Abdul Al-Asaad worked in credit at Goldman Sachs, where he learned how the wealthy use borrowing differently than most people. While regular consumers use credit cards for spending, ultra-high-net-worth clients borrow to buy assets: private equity firms issue bonds for leveraged buyouts, billionaires borrow against stock holdings like Jeff Bezos did with Amazon shares, or finance purchases of mansions and art.
How did your journey, your background, get you to this point? Because it's a very unique story, and I want to dive into that. How did this get you to this point now?
So being working at Goldman Sachs, and I worked in credit at Goldman Sachs, I saw the power of credit. And what I noticed is institutional partners, institutional clients of Goldman Sachs, and high net worth clients of Goldman Sachs use credit fundamentally different than the average person does. Institutional partners of Goldman Sachs and ultra high net worth individuals, clients of Goldman Sachs, use credit to buy assets. So PE firms. They issue bonds, they borrow to buy a company. It's called leveraged buyout. Rich people borrow money to buy assets, whether it's a mansion, whether it's art, whether it's a company, whether it's stocks.
Jeff Bezos borrowed against stocks, right?
Everyday people use credit to consume. And every time we looked at consumer credit, you're like, what did the consumer use these loans for? It was oftentimes revolving credit cards that they used it to go to a trip to Vegas, or they used it to consume, or buy now, pay later.
