“First Wall Street began over three decades ago, embracing an entrepreneurial approach to commercial real estate, oil and gas, retailing, financial and insurance. These industries will obviously always remain key to our core strategies. However, now the global digitization of information and data, the internet, mobile devices, cryptocurrencies and other emerging technologies, have revolutionized markets over the past three decades. We will continue to bring together the capital that’s necessary to drive innovation and encourage additional investment for the future. I believe this continued acceleration of digitization and automation will continue to have new utilities, and that the entire infrastructure and architecture of finance as we know it will change.
We are proudly embracing the same entrepreneurial approach to these “new world” industries, which are those with impactful technologies such as Web3 decentralization, cryptocurrencies, the metaverse, and machine learning and artificial intelligence, that span the financial markets including media and entertainment, communications, and digital identity. While we have decades-long accomplishments and knowledge of hard assets and will continue to work with great companies in the verticals we first began, we have moved towards partnerships with younger, vibrant businesses built on these new technologies. Digital assets will become more widely recognized, and soon we will marvel as asset “avatars” will exist independently and also complement asset-heavy industries. Also, more than ever before in history, information, data, and identity have become more important globally, now that people are sharing and working together to find out-of-the-box solutions, we will continue to see innovation.
I have been fortunate enough to continue to work with some amazingly talented individuals throughout the 35 years and $35 billion of transactions, and frankly, have never been more energized about our future than now. First Wall Street built its success leveraging our relationships to overcome financial difficulties and create opportunities for our investors’ success, and I am excited that we will also focus on businesses developed around emerging technologies.”
