Oaktree IPO filing: No salary for Howard Marks

June 20, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC


Lots of comp, but no salary

Oaktree Captial on Friday filed to become the next publicly-listed alternative asset manager. No big surprise, given that the credit-focused group was widely expected to slot in between Apollo Global Management (went public in March) and The Carlyle Group (expected to file in Q3).

Oaktree says it plans to raise $100 million (likely a meaningless placeholder), trade on the NYSE under ticker symbol OAK and use Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters. Four quick notes from the S-1:

1. Oaktree reports having raised 46 closed end funds since 1988. None of them have negative gross IRRs, and only two have negative net IRRs. Twelve of them have net IRRs in excess of 20%.

2. Oaktree’s “named executive officers” – including chairman Howard Marks – do not receive any salary or bonuses. They are entirely tied to equity grants, equity distributions and profit-sharing (read: carry).

3. Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh each hold a 15.86% pre-IPO stake. Oaktree has not yet reported how much either man will sell via the IPO.

4. “Trading volume for our Class A units on the GSTrUE OTC market has historically been limited, and during some periods, nonexistent.”