The Network Effect
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The Network Effect
Transforming Loan Distribution with Sean Tai
How can the future of loan distribution technology reshape global financial markets?
Join us as we chat with Sean Tai, the mastermind behind Debtdomain and current head of business development at ILEX, about his journey through banking and fintech. Sean’s extensive experience spanning over three decades provides a rich perspective on the evolving landscape of loan distribution. Discover how ILEX is pioneering innovative solutions in Europe and Asia with products like investor CRM, analytics, and private credit.
Throughout our discussion, Sean reveals the challenges and opportunities in expanding a global business perspective in the loan market. We dissect the limitations of existing platforms such as SyndTrak and Debtdomain and explore how the latest technological advancements and regulatory shifts are creating new avenues for innovation. Sean emphasizes the critical role of relationships in the loan market and shares his passion for developing top-notch tech solutions, driven by a personal commitment to excellence despite having achieved financial success.
We also delve into strategic insights for introducing new technology in less saturated markets like Sydney and Singapore, offering a roadmap to succeeding in major financial hubs thereafter. Don’t miss this insightful episode packed with practical wisdom and forward-thinking strategies for the future of loan distribution.
Head to Youtube to watch all our podcast episodes filmed live, where we dive deep into the latest trends, interviews with industry experts, and discussions that matter. It’s not just about finance; it’s about the ripple effect of connections and insights shaping the financial landscape.
Subscribe now to stay at the forefront of fintech innovation, as we explore the future of financial markets together. Let’s amplify ‘The Network Effect’ and join the conversation that’s transforming the industry.
But I'm like I'm finally at a stage where I'm not as I'm not afraid anymore. So it's like one baby step at a time, right, okay, what's?
Speaker 3:up. All right, good to go. Okay, we have aircon.
Speaker 2:It's just quiet, right yeah.
Speaker 1:Where am I looking that camera?
Speaker 3:Well, that one's your camera, that one's Sean's camera.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, so when I introduce him yeah? It'll be towards that one yeah, I'm not gonna make faces in the camera.
Speaker 3:Hello, I'll be just there outside the glass.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, just start whenever. Give me a second. Why are you laughing?
Speaker 3:I don't know if you can see it, if it was me or not, joe, I feel so alone, not really just kidding.
Speaker 1:Are you doing another European trip on the back of a London trip? I am going to Norway on Sunday.
Speaker 2:I was wondering because you typically did that, I remember you going to? Croatia, where it was last time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did 10 days in Croatia, so you're off to what's to Vanga. Savanger, savanger.
Speaker 2:Hiking.
Speaker 1:A little bit as much as I can do with my back and my hips.
Speaker 2:Okay, so there's the, there's the pulpit thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, so a friend of mine lives there, so he's going to take me up. In this way, if my back hurts I can turn around. It's very scary.
Speaker 2:at the top there's no fence.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that sounds very scary.
Speaker 2:I read that five years ago. Yeah, I'm really afraid of heights. A perfect time of year to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll see. I'm going to do like a boat tour. We're going to do stand-up paddle boarding. I have to work, so I'm just work, which is going to be the heaviest working day of my life.
Speaker 2:It's really inspiring as you look down the fjords at this incredible view, yeah yeah, and like I said, goldman, going live is a vacation in itself.
Speaker 1:So, joe, just let us know when you're ready. Oh ready, all right, breathe. Welcome to the Network Effect. I'm going to say that again. Welcome to the Network Effect. Today's guest we have Sean Tai, the head of business development at ILEX. I'm going to say that again Business development, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Network Effect Today's guest. We have Sean Tai, who is the head of business development at ILEX. Welcome, sean.
Speaker 2:Thank you, corey. I'm delighted to be here and thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming. So, Sean, most of the audience knows who I am at this point. Can you just tell us a little bit about your background and experience in the financial markets?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I've been working in banking for about seven years working for a group of Australian banks doing origination, syndicate and sales and structured finance. I did those roles in Sydney and Singapore and then I've had a fintech career for about almost 25 years as founder and CEO of Debt Domain. I led the business for about 20 years as a bootstrap company, owned by Private Equity as well for five years, and then I was part of iGIS Market for about 12 months and I just left before covert amazing, amazing and last two years I've been sort of uh looking at the market again and then officially joined ilex uh last march amazing, um.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit more about ilex. Um, what is ilex? What are you guys doing in the market? And I'm going to start that again. Let's talk a little bit more about ILEX. What does ILEX do? What is your place in the loan space?
Speaker 2:So ILEX was founded about five years ago by a couple of guys in Singapore. They thought there were opportunities to build new generation technology for loan distribution. The business operates mainly in Europe and Asia. They started with products in investor CRM, analytics, marketplace and private credit. With me joining, we're expanding that into broadly syndicated loans.
Speaker 1:Is your company global or are you focused on a particular market?
Speaker 2:We're focused on at the moment EMEA and APAC, which is the same footprint that Debt Domain started with. I think it's important to have a business that focuses on more than one region, because a lot of clients are multi-region or global and if you just take inputs and feedback, than one region, because a lot of clients are multi-region or global and if you just take inputs and feedback from one region, you're not going to have a product that's well-fitted for a global client.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I remember talking to some agents last year and that was the complaint is that in some spaces they're fixing a problem for a particular market and they're not addressing the other market. And they're like can we just have a solution that encompasses all of the regions, because it would be a lot more fitting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for myself. I mean, I spent my career doing syndical technology. I did three years in North America. I used to live in Toronto and did 100 trips to New York. I spent 17 years in Sydney and Singapore and 17 years in London. So I have really a sort of a global perspective, developing client relationships in all three regions. And then when I designed a product for clients, I'm really taking inputs from term loan Bs, from illiquid credits, from emerging markets and designing a product that will work for all types of loans in all markets. It's a best fit. You can't accommodate the long tail. That's not the right approach, but you do need to take in the major markets and listen to what they have to say.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'll check my notes.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking about you know. I wonder if we can talk about that topic. I don't know if it's the right one. It's really the opportunity because I felt that the markets had stagnated, like my white paper thought process.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we could talk about why you started ILEX. I'm also going to redo the question that I had before when, I said, let's talk about ILEX, because I just Because I felt that jumped in too quickly.
Speaker 2:I wasn't quite ready to go right with that and I don't think I answered that fully enough.
Speaker 1:What role does ILEX play in the loans market and how do you see making impact?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I probably want to answer that again with more detail about Ilex.
Speaker 1:what role is Ilex playing in the loan space and what impact do you see it making on the market or in the market?
Speaker 2:So Ilex is a next-gen platform for loan distribution and when I say next-gen, you need to look at what's what's in place today. So the major loan distribution platforms really is Syntrac and Debt Domain and they basically have effectively monopoly type positions in the regions in which they occupy. And you also see that in other major players in the loan market, whether it's LoanIQ or ClearPath, and I felt that these platforms which are, you know they work, but they don't improve technology very quickly. And I think, if you're starting from scratch and the market's also changed as well, when these platforms became dominant, we did not have mobile web, we did not have cloud computing, we did not have all the changes.
Speaker 1:It's crazy to think about that. We did not have all the changes in regulatory requirements and.
Speaker 2:GDPR. These are all changes subsequent.
Speaker 1:Also, everything was on-prem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we also had installed versions like LearnIQ. Syntrac was installed, not a web-based version, and so I think, with the benefit of hindsight, with the benefit of new technology, you can new ways of thinking, like connecting integration are much more important focus more on data. You can build something that's suited for the future world and today's world, not designed for the past. It's very hard to make these systems fit today, given all the issues in upgrade and tech, debt and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a big challenge. I think starting from scratch sounds a lot easier, even though we both know it's not easy in there.
Speaker 2:But I did start with scratch, so I do have the benefit of starting with nothing and building a platform against a very large competitor at the time, which is Interlinks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker 2:So I'm not afraid of doing that. It's actually easier to do a second time and I'm excited to do that actually. For me this is a passion project. I feel my clients can have a better system than what I gave them before. It does work for them for the most part, but I know it can be much better and a lot of them don't know in what ways it can be better until they see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I know we were joking yesterday that you've exited four different companies. It's like why are you not retired on some amazing yacht somewhere? Why are you still doing this?
Speaker 2:Because that's not who I am sitting in a nice villa or whatever, on the beach. I did grow up in Sydney, which had lots of beaches.
Speaker 1:Yacht villa, whatever you're.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think when I sold my first company to do a control sale to KKR, I bought a second-hand Lexus. I mean, that's kind of who I am. I didn't change my house, and so what gets me excited actually is delivering great tech, seeing it adopted and working with a team to bring that to market. So I have a very client-centric mindset. I'm friends with a lot of clients, both syndication people and agents, and if we go back to the industry outside the US, it is a relationship lending market. A lot of loans are done because there's a relationship with the borrower and a lot of loans' participation is also because they have trust in the arranger through these individual relationships between people. It's not so true on the term loan base, where relationship isn't really a factor, it's really name and price and credit. But in the liquid market or the non-leveraged market, relationships matter and that translates as how you work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you talk about the passion and I have friends and family that don't understand why I like to work on the weekends, like, oh, you have to work this weekend. I'm like, no, I want to work this weekend so it's just a different vibe. I'm going to check my notes.
Speaker 2:So I probably want to answer the Alex question again.
Speaker 1:Okay, you can answer, maybe at the end, and then Joe can push things together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, question again.
Speaker 1:Okay, you can answer maybe at the end, and then joe can push things together. Yeah, okay. Yeah, because that's you're answering a few different questions there too, because I can also ask you, like what's the difference between starting from scratch versus today? Yeah, that's actually a good point because I'll do that that's actually a good question to ask I'll do that now and then I'll do the uh talk about the digitization, so, um, so what do you? What are the benefits of starting from scratch versus what some of the tech companies are dealing with today?
Speaker 2:I guess from my perspective.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, love edits. This is way better than live right yeah yeah, yeah, I've seen this live before. Could you imagine it would?
Speaker 2:be my nightmare. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that.
Speaker 1:So what are the benefits of starting from scratch versus what some of the other older companies are dealing with?
Speaker 2:I guess, from starting from scratch, you can obviously control everything, but you need to raise capital, hire a team, but you've got full control of your product roadmap and how quickly you want to grow and those sorts of things. What your vision is For me doing this essentially a second time, I thought by joining a startup I could expedite the timeline by a number of years. So a startup that has relevant tech in the syndicated loan space, that has a modern tech stack, that has raised more than $10 million of capital, that has dozens of tech people that have proven to deliver. And then, if I came and joined that company, I could expedite their client relationships, their product roadmap. And they've obviously got sold products to the banks. They've got vendor approvals, which are very valuable. Oh, yes, and we're just adding new products underneath that. That's already there. That's a great, great head start.
Speaker 2:So time does matter, yeah, and for me it was accelerant. But it's important that you do proper due diligence on your business partner. On that fintech and I spoke to about 15 fintechs last year to take a view on which ones we liked and which ones were appropriate as a home for us and given you know, determine Syntra these are multi-decade businesses, and so this is longer than many marriages, and so you have to do proper due diligence. So I spoke to a lot of potential candidates and then chose one after at least nine months of conversations amazing, which I guess is the dating phase.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I guess, uh, in your position, you have that luxury of choosing. Yeah, not that I didn't have that same luxury, but, um, so the loan industry is obviously extremely manual. Distribution is extremely manual. I do feel like we're starting to feel a little bit of a difference. So what are your thoughts on the future of digitization and how technology is going to impact the future of the loan market?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I guess we could look at how it's used today in distribution. So if you look at the term loan B mark in the US, the platforms are essentially data rooms. Essentially they you know left-lead book runners. They don't enter commitments and declines. There's a lot of non-bank participants and so there's not much book running. Really it's just a data room, and they do public-private compliance and NDAs, and that's true to a large degree on the agency side as well.
Speaker 2:There is some evolution on the agency side with voting or financial monitoring, but not huge workflow. Just it's helpful. In Europe and APAC they do use the book running functions more, but I think Investor CRM has lagged in terms of evolution. It's essentially the same as 15 years ago and even the book running functions that are used are essentially 15 years old. They work, but they can be a lot better. They're not designed for mobile, for example. So I think there's a long list of improvements that you can make to provide a platform for the 2020s. I have a lot of ideas on that, like 100 plus requirements that would go into a new platform. And, just like when we started Debt Domain, we did an evolution on what was in the market at the time, which was Intralinks and Syntrac. We knew how to do that better and we delivered on that and I didn't have the experience today that I had then Obviously no more.
Speaker 2:So I think I've got a head start this time compared to last time Last time was not a disaster, so fairly confident, and I think I've got a good story to tell, because I literally tell clients I really want to make a difference here. We're not going to do a control sale. I think that's a mistake. We're going to retain control and have this as a really long-term innovative company led by entrepreneurs. I think it's really important that a vendor is led almost permanently by entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:You talk about this in your paper, which was really interesting.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's very important because entrepreneurs are very good at being efficient with capital. They're very good at delivering a product, very quick decision-making. It's essentially a one-product company, if you think about it, where, if you look at where modern platforms are today in the big companies, there's like hundreds of platforms in the same company. How do you get the management attention across all these different products and platforms, not just for Sydney Canolines, but in fixed income or equity capital markets and all the rest? It's a very big focus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're talking about individual platforms versus one platform for everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the idea is that it's a one platform company. I think that all the entrepreneurs focus on that. You'd have very quick execution. You've got a very defined customer base, basically a range of maybe agents, and then you can just move quite quickly in a very focused way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually so we're obviously cross-asset class, but it's one platform. So, that is what makes us unique as well, because you can see everything in one spot, which is like unheard of in the loan space. But, agreed, this is a perfect segue into where do you think the loan market will be in the next 10 years.
Speaker 2:Okay for a 10-year prediction. I maybe I'm a bit biased, but I would say that you have best-in-class providers that would, you know, lead the market. So you might have a best-in-class provider for the back office, and then you might have a best-in-class provider for digital documents and you have a best-in-class provider for digital documents and you have a best-in-class provider for agency solutions for the middle office, and then you have a best-in-class provider for the front office focused on distribution, and then you, unlike before, you then connect them. So the connection rate amongst existing platforms globally for the incumbent ones is quite low. It's about 10%. Quite low, it's about 10. Obviously it's higher in term loan b.
Speaker 2:If you look at a global average, it's like one or two integrations in 10 of client base. That's really low and it should be, you know, close to 100. And so I think because these platforms built 10, 20 years ago, not built for it's hard to integrate, it's expensive, it's low, but today, with ago, it's hard to integrate, it's expensive, it's slow, but today, with microservices, it's a lot cheaper and quicker. The banks are way more focused on data than they used to be Historically. The solutions were focused on workflow and so this shift, the future, will be best-in-class providers, connected and based on data and data flowing between the platforms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think collaboration is really important to both of our platforms. So I guess what are your thoughts on? I guess this is sort of what you were saying, but any other thoughts on interoperability and how important it is to our platforms and to the business and the industry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the critical thing for interoperability is obviously getting the identifiers for the lenders of record, the deal identifiers, as well. But that's difficult for legal reasons because in the US you have a lot of your 10K filings with the SEC, so a lot of loan agreements are public, like maybe half the market. But with the legal differences outside of North America those identifiers are not available unless you're in the syndicate, and even that ISINs are issued in a subset of the leverage loans, which is probably 5% coverage of all deals issued in ME and APAC.
Speaker 1:So it's still going to be name of the deal and closing date in primary as your identifier as a default yeah, and what about just desire, overall vendor desire to work together, because I know there's interoperability from a tech perspective? With them from a relationship perspective. I think hopefully we'll see some shift in that. I mean, I think that we're starting to see that now as well. To your point um, best in class for these different genres or areas, and then everyone worked together to provide the best tech stack across the industry.
Speaker 2:I mean just reflecting on my own experience leading DebtDomain for almost 20 years, I had a number of conversations with potential partners. So I think a data provider, I think a secondary workflow solution, but the actual number of deals done, you know, in terms of collaboration, I think were one in 20 years with one supplier. So it was really low for lots of reasons, partly because we weren't built for data, but also just the difficulty of negotiating some sort of, you know, collaboration. I think today it's very different and it feels different and I've had lots of discussions with syndicate loan tech companies and they're much more open to collaboration and it's a lot easier as well.
Speaker 1:It's transformed really.
Speaker 2:It's transformed, how that is moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For example, you're talking to Nambi 21. That sort of thing was fairly rare forward. Yeah, I mean, for example, you're talking to Nambi 21. That sort of thing was fairly rare historically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, building projects together, yeah, yeah, and there are a few other partners that we're talking to as well, so more on that soon, yeah, yeah, I mean for us at Ilex.
Speaker 2:We're having conversations with, you know, digital doc providers with chat tools and integrating those into the products.
Speaker 1:Just use us instead of a chat tool At an early stage Structured chat. Yeah, yeah, we can cut that out, joe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and certainly we're interested to connect with Access FinTech. I guess it makes more sense on the agency side, but we're not yet there with our roadmap for agency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as Dylan said on the podcast with NAMO21, there's enough to go around, so it would be great if everyone did something really well and then we all worked together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I definitely believe the strategy of being a global niche player is the right one. Hit the mic sorry, yeah, yeah, I strongly believe in that. You need to have a fairly narrow defined scope for your product, and then you can execute well against that.
Speaker 1:Exactly Versus putting a million things on your roadmap and not delivering.
Speaker 2:You don't want to boil the ocean and also you do need to be global. So if you're going to do something, you need to do it globally. You think about your clients like HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Citi. They operate in two or three regions, you can't just look at one or two.
Speaker 1:What do you think are the biggest challenges currently in the loan market and how is ILEX addressing them?
Speaker 2:The challenges.
Speaker 1:We don't have that much time, but top five. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:The challenge is the loan market. I guess the loan market is very slow to change. You have to recognize that and it's not your fault if you're as a vendor. You know you want to move things forward. You've got your targets to meet, you know. But you do, you can't. There's a natural rate in which the market can change. You try and push it harder than than than it can do, it's going to push back against you. You're just going to expend resources or burns people's relationships.
Speaker 2:So it's important to be very patient and a slow approach is actually, I think, the right one. So you need to introduce tech in a place. It may not be a major hub, it might be somewhere further afield. You get them to give feedback on it, adopt it and then you keep going. But to go, I think, with new tech into a London or New York situation, I think is extremely difficult. Yeah, so when we again, when we started Debt Domain, we introduced tech in Sydney, where I'm from, that was our first use case and the banks there just four of them one of them can move forward. One of them controls a quarter of the market. You don't find one bank in London controlling a quarter of the market, so it's a lot easier in those sorts of places to start.
Speaker 2:And then you just leave it there and Alex actually plays to that because they started not in London, not in New York, but actually in Singapore. So again, that made sense to me because you can actually get. Approvals tend to be quicker, their requirements tend to be less complicated.
Speaker 1:So it's easier to adopt in places like that. Yeah, and then we all just need a Wendy Rhodes to teach us patience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you definitely need to be patient, and I guess this plays well to what I consider a bootstrap approach. So at Debt Domain we did not raise a lot of capital. It was surprising. It was under $2 million in more than a decade, and so it's not. You know, competitors had giant purse strings. It's important to have a small number of people that are highly motivated, with ownership stakes, and they can really focus on pleasing and delighting clients, and you can do that quite cheaply with, you know, that sort of motivation. I strongly believe that a few people can make a massive difference.
Speaker 1:I think I have one more.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I can sort of just add to that last comment. I mean to give examples of that. I mean, obviously we've spoken about Samira at NAMI 21.
Speaker 1:We both think she's I'm going to ask about your resilience in a second. Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:Let me just finish the trip. Yeah, so in terms of the people that make a difference, I mean in in looking at a number of FinTech's in syndicate loans last year I was very impressed by a nami 21 what summer is built, and I definitely think she's gonna be a major part of the future ecosystem and she's a subject matter expert. I was like SMEs, that's, you know, 25 years experience. You can't find that in many places. Another one would be. I think we looked at Onero. I mean what they built as a back office system with things around it, around lender and borrower communications is an excellent product. Around it, around lender and borrower communications is an excellent product. So there are these individuals that are really innovating and they are SMEs.
Speaker 1:I think it does make a difference. When there's an SME, you can see the difference. You can hear the difference just when people talk about their products Someone who's actually lived it has the scars and someone who just learned about it secondhand for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, or just listening to clients over three or four years. You don't truly understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You need to have the decades of scars and then you really understand how everything connects, what you can implement. Banks are so complicated and I remember just having conversations around okay, we have to comply with EU competition law about note-taking or we have to, you know, store data in a certain way to comply with certain country requirements. You know, to get these solutions into a client the number of you know things you have to go through your vendor approval. You know you might be doing it in the US market, but in Europe, which is way more complicated, it's not one country.
Speaker 1:It's not one country.
Speaker 2:The legal requirements are higher. Uk is kind of ring-fencing itself and you have to go through all this. Infosec is a huge thing now, but we've got that experience before and we're building a lot of these requirements straight into the product from our previous experience Before. Things came to us bit by bit. We had to just sort of retrofit that in.
Speaker 1:but knowing what those requirements are on day one, we can plan for the future in a new platform yeah, so as a founder and someone who started business or two, what would you say are lessons learned or things you would would convey to anyone looking to do the same?
Speaker 2:Okay, for a founder role, you have to be positive. That's definitely required, even if there will be disappointments, and you have to stay positive.
Speaker 2:It's a roller coaster, for sure, yeah, and then another part I think is really important is resilience, and related to that is also, as I said before, patience, client--centric, of course. Believe in yourself and you bring your team with you. If you, if you show the confidence and and and and and show some track record with clients, people will follow you. I've also been prepared to move. I've had to move from Sydney to Singapore, to London, to Toronto and back, and I was basically following the business. So you, you need to do what it takes.
Speaker 2:If you don't want to leave a lovely place like Sydney. You recognize it's like 1% of syndicated loan volume and you've got to move somewhere where? There's more liquidity. I'm here in London because it connects three regions. So APAC is connected to London, as is the US. It connects to Africa as well. The weather's terrible, taxes are high, but it's a major source of liquidity. There's a whole ecosystem in London, whether it's lawyers, whether it's InfoSec, that enables you to do things or conferences Well and that's small compared to New York even.
Speaker 2:Well, new York is obviously a larger market because obviously the volumes are higher, but it's not really looking outside the us too much. London has to and it yeah, that's a good point and also, like New York doesn't connect with a pack much, but London does, through history and time zones accidentally just called right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, what else we got, what else we got. I think I covered that.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to how does it look Toby Jojo? Sorry.
Speaker 1:How much more time do we have?
Speaker 2:I feel I'm answering the questions too quickly.
Speaker 1:No, I think you're good, I think I just we're recording for about 23 minutes.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that is usually the length of a podcast anyway. It obviously cuts some out. You'll have an intro and an outro, so it'll be 25 minutes. Okay, we've got. The camera wasn't working straight away, so we've been mull by a few minutes if needed.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think we've hit all the questions. I was going to ask you a fun question and then, if there's anything you want to go back through, we could just start talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to talk. I want to do the what is Ilex about again, because I don't think I answered that as much.
Speaker 1:I don't like the way I ask it, so I'm going to fix that too. I've also texted Roy saying don't like the way I ask it, so I'm going to fix that too. Yeah, I've also attached voice and I'm cool. Yeah, he called me. I should probably have this on me not to disturb him.
Speaker 3:I just messaged him and I called him in to call you.
Speaker 1:How did you even know that I called him back? Oh, he's sad. So the question is I can say, so let's talk about ILEX. What role does ILEX play in the loans market and how do you see yourselves making an impact?
Speaker 2:Right. So ILEX's vision is to deliver a next-gen platform for syndicated loan distribution that would encompass investor CRM, analytics, distribution platforms primary, private credit, secondary and we're definitely working towards that. We've developed already the Investor CRM and analytics quite well. There's also a secondary marketplace, secondary deal sites, and we're working on primary BSL at the moment. But what's really exciting is a few things. One is the quality of execution. The UI, UX looks amazing.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I've seen it and it looks absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and also it's also built on data, so all the data elements were there. When we built Determine, it was built mainly for workflow, not for data. So the data elements are there. They integrated with loan connector data, which is pretty amazing to have both the bank's private data plus the purchase data in one place and to look at the superset and run analysis on the superset of that. So we were excited by what they had built so far, and then we could extend that in the directions that we both want to go to fully cover the sell-side personas. Then the other side is the philosophy. So you know, we've agreed together that we're going to run this business for the long term because that's in our clients' interest, and we're going to invest a large percentage of our revenue in perpetuity because, again, we don't know what new technologies will come down the track. Last year's AI is a new thing. Before that was maybe cloud computing.
Speaker 2:Blockchain yeah, exactly the new buzzword of the but you need money to do things, and also it's continuity of management. If I look at what happened with debt domain, every two or three years we had a different owner, execs would change and so there and so be lost in continuity in people that would run the budget for the business. But if you have entrepreneurs, that's always in control, then that continuity is there. And then you look at how these you know family-owned businesses in Germany, mittelstadt, same family running the business for for centuries. I think that's a really productive model because that continuity is there, the motivation to always do better Keep the tech up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's always constant investment constant innovation and you described before how slow the market is to change. You really need continuity. When the market is very slow to change, you have to sustain things for decades to do it properly.
Speaker 1:Well, things are just outdated, and if you don't keep up with it, then it becomes even more difficult to update it and then you have other competing techs and then the market's confused.
Speaker 2:So you need a continuity of your CTO, your lead developers, the management team and, I think, with them having substantial equity stakes and them having decades-long careers, then that's going to be good for clients and iLux's vision is to that end. We're in this for the long term. We're not in it for a quick buck. We're not looking to sell the company. It's kind of intuitive, but I think it's the best model for our clients and it's actually what we all agree upon.
Speaker 1:It's kind of nice and relaxing relaxing too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to. You know investors will be happy if we succeed, yeah, but it's more important we succeed and the natural pace of that is going to be a while, yeah, and the clients, I think, appreciate that I have a random question for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if you were to hire any superhero at Ilex, who would it be and why?
Speaker 2:Superhero person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know superheroes? Because I don't.
Speaker 2:Are we talking about Marvel characters or actual people? Marvel characters Marvel characters. This was.
Speaker 1:Joe's idea, but I don't know anything about superheroes. I know the Marvel characters. Okay, there you go.
Speaker 2:I'm fond of people like Iron man, but I think about these. Obviously got a lot of gadgets and armor. Oh God, marvel characters.
Speaker 1:I just think Wonder Woman, because I can fly to all the different locations instead of having to be on planes with delays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. Actually, Airports can be irritating and often you want to do that meeting in some place quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you travel quite a bit, still right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I travel every month, gotcha, you know, europe or Asia.
Speaker 1:What do you do for fun?
Speaker 2:I play tennis.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, yeah, I play tennis. When do you?
Speaker 2:have time for tennis. I belong to a club and so I have a Saturday social every Saturday. So I'm not awesome at it, but I do like I'm competitive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I like to play. That's good exercise.
Speaker 2:How about?
Speaker 1:you, what do you do for fun? I work I mean, we all work a little bit on the weekend.
Speaker 2:I like to scuba dive. I scuba, dive and ski, so it's the outdoor stuff.
Speaker 1:Now we paddy open water, Paddy advanced open water. Yeah, going to indonesia this december.
Speaker 2:So okay, yeah, so you know, sip it on I feel like when you um scuba dive.
Speaker 1:So I'm a clearly a very high energy person, and so scuba diving forces you to slow down and breathe, so you actually have to relax or you can't breathe. So for me it's amazing. I come back super relaxed from my vacation.
Speaker 2:Have you done any night dives?
Speaker 1:I have. I saw the ostracods in Honduras with the pearls in the dark at the end, have you been?
Speaker 2:I went diving the Great Barrier Reef on a boat.
Speaker 1:Beautiful place.
Speaker 2:Just in two years ago, and the night dives were amazing. Yeah, basically, the fish follow your torch. Yep, the snappers, they're all hunting they basically ride shotgun next to your ear and when your torchlight hits the fish they're.
Speaker 1:You're basically feeding them, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We're taught not to do that. Yeah, yeah, that was exciting.
Speaker 1:It's kind of mean, but it's kind of fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're good, yeah. And then you got some laughing for the trailer Perfect.
Speaker 3:That's what I was doing too, because he does like a little laughing thing.
Speaker 1:Let me not make sure I'm not in shock. Oh, my back hasn't started hurting until now either. It's been a nice relief.
Speaker 3:So if you want to do, this is episode eight of the network effect.
Speaker 2:And then what do I say?
Speaker 3:And then you can say we have Sean Tye from Ilex and then you would say episode is out next week. Episode eight is out next week.
Speaker 2:Episode eight is out next week.
Speaker 3:And it's that camera.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, you can say it a couple times too. Yeah yeah, feel free to do it. So I'm going to say episode eight of the Network Effect with Sean Tai from Ilex. Okay, this is episode eight of the Network Effect and we have Sean Tai from Ilex I forgot what to say Episode eight coming out next week.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I can go again too. Welcome to episode starting again. This is episode eight of the Network Effect. I have with me Sean Tai from Ilex.
Speaker 2:Episode eight is out next week.
Speaker 3:Perfect, good Did.
Speaker 2:I say it too quickly Love the wave.
Speaker 3:Oh really, yeah, usually it's just, I mean, it's a smile afterwards.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do like a little high five. Okay, All right, awesome Thanks, Sean. Thank you Appreciate it. That was awesome. Now I can call Roy back. We're supposed to meet him for lunch in like half an hour. Don't make fun of me. I'm going to change my shoes.
Speaker 2:I wish I had a pair of shorts right now.
Speaker 1:Aw, I'm going to change my shoes. I'm coming back. Hey, what's going on? Sorry, I was doing a podcast. Good, we're about to. We're going to go meet you for lunch. I'm leaving the studio now.
Speaker 3:We're going to go meet you for lunch. Have you? How's like the bookings and stuff going? Is it pretty mental?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no worries, lunch is at 12.30, right.
Speaker 3:We're leaving right now so.
Speaker 1:No, it's like we gave you some buffer. I think it's at 12.
Speaker 3:12.15. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Alright see you in a few. Bye, bye.
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