Welcome to Drumbeats, the must -listen -to podcast
which explains why Indigenous partnerships are
the key to securing successful outcomes in natural
resource and infrastructure investment in Canada.
I'm Mark McNack and my co -host Robert Brant
and I are joined today by Thomas Benjo, Chief
Executive Officer of Flowing River Capital. He
brings a track record of Indigenous leadership
recognized for advancing economic reconciliation.
and its focus on creating opportunities for Indigenous
people and future career pathways is to be recognized.
Today, we're exploring how Indigenous -led private
equity is transforming community wealth creation
and what this means for investors seeking authentic
partnerships in Canada. Thomas Benjo, CEO of
New Reformed Flowing River Capital. Welcome to
Drumbeats. Great to have you with us. Yeah, thanks
for having me. Yes, great to have you here, Thomas.
Thomas, before we jump in and talk about the
new fund, I know it's been a busy summer. You
launched earlier this summer, but let's first
talk about your upbringing and your background.
You've done a lot at a young age, but start with
where you're from and the community you're from.
Sure. Thomas Benjo, I'm from Muscapeding First
Nation, which is located here in Saskatchewan.
And Ben sort of started off my career at First
Nations University, had the opportunity to focus
my education on Indigenous business and Indigenous
governance. And that took me into the banking
world where I worked as a commercial banker with
RBC and served in a number of different responsibilities
and helped to participate on a number of new
initiatives, new lending opportunities for nations
across the country. And that then took me into
the opportunity to be... CEO for a tribal council
-owned investment firm based here in Saskatchewan
and had a very successful portfolio growth with
very little investment but was able to create
quite a portfolio of companies that have been
very successful here in Saskatchewan and Western
Canada. It's been great to be able to have that
experience and now bring that into the world
that we're now involved in, in private equity
and also served on a number of different boards,
still serving on a number of boards and including
the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. So trying to
ensure that there's Indigenous and sort of economic
reconciliation on the agenda. of those organizations
so that we ensure that our nations are not forgotten
about when we're talking about the economics
of this country. And for our listeners, especially
those outside of Canada, explain a little bit
about where your community is located. Yeah,
so we're right here in Regina, Saskatchewan.
My community is actually just about 35 minutes
outside of Regina. Um, very, uh, beautiful countryside,
very flat. We could see, uh, uh, dog running
for miles and miles away. So, um, but, uh, we're,
we're right along the valley as well. So very
beautiful part of, uh, part of the country. And
my family's been here for, uh, generations and,
uh, uh, we are Dakota and Cree, uh, and Soto,
uh, family. So, uh, we have a bit of a mix of,
of different, uh. tribal affiliations here but
uh it's good to sort of have that experience
from uh the different tribes in the territory
all plains tribes and uh we're able to bring
of course a lot of those teachings into the work
that we we do as an organization uh growing up
was there somebody or something that shaped your
values was there a moment in time where you you
decided on uh a path of business and finance?
Yeah, well, it was, I was actually raised by
my grandfather. So he's a very hardworking farmer
and raised my brother and I. And so his work
ethic is untapped. It's just, you know, he's
constantly working on something. If he wasn't
in the field, he was working on. fixing things
or helping in the community. So he really drove
that sense of community responsibility into us
as a family and ensured that we earned everything
that, you know, we gained within our family.
And so I think just that work ethic from him
and he always put education first. He recognized
that. You know, he wasn't able to get a more
formal education, but he was going to ensure
that his kids and his grandkids had the appropriate
education. So he's probably, you know, my biggest
mentor and person I looked up to the most. you
know, post -secondary. And I've always wanted
to be a CEO, an Indigenous CEO of an Indigenous
firm and be able to help community. And, you
know, things have shifted a little bit now that,
you know, I get to do this as an entrepreneur
and, you know, and still focus on the things
that, you know, I value most and being able to
help. within the community. So I get the best
of both worlds in the role I'm in now. It's amazing
how often grandparents come up in our conversations,
isn't it, Mark? Yes, it certainly is. Big influence
for everyone. And you, Thomas, started out in
the non -Indigenous business world, talked about
RBC and other positions. What challenges? did
you face as an Indigenous business person in
a non -Indigenous business world? Well, I think
I wouldn't say, well, I guess there was challenges,
but I think I was a bit more naive sort of going
into the banking world. I had a number of opportunities
to work for several. financial institutions and
just had sort of my pick of the litter of where
I wanted to go. But it was actually a story that
was told from someone from RBC that sort of caught
my interest. And, you know, they spoke to me
more about the impact that they were creating
in the community in working directly with First
Nations and Métis communities and supporting
them with banking. Because, you know, I thought,
well, we're, open up some accounts, help with
some lending, and, you know, hopefully things
go well. But they spoke more about, you know,
how do we help make change? How do we, you know,
challenge the status quo of sort of what's happening
and how do we create more economic opportunities?
So I always had that in the back of my mind,
sort of going into RBC, and I didn't realize
there were certain rules about, you know, not...
reaching out to your more superior leaders within
the organization. And I often found myself emailing
senior executives from time to time just because
I was curious about some of the strategies that
they were embarking upon. So I think that helped
to sort of highlight my interest in sort of supporting
the institution and supporting some of the strategy
around how do we How do we help more First Nations
across the country? How do we remove some of
the bottlenecks? And so I was able to be a part
of some of the very early stages of the legal
expense financing, had the opportunity to influence
some of the Indigenous engagement strategy with
the executive team. And I think just, you know,
in that experience alone. allowed me to do something
a little different. And the goal always was to
try to help our communities. The initial goal
was to make sure that they know how to access
banking services, know how to leverage banking
services to the best of their ability as a community.
But the next sort of stage of growth was how
do we create economic opportunity where they
actually have capital to access to be able to
go. into investments. And so that's sort of where
things started. And then being able to move into
the career around Indigenous investment allowed
me to get more into the weeds around why are
things not working? Why do our communities struggle
to find success in business? What are some of
the policy factors that are affecting their ability
to be successful in business? So I think being
in the weeds for a number of years and being
able to work through some of those challenges
has really opened my eyes to the things that
we really need to start to focus on. And, you
know, we often create a lot more complexities
around Indigenous participation in business when,
you know, the answers are already there. The
business community has already been in this space
for so long, but we continue to. You know, people
are good intention, but sometimes they create
rules and policies and programs that sometimes
don't make sense and sometimes actually create
more barriers for First Nations participation.
And so, you know, we have to be able to sort
of work through and be, well, I would say just
use more common sense around how we approach
investment. You know, when we think about investing
on large scale, well, you need private equity,
right? And that's the space we're in. And, you
know, there's not many of us in terms of, you
know, Indigenous private equity folks. And so
it's our job to sort of trailblaze and pioneer
in the space and make sure that we're educating
people along the way so that we're not being
given a set of rules that don't make sense. we
need to be able to challenge some of those rules
and make things a little easier so that future
Indigenous fund managers will have a lot more
success and not have as many challenges that
we've had sort of getting started. Just before
we get into the discussion of flowing river,
you have a lot of operator experience. Yeah.
Can you share with our listeners and viewers
some of that? Because I'm sure they'll find that
fascinating, the approach you took to grow Indigenous
businesses in Saskatchewan and beyond. Yeah,
well, I mean, not having access to capital. And
I think that's one of the more exciting things
that, you know, an adventure that we're on is
that, you know, now we're in a space where we
can actually raise capital and have access to
capital. But for the past number of years, I've...
done this without access to capital. You know,
the communities we worked with all committed
to a $10 investment each. So that's 11 First
Nations putting in $10 each. But being able to
leverage relationships, being able to leverage
and influence policy changes, being able to work
through some of the government programming, as
frustrating as it can be sometimes, we had to
leverage everything that was at our fingertips.
And so I think just having good management teams
was one of the critical components of us being
successful, but also having patience. Because
working with First Nations, the social needs
are often very, very high. And so a lot of our
communities want instant cash flow as soon as
we invest in a new company or acquire. um when
you know in the investment world we know it's
a bit of a buy and hold and allow that cash flow
to grow and reinvest and and continue to uh you
know make your your capital programs work well
um and grow your teams right so you can grow
and scale and continue to see success that way
um so i i think you know just some of that uh
operating experience being boots on the ground
working through some of those challenges being
very strict about how we work and grow Indigenous
capacity with my non -Indigenous partners was
very critical for us to see that success and
so now being able to again bring it on to this
side now where you know we will have access to
capital plus we have the playbook in place. That
should ensure that we're a lot more successful
a lot quicker and be able to hopefully model
this for others again, other Indigenous investors
in the future. Hopefully they'll be able to take
that torch and run a lot further. So can you
also then tell the story of Flowing River Capital?
How long it took you from idea to set up some
of the challenges along the way and story for
other listeners to appreciate what you've been
through? Yeah, well, it's an interesting story.
I mean, the four partners, we're actually all
friends from university. We've all went to the
same business school, University of Regina slash
First Nations University. So Cadmus and I, Cadmus
Delorme, who's former chief of Cowessess First
Nation, very successful time spent as a chief
and really put a focus on economic opportunities
for his community. We are best friends. We've
actually been in student politics together and
did a number of things over the years, but we're
very, very close. Our families are very close.
And we've always supported each other's careers
as we've sort of gone along. And then we have
Tyler Willicks, who's, you know, one of the best
originators in, I would say, in the province.
And he's been able to work in the investment
space as well, more than M &A. uh sort of focus
and has helped a number of organizations in saskatchewan
go public so he has you know some of that experience
and again student politics brought us together
while we were students um and then we have eric
clark who's uh our real technical uh private
equity guy who comes from that space who's worked
his whole career there and um even as a student
he was a pretty astute investor created the first
investment club at the university and uh has
been very successful in that space and so you
know he has all the technical uh capacity as
our our cfo and uh you know bringing the four
of us together uh bringing both the the non -indigenous
side of the uh their experience and and their
relationships that they have within community
and then bringing you know cadmus and i's more
indigenous focused experience into the space
i think is something that's very very unique
to our business model and something that i don't
see reflected in a lot of other organizations
across the country but having that that close
relationship over the years and being able to
sort of go out and experience and build careers
successful careers and now coming back as partners
you know it's been a little over two years now
that we've sort of been working on this and it's
always been an idea but now being able to sort
of fully move into the space and Doing it at
a very interesting time in economics with all
the things that are going on in the world has
been interesting. But I think just with all of
the changes and the focus on economic reconciliation,
I think it's an absolute perfect time for us
to say, look, this is a real time for us to stop.
Assuming that Indigenous people don't have the
capacity to do this, we do have the capacity.
um we just need that opportunity to to demonstrate
that that we we are here and uh we can build
successful companies um as a people and so having
those right partners around the table allows
us to do that and it's been an exciting journey
so far and i mean even without our fund we've
already made some investments and you know started
some other companies just to demonstrate that
you know we're We're a train that's moving and,
you know, we're not stopping. So we're not letting
things slow us down. We just, you know, keep
finding ways to keep making more and more investments.
And once the fund is fully up and rolling, you
know, we're going to have access to capital now
to really unlock a lot of the other big opportunities
we have in the pipeline. Yeah, congratulations
again on getting launched. It's, as you said,
it's not an easy time. especially for first funds.
Have you raised new money at this point, or is
it the founders' capital that you're working
with? We do have commitments from several institutional
investors, and so we're sitting at around $35
million raised. Our hope is to try to get to
first close at $50 million. We were going to
try to close more at $100 million, I think closing
at $50 million on our first close, we'll be able
to just immediately demonstrate, here's how successful
of a portfolio or a pipeline that we have in
place. And hopefully that will encourage more
folks to come on board as we push to that $100
million mark. And like I said, the pipeline,
the opportunities that are coming to us, these
are... For most investment firms, it would be
considered rare gems. And for us, it feels like
we're getting these rare gems on a pretty regular
occasion. So it's been very exciting to see these
types of opportunities sort of hit our desk.
What's the investment strategy? It sounds like
it's not just passive investments. The main thesis
is to acquire companies that are in good alignment
to the Indigenous procurement policies that exist
across the country. billions of dollars in commitment
that either governments, resource sector, utilities,
service sector, they're all committing to economic
reconciliation in some form. And the majority
of those organizations have committed to a specific
spend around Indigenous businesses. And so they're
really looking at their supply chains. And so
the model that I've always focused on has always
been well, how do we acquire good companies that
are in those supply chains? I've, you know, out
of sort of necessity, I've had to just create
new companies based on the previous model was
creating new companies so that we can access
those supply chains. But now having access to
capital, now we can actually just go out and
buy very well run companies, very well managed
companies. um indigenize them and bring our playbook
into those organizations and then go back out
to market and share with our uh customer base
um that these companies that you know have already
been in their supply chain have already had tremendous
success are going to be um you know indigenized
overnight and we are going to come back with
a bit of a different approach on how we develop
Indigenous capacity more strategically within
those organizations. And, I mean, I do get questions
sometimes because folks think that, you know,
we're going to come in and change 50 % of the
staff over to Indigenous people overnight. And
I tell them that's not recommended. You know,
there is... you know a good mixture of how we
do that over time and and build indigenous capacity
in those spaces because a lot of these companies
have very highly technical requirements and so
it takes a little bit of time for us to develop
indigenous talent well in that space and you
know there's been a recipe that has made those
businesses successful to start out and so you
don't want to um hurt that recipe too too much
or mix in new ingredients that affects its ability
to be successful as a business we always got
to focus on the business's success first and
work within those teams work within the hr teams
to develop the indigenous capacity over time
that's always been sort of the focus and It's
been how I've approached growing Indigenous talent
in other companies, and it's worked well for
us. And I often tell our customers to have patience
because it's some of their expectations. It's
just part of some of the policies that exist
when they're going through RFPs. They expect
you to have a very high percentage of Indigenous
participation from staff, and sometimes that's
not realistic. um i often tell my my non -indigenous
leaders i said you leave that conversation to
me um because they need to they need to hear
it from me that you know your expectations are
unrealistic sometimes so these are just some
of the things that the challenges you know from
an operations perspective that we often face
as indigenous businesses and um We sometimes
forget about the end goal. It's the end goal
here is to build successful Indigenous -owned
businesses. And that doesn't necessarily mean,
you know, having a 50 or 100 % Indigenous talent
pool. It means, you know, making sure that our
values and our systems and our operations, our
work culture understands that they are working
for an Indigenous organization and that our values
are really shining through. And I think when
you've bought up some of these primarily non
-Indigenous firms, if I understand correctly,
they also get access to new opportunities because
they are Indigenous owned. So it's also an opportunity
for growth for these firms who may have been
very comfortable business, but restricted in
terms of future growth. Is that correct? Absolutely.
That's one of the things that our CFO... has
shared you know when when you look at you know
traditional opportunities and in private equity
you know the strategy when you're going in is
um you know you you take some equity ownership
you use some capital to help with some of the
growth um and you just get uh you know you build
some more efficiencies in the business to try
to churn a better value for the company. But
in our case, we can actually grow top line revenue
growth because we would be opening up the portfolio
to new clients, new relationships. And we have
a pretty significant relationship with several
very large corporate organizations with governments
and I mean our network between the four of us
is quite vast and you know it's not difficult
for us to be able to pick up the phone with an
executive and be able to explain what it is that
we're doing and what new companies we have that
can that are participating in their supply chains
for us to be able to sort of navigate those waters
a little quicker. Rather than showing up with
a brand new business and really having to pound
pavement to try to get some new contracts, those
relationships are already established. And again,
having the ability to buy companies that already
have an established reputation of doing good
work, it just enhances our ability to do more.
and be able to negotiate differently on how we
approach some of the opportunities with the clients.
And will you be looking at businesses across
the prairies and beyond or primarily Saskatchewan
or going north? So a lot of our strength is in
Western Canada, just given the companies that
we currently work with. But there are opportunities
right now in our pipeline where they are outside
of the prairie provinces. Obviously, you want
to play to your strengths, especially as a new
fund manager. But like I said, there are opportunities
even outside of the prairie provinces that we
have access to. And, you know, we do have a couple
of investment opportunities that, you know. go
even beyond Canadian borders. And so very excited
about those opportunities. And as long as we
can see that we're bringing tremendous value
to that business, it's something that we'll likely
pursue. Is there a sector focus, Thomas, or is
it broadly anything procurement related? It's
pretty broad just because the procurement requirements
and I mean obviously because historically the
sectors that have really been advancing Indigenous
participation has been sectors like resource
sector and I often get this sometimes from some
of the other fund managers when they ask about
our participation in the resource sector. And
of course, some of them have rules about participating
in the resource sector. But I tell them you might
want to rethink the policy there because that
is where participation started for Indigenous
businesses. A lot of it is based out of some
of the policies and the license to be able to
do business in certain territories. So impact
benefit agreements play a big part in Indigenous
participation in the resource sector. And so
those organizations have been in this space for
a very long time. They've pioneered their own
policies on Indigenous participation. So when
we think about, well, who's the most mature sector
that will be willing to support more Indigenous
participation, it's going to be the resource
sector. And then you're likely going to have
government and utilities as sort of, you know,
your second line of sectors. And we're now starting
to see more financial institutions, service type
of organizations, manufacturing. You're starting
to see them start to make some commitments around
Indigenous participation. But everything right
now, our greatest strength is in the resource
sector. And so, again, we've got to play to our
strengths. And I think another one that's really
emerging, and especially with the political climate,
has been defense. But that, again, ties back
to some of the federal government's commitment
around the Indigenous spin. You also have another
initiative called One Hoop, which is a consulting
firm. Why don't you tell us a little bit about
that? Yeah, thanks, Mark. You know, when we formed
Flowing Over Capital, it wasn't actually the
intention to go out and create a consulting firm.
But when we started to sort of talk about what's
actually happening in community, what's happening,
you know, across the country and, you know. We
looked at our sphere of influence as Indigenous
leaders across the country and how do we move
the needle on economic reconciliation? How do
we move the needle on building better relationships
with Indigenous communities? And I think just
the experience that both myself and Cadmus bring
to the table. We're connectors. We've helped
to connect some pretty significant relationships.
And we've also influenced a lot of major policy
changes across the country. I've been involved
in the commitment with the federal government
on the 5%. I was part of the team that got it
across the finish line. And, you know, Cadmus
set some pretty unprecedented policies around
child welfare, around some of the unmarked graves.
And so we've had some sort of historical things
that we've done in our past that have helped
to move the needle. And so when we spoke about
the work that needs to be done with Indigenous
private equity, we said, look, there's... There
is a lot of work and a lot of policy work that
needs to continue to happen in order for that
to be successful. And so the job there was, you
know, create a consulting firm that can go out
there and influence the market and help to build
a better understanding of why Indigenous engagement
is so important for. not only corporate, but
for government, for our own communities to be
able to participate, being able to have some
insight around some of the challenges that they're
facing and be able to build a team. And so we
needed more young people to have a place to hang
their hat and be able to take some of the experience
that we've gained as leaders and be able to run
with that in the community. and hopefully build
them up as leaders. And it's a bit of training
grounds for them to start out there and hopefully
come and participate in other parts of the business
as we continue to invest in more and more companies
and more industries. And so we felt that that
was really important. And it was meant to help
to continue to... move the needle in terms of
more active participation with, whether it's
Indigenous community or ourselves in economic
opportunities across the country. Great, thank
you. And if you haven't already, with some of
your acquisitions, been dealing with foreign
investors or foreign -owned companies, I would
assume that's in your radar going ahead. How
would you be talking to a foreign investor? What
makes... your firm differentiated? Yeah, I think
what's really important is for a foreign investor
to sort of look at placing any of their capital,
let's say with a flowing river, they need to
know that we know what's happening in terms of
the boots on the ground. They need to know that
we at least have a sphere of influence. So that
when we show up and talk about our investment
thesis, that it's not something that's just out
of thin air. We've actually lived it. We breathe
this work every day. We've influenced it. We've
had success. And when we deal with challenges,
we're able to... work through those challenges
very quickly because of that level of experience.
And so we're not just talking about, you know,
how to look at Indigenous investment. We do it,
right? And we have that experience. And so knowing
that our influence as leaders... um goes um even
beyond just being an uh you know a fund manager
that we have actually have the ability to influence
significant government policy changes as leaders
that is something that i think fund managers
just don't have access to right or they don't
uh you know some of the fund managers may not
have the sphere of influence with customers the
way that we do So that is very unique to our
approach. And so when we talk about finding success
with the portfolio of companies that, you know,
we'll invest in, we have a game plan in place.
And, you know, we wouldn't choose something just
because it looks flashy. We're choosing businesses
that actually make really good sense for us and
that we have our greatest strengths working for
us. able to play into that network that we have.
So I think that's what really differentiates
us as new fund managers. Thank you. And as we
head into the autumn, all Canadians are expecting
to see something different over the next few
months in terms of how the country works together
and what projects are initiated. Do you have
any perspective on that that you'd like to share?
None of us have a crystal ball. But you're on
the ground in the prairies, the heart of the
country. So what's your view on? So the big things
that I'm seeing right now, obviously everyone's
talking about the loan guarantees that have been
committed to. I know a lot of the organizations
are still working through some of their policies
and approaches to how we leverage those opportunities
more effectively in community. We've been having
our constant conversations because with the investments
that we make, we do want First Nations to be
investing alongside us so that they can learn
from our approach and that they can someday,
you know, our hope is that, you know, when we
go out and we invest capital with our LPs, that
eventually these nations will take over those
investments. at a much higher ownership percentage
and be able to fully transfer that capacity over.
And so I think with those opportunities, we need
to be very good at what's happening in the market,
which are loan guarantees. And so our team is
working through those processes to ensure that.
When we are looking at new investment opportunities,
we're also working directly with communities
to bring them into the equity ownership and have
them learn for us over the next seven to 10 years
as we build a successful business together, but
also look at our exit over time. And hopefully
at that point, those nations are in a much better
position to... um have stronger teams uh to have
the oversight to have the management capacity
um to manage those uh uh portfolios of companies
uh in the future so um yeah that that you know
crystal ball wise i i think just continue to
um monitor the uh loan guarantees and it's uh
it's a fantastic way for communities to actively
participate in the economy and do it at a much
more substantial scale because of the size and
scale of infrastructure projects and just because
of the way that capital is moving in the markets.
There's not as much capital available, especially
in Western Canada right now. You know, things
like resource investment, resource sector investment.
So the only way that these organizations are
going to gain access to any capital is through,
you know, looking at the capital that nations
will be able to access through the loan guarantee
program. Personally curious, Thomas, what keeps
you grounded? You've got a lot of balls in the
air, but what keeps you grounded? What do you
like to do for fun or to? As a hobby, how do
you spend your spare time? Well, we're a powwow
family and we're very involved in sports. So
all throughout the summer, if you're not seeing
me in the boardroom or in meetings, on the weekends,
I'm competing at powwows across the prairies
and into the U .S. So our family is very, very
involved in powwow. And it's our way of grounding
ourselves and just being in community. And it
also helps us teach our kids a number of lessons
and being able to, you know, I had this conversation
with my wife actually on the drive home the other
night. And it was a very late drive home. And
we were just saying, you know, it's a very different
feeling. being a part of powwow because we we
form relationships and we form new families with
folks that are not our you know directly connected
to our bloodlines but we we create these family
relationships with folks right across indian
country and it's been very good for us as a family
and my my oldest is now you know technically
an adult and You know, she was powing for her
first time on her own this summer. And, you know,
we had a bit of worries. Is that drumming or
dancing? Dancing. We all dance. But she went
out on her own this summer with her boyfriend.
And they went to quite a number of pows throughout
the summer. And we didn't, after the first few
pows, we didn't have to worry so much because
we had so much family out there taking care of
her and making sure that she's. fed and that
she's braided up and feeling good about being
out there. So that's what keeps us grounded is
the, you know, being part of that powwow family
and those relationships that we build. And then,
of course, sports. My kids are all in very competitive
sports, whether that's hockey, basketball. My
girl's in college. She goes to, she plays basketball.
Uh, my, my other two are in multiple sports from,
uh, hockey. I have two goalies now. Um, and,
uh, they keep us very, very busy throughout the
year. So, um, we're always, uh, always in community
doing the, the sports or, or powwow. So that,
uh, that keeps us really grounded. Love it. We
just had the Tyendinaga powwow, uh, recently,
uh, and good crowds again. Uh, The drumming,
the dancing, and don't forget the food. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's always good. Thank you, Thomas. It's
been wonderful to have you on the podcast with
us. And Robin, I've enjoyed the conversation
very much. Yeah, thanks for having me, Mark.
And, you know, hopefully we're having a regular
conversation. I know there's a lot of things
on the go. You know, as we continue to see success
as Indigenous fund managers, we're always willing
to share those good stories and hopefully encourage
more Indigenous individuals to move into this
space. And that's all that I ask for at the end
of the day is that our young people continue
to carry that torch forward and hopefully move
at even faster speeds than we can. I know that's
economic reconciliation is the horse that pulls
the cart, right? Yes. Well, hopefully we all
see that in the future. Absolutely. And don't
have to wait seven generations. No. Hopefully
we can move that to one generation. Yes, that'd
be great. Great to talk to you and exciting to
hear about Flowing River Capital. and the exciting
opportunities that are going to flow from that
new enterprise. Yeah, thanks, Rob. Appreciate
it. Thank you to Thomas Benjo for sharing his
insights with us. And thank you for viewing and
listening. Mark your calendars for the upcoming
2026 Summit taking place on the 8th of April.
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listening to Drumbeats. Until next time.