catapulted to $657.7 million, from $446.3 million a year earlier. The dividend is up too - 50-cents versus 49-cents in a comparable period last year. Meanwhile the assets under management increased to $471.8 billion from $413.6 billion in Q2 2020.

But the bigger news is the vision for the business. That's being engineered by the new Chief Executive Officer Marc Rowan.

Some of it is already playing out. For example, Rowan has been implementing its insurance strategy. Apollo had purchased the 65% of Athene that it hadn't owned. That, in turn, predicts Rowan, will be the platform for doubling its credit business in the next five years. 

Law firm Paul Weiss, chaired by Brad Karp, handled that $11 billion transaction. Here are the details provided by Paul Weiss:

"Apollo (NYSE: APO) and Athene (NYSE: ATH) have entered into a definitive agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction that implies a total equity value of approximately $11 billion for Athene. Under the terms of the transaction, each outstanding Class A common share of Athene will be exchanged for a fixed ratio of 1.149 shares of Apollo common stock. Upon closing of the merger, current Apollo shareholders will own approximately 76% of the combined company on a fully diluted basis, and Athene shareholders will own approximately 24%."

Rowan also envisions the firm's other two niches private equity and real assets will increase by 50% during that same five-year timeframe.

This enhanced focus of insurance is what is being watched.  As The Wall Street Journal puts it:

"The shift reflects Apollo’s evolution from a leveraged-buyout shop to a credit-investing powerhouse catering primarily to insurance companies looking to park reams of cash from selling retirement-savings products known as fixed annuities." 

The gawking is about if Rowan can pull it off and how lucrative this will turn out to be. 

The gunslinger behavior of Apollo's past has ended. Its outsized previous head Leon Black has stepped down. But Rowan's strategy retains that ethos of aggressive building. Currently that's on the foundation of insurance. 

Often Wall Street takes it on the chin because it is made up of, yes, gunslingers. Watchdogs suspect wrongdoing. The intensity, risk-taking, frantic pace of innovation, and the big money involved scare many. Also, the wealth acquired by those in the industry is cause for resentment. 

But most of the Wall Street gunslingers have proved out they shake off all that, take on what is the protective coloring of the new age, and adapt their products and services. Just look how they accommodated ESG investing - and essentially on their own terms and conditions. Apollo has situated itself quite nicely for the Biden Administration regulatory environment. 

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Madonna Badger - She Is So Back (including from all the litigation)

On LinkedIn Updates, ad executive Madonna Badger posts:

"So proud and excited to be a part of the #AdAge Hot List today with our work for #Olay. #Olay has pushed us to empower women with all of the work we do together. This #TokyoOlympics Ad with Aly Raisman celebrates the #PowerofaDream. Thank you Olay, together we really can #faceanything."

Badger is the chief creative officer and founder of Badger and Winters. 

Lawyers might know Badger's name from the litigation generated by the 2011 fatal Christmas morning fire in her Stamford, Connecticut This Old House. Finally in 2018, it was announced that was all done. 

But the larger world knows Badger on an intimate emotional and spiritual level. In that fire she lost her three young daughters and mother and father. Later, her former husband Matthew Badger died of a heart attack at a relatively young age. 

After that tragedy, Badger left her professional life and went out west to heal. We who followed her painful journey weren't optimistic that she could restart her life and ever do the high-powered "Mad Men" kinds of work which had been her brandname. 

But, come back she did.

She married a long-term friend.

There is award-winning Badger and Winters.

And she has extended her brand to advocate for the desexualization of females in advertising. That is to honor her three daughters.

Obviously, Badger is a guiding light for how the rest of us can navigate our current challenges. For my tribe it's been aging. 

Thank you, Madonna Badger, for coming back. We needed that.

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In-House Legal (as at Heidrick & Struggles) - Beyond Just the Legalese to Connecting with Human Touchpoints

In legal media, Mey Ly Ortz calls for in-house departments to ditch the legalese. 

Okay, that's not the first time we have heard that. 

What I have found more brand-killing for the corporation, which the in-house legal serves, is more basic. It's the inability and/or the unwillingess to simply be social. Man is a social animal. Yet, there is usually a total failure to ping on those human touchpoints. That's non-social. And law is about managing relationships among individuals and institutions. Without people, lawyers would go out of business.

Time for the joke.

The helicopter parent asks the famous lawyer what extracurricular activities her daughter should take up in order to prepare for a career in practicing law.

The parent puts out there: join the debating team?

The lawyer smirks. Nonono. Have her get a waitress job. That will put her in the catbird seat for observing and understanding human nature.

Law is a game in which those with the the deepest grasp of what humans are about (especially their dark side) are the most successful.

The model I cite over and over again for that is Brad Karp, chairman of law firm Paul Weiss. In his communications he is able to connect. Stunner: He really does that. The results can be magical. Like casting spells.

Well, let's time-travel back to when those in-house players I was encountering probably hadn't worked as waitresses and waiters. 

The story line: I perceived I was a victim of disrespect transmitted by a partner at Heidrick & Struggles. I had applied for a contract coaching position. As a result of what I experienced as shabby treatment I immediately withdrew my application for assignments. That was then, about a year ago. Right now it would go under the umbrella of "culture matters" and details of that encounter of what I perceived as of the worst kind would go viral. But that was then.

After the incident, I shared my concerns about the tone and content of that partner communication with the organization's leadership. That wound up in legal. The reply, as I explain in this article, was disembodied corporatese. I asked the lawyers there if I could share their non-engaging communications with my readers. After all, I do coach communications. No, they answered. Predictably.

So, what the hell is going on in-house? In law firms, there has been a growing sensititivity to creating communications in peoplespeak and peoplefeeling. An example had been Chuck Palmer's internal memo at the Atlanta office of Troutman Pepper about returning to the office. The world noticed. The world saluted that pivot from the kinds of communications which seem intended to encourage non-communication to hitting all the touchpoints.

Given the legal, political, branding, stock-price, and selling implications of the current focus on organizational culture, in-house legal has to begin to walk the line on engaging all constituencies. The growing ESG mindsets flag us vendors as key stakeholders.

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Subscribing to WSJ - Trapped in Screens

Business media is a competitive business, right. 

Yet, The Wall Street Journal, which is struggling to be relevant to those of us with shifting attitudes, makes it quite non-user-friendly to subscribe.

That's unusual.

To cover the contents of an article in Insider this past weekend, I signed up for an introductory trial offer. Great. I was in fast.

That was without, unlike the WSJ this morning, having to move through screen after screen. They requested everything ranging from why I read the WSJ to myriad preferences for receiving additional information from Dow Jones and others.

Advice to the leadership at WSJ: Engage with subscribers. Make it easy for us to hop on the train and stay on the train.

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The Great Consumer Economy - Already, Thinking Christmas

"Toy Makers Scramble as Shipping Snarls Threaten to Spoil Christmas - Companies race to import enough toys for holiday season and try to pass along higher shipping costs" - Omar Abdel-Baqui, The Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2021.

Okay, in some industries there are supply chain realities. They have to think Christmas (or any other big-shopping holiday) with an eye on the long game.

But for other industries a too obvious focus on Christmas can be counterproductive.

Over the weekend my flat screen TV went poof. I reseached on the internet what is its lifespan. Mine had already outlived it. The retailer I had gone into to purchase a replacement had, you got it, Christmas music playing in the background. It was a distraction. A baby boomer, I already had enough trouble figuring out the tech requirements for various flat-screen brands.

This frontloading current shopping with Christmasy anything might result in a non-hohoho. In the midst of a pandemic we might not welcome more stress - that is, decisions about what to buy or even whether to do that holiday this year.

With so much economic uncertainty, more of us over-45 are embracing the minimalist lifestyle. That is, we cruise the rest of our life gift-giving free. That's when age bias in employment is beginning. Generation documents how likely we are to be pushed out of the workforce and how difficult it is to loop back in. 

For those in that squeeze here is my guide on getting, holding, and moving on to better work, no matter one's age Download Outwitting ageism

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Activision Blizzard - Beyond the Lawsuit, Threatened Walkout, $8 Billion Drop in Stock Price to Question of Prevention

Workplace culture, again.

And again there is the issue of a leader's being tone-deaf.

That's what Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick admitted to being, reports Bloomberg Law. He did that to prevent a walkout of employees tomorrow. Here is his letter to constituents, including the employees.

That walkout was planned as a response to the corporation's perceived lack of an appropriate response to the filing of a discrimination lawsuit.

That complaint is "California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard."

Here is a copy of the complaint.

And here is the press release on that filing from that Department.

Essentially, it is an allegation of an "Animal House" type workplace culture. The more up-to-date language for this, of course, is "frat-boy culture."

In addition, as is becoming increasingly standard, today Kotick contracted with law firm WilmerHale to conduct an internal review of the accusations in the lawsuit. Meanwhile also today, the stock lost 9% of its value, documents Insider. Since the filing of the lawsuit last Friday the market value of the video-gaming company has gone down almost $8 billion. Activision Blizzard is known for its popular video games such as "Overwatch," "Call of Duty," and "Candy Crush."

Some of those observing this rapid unraveling of a supposed cool video-game brandname as overdue. The alleged frat-boy antics were supposedly long embedded in the culture. 

The smart crisis management today by Kotick is a sign that the corporation can turn this around. Investors can probably expect the stock to begin rebounding.

Unlike equally tone-deaf Eric Grossman at Morgan Stanley and Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase, Kotick fixed his initial blunders. Currently he is following the fundamentals of crisis management. Not only did he do his mea culpa. He also took the action of authorizing a respected law firm to do the kind of investigation which mainstream America found out existed during the allegations of sexual misconduct at Fox. Those actions send the right signals. 

However, the elephant in the room is this question: Could all this have been prevented? And, will investors begin to expect preventive measures. If they have not been taken, the CEO could be fired. Already, reports The Wall Street Journal, that is happening. It is more likely that CEOs will lose their positions for a failure in managing a social issue than a financial one.

If a corporation such as Activision Blizzard has on retainer a law firm or multiple law firms which have ESG practices (Environmental Social and Enviromental) couldn't there have been proactive guidance and actions taken? That is, those heading the ESG practices alert the client to the risks - legal, political, branding, stockprice, and customer relations - related to both values and actual behavior. Next, there are recommended initiatives. 

Do the current roles of lawyers, at least in ESG practices, include that of culture coach?

Some ESG practices such as the one created in April 2020 at Paul Weiss by Brad Karp are structured to cover that kind of territory.  Following is the mission statement. Note the language and tone are about guidance. 

"Business leaders face greater pressure to increase their organizations’ resilience while simultaneously addressing social issues of importance to stakeholders. Our advisory practice helps companies navigate the legal, business and political ramifications of developing and implementing ESG initiatives. We advise on matters such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, crisis management, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethics and compliance."

In addition, law firms such as Jenner & Block which have practices specifically focused on toxic workplaces also can come to provide proactive guidance. The target market for that would be businesses blind to how they are operating right on the cultural third rail. 

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Legal Marketing - Yes, Phone

Okay, how to communicate has become confusing. But legal marketers, including partners who have to keep bringing in business, better start making progress on that learning curve.

Case in point: When and how to keep in touch with current clients and prospects.

Law.com points out that general counsels do want to hear from their law firms. However, that's not happening enough.

No, you're not becoming a public nuisance in reaching out. The challenge is to do that with the sincere intention to be helpful. Also to do it smoothly. 

In addition, there's the issue of what medium to use. No, it doesn't brand you as uncool to call by phone. Actually it can be a plus for your interaction since the phone is an intimate medium. 

I landed a lucrative assignment with a public relations firm because I, unlike the Millennials also chasing after that work, was willing to hop on the phone. 

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Not the Millennial Way and Other Matters of Culture, Legalities and Innovation - From Jones Day to Wall Street to BigTech

"Financial transparency is an extension of the way young adults conduct the rest of their lives, including their openness on social media." - Svati Kirsten Narula, The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2021.

Another generational shift: Millennials regularly share information about their salary and other money issues. The implications are huge for old-line organizations like Jones Day which make it a matter of culture to keep compensation secret. In the war for talent, the Jones Days could find themselves quite unattractive to youth.

This goes beyond the numbers in the paycheck, of course. Cultural matters are huge. McKinsey & Co. found that culture directly impacts financial performance, creates differentiation (think brand), and accelerates the ability to adapt to change. 

And, increasingly, the members of the workforce are shaping the culture. That could mean, for example, remote is here to stay. The Conference Board survey found that 55% of Millennials are reluctant to return to the office. 

But it isn't only the Jones Days which have plenty of rethinking to do about the soft stuff - that is, values which create the human touchpoints (as well as the contractual policies) for a business.

Employee activism has become the norm in BigTech such as Apple and Amazon.

Media centers are making a list and checking it twice about what cultures are naughty and which are nice. Then they zero in with punitive coverage. Post the Trump phenomenon, that's the new clickbait. 

And, consumers expect the brands they're associated to walk the line in social justice.

The transformations which will be in play increasingly will involve law firm ESG (Environmental Social Governance) practices. They have to.

That's because the shift to a culture co-created by myriad constituencies is complex and characterized by plenty of passion. It can't avoid hovering near the third rail of legalities. Consumer activist Ralph Nader taught Everyman and Everywoman to go to court. Business should expect plenty of legal action.

Law firms had to anticipate this. And, in April 2020, law firm Paul Weiss, chaired by Brad Karp, did just that. It launched a comprehensive ESG practice which covers it all - soft and hard. 

Here's the short version:

"Paul, Weiss’s Sustainability and Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Advisory Practice helps clients develop integrated ESG strategies that safeguard corporate reputation, mitigate risk and leverage opportunity."

The edge that law firm has in this - both in branding and operationally - is that it also has been an early adopter in inventing new approaches to addressing social justice issues. Classic now is that COVID Resource Center it engineered through a collaborative effort with thousands of lawyers from other firms. Of course, that's been a life-saver, literally, during this Delta variant. 

Not hyperbolic: Only that kind of innovation in resetting cultures could prevent the diaspora of talent.

Meanwhile, Wall Street is already losing a generation of workers.

Top-down tech corporations like Apple could also find themselves in that pickle.

Jones Day? Time will tell.

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Apollo Fund Rebrands - Wealth Also Requires Reputation Restoration and Lots of Help from ESG Practices

"Father, forgive me. I had acquired wealth."

Finally, sizes up Bloomberg, the Apollo Fund is moving out of the shadow of scandal. Investors are re-committed. 

The specifics of the previous Apollo brand tarnishing included media-grabbing tidbits like association with Jeffrey Epstein. 

Okay, Epstein was a bad guy.

But the intensity of the hit to the Apollo brand and its one-time head Leon Black is not really about that, is it? The root of the self-righteous hysteria seems to be this: America's ambivalence about wealth. Both institutional and personal. 

On the one hand, the Puritan ethos had the acquisition of wealth as a the play-out of the right moral values. The lack of it was interpreted as a lack of those. That's not gone away. Shame on you. You're not on the list of billionaires under-40.  

On the other hand, there is the embedded meme: Money is the root of all evil. Had Black not possessed such personal wealth he wouldn't have been able to have become involved in a romantic dalliance resulting in a lawsuit against him and a countersuit by him, right. We're certain of that. We praise MacKenzie Scott for giving away so much of her wealth.

The problem is that the ambivance (along with the certitude) is growing. That means so much confusion. 

On an individual level, the Hamptons had become a symbol of decadence. The media does photos of disgraced "Today" executive Matt Lauer you know where: the Hamptons. 

As for institutional wealth. Where to begin. Yes, folks want the returns on their investments in public companies to be amazing. Simultaneously they want the corporations producing them not to showcase wealth in terms of power and influence.

No, they shouldn't be dictating where the employees are working from.

No, they cannot choose whom they want to hire.

No they can't just operate the business when there is so much suffering in the world. And, the brass is getting paid too damn much. Wall Street? You don't want your kid training there as a junior analyst. And as a lawyer do you want to work at a BigLaw firm representing Wall Street? 

A proven out public relations firm like Edelman might have to be parachuted in to design a campaign for rebranding wealth as an economic-growth necessity. It's like the car industry is the 1950s. What was good for GM was good for the creation of the middle class. Only the creation of more wealth now will restore that middle class. Tighten that up as a message.

In addition, corporate leadership has to get smarter about identifying where the landmines are on this one and how to not step on them. That's the rub. What was a standard value a month ago is verboten yesterday and today who the hell knows. Check your values before you start announcing policies this morning.

That's why law firms' ESG (environmental, social, goverance) practices may be evolving into the most critical service to current clients and to prospective ones. That could be inventing a new category of what law firms do, in addition to the traditional transactional and litigation segments. Actually, that could be more important than the latter two. Will law firms come to declare that the real business that they are in is saving American capitalism? Part of that is figuring out social justice for the clients.

Paul Weiss, chaired by Brad Karp, has captured that new core function of a law firm in how it has positioned and packaged its own ESG practice mission.

Essentially the language is code for how to succeed despite what's happening externally and internally (employee activism). The current cultural upheaval doesn't get corporations off the hook for producing over-the-top financial performance. But they better do that and communicate about that in ways that walk the line on the perception of wealth.

Here is the Paul Weiss mission:

"Business leaders face greater pressure to increase their organizations’ resilience while simultaneously addressing social issues of importance to stakeholders. Our advisory practice helps companies navigate the legal, business and political ramifications of developing and implementing ESG initiatives. We advise on matters such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, crisis management, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, ethics and compliance."

Meanwhile, the Delta variant has introduced more uncertainty. Folks don't like that. Individuals and organizations with wealth will likely be taking it on the chin. There could be greater expectations of help from them as well as vilification of what they are assumed to be about. Give us your money and get out of our sight.

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The Great Quit - Are Hollywood Assistants Next? (and what's the new model for earning a good living?)

"The Daily Beast spoke with 17 former and current support staff members who’ve worked as script coordinators, writer’s assistants, showrunner’s assistants, executive assistants, and production assistants. All of them said their jobs’ relentless demands and poor pay are unlivable. Even worse, they said, is doing this essential work in the same room as colleagues performing the same amount of labor for tens of thousands of dollars more than them." - Laura Bradley, Daily Beast, July 25, 2021.

Hollywood assisants could follow employees from Burger King, Chipotle and Dollar General out the door. 

However, when it comes to Hollywood assistants, mainstream America may not be sympathetic. After all, trying to break into Hollywood represents a wild dream. Hasn't the crazy economy since the post-9/11 recession chastened dreamers? Instead, get certified in X or Y field at the community college. Or, major in business or computer science in college.

In addition, as baby boomers well remember, our mothers hammered us to play it safe. For women it was to get a teaching certificate or train to be a nurse. For males it was a degree in accounting or to go the distance and plow through three years of law school. Glam? We were warned not to go there.

Then affluence filled the land. And the next generations were even encouraged to go to The Big City and pursue a glam career in whatever. Give it five years, they were told. The M.B.A. crowd, the lawyers - way too buttoned-down. 

Now, we could be circling back to extreme practicality in earning a living. When college students contact me for coaching they are caught between dream/glam and a career path that will pay off student loans and open them to those rites of passages such as starting a family.  

However that binary way of thinking might be total anachronism.

The Future of Work might create whole new models. Instead of careers in the traditional sense, Willis Towers Watson projects working as a continual path of acquiring new experience and skills. That will be the portfolio those wanting to make a good living will carry around. The game will be about income. That journey won't be linear. Last year the work was in apartment leasing. This year, by leveraging the regulatory part of that experience, it's a manager's position in a collection agency. Significantly more income. Title? Not so important. Status? Hey, that never did necessarily pay the bills. 

In a sense some of that has already kicked in. In marketing my communications and coaching boutiques the pitch is not the backstory or what's on a traditional resume. Instead it's about what I can accomplish right now for clients as a fee that fits that fits their budgets. Usually I leverage just-in-time experience. Pedigree? Not that relevant. The shift is to focusing on results. 

If those results are satisfactory to them then I can put all that in my portfolio. For now. Of course, there is extreme pressure to keep that portfolio up-to-date. Only very recent experience can be marketed.

Small changes can trigger big success in your career and your business communications. Also guidance for pre-retirement. Swing by for a complimentary consultation (janegenova374@gmail.com)