Why Cash Flow Beat Earnings per Share in Buyouts
Michael Fisch explains how early private equity buyers used cash flow instead of EPS to price buyouts and build a multi-trillion-dollar asset class.
$23B Investor on Warren Buffett, Compounding & Playing the Long Game
With David Weisburd, Michael Fisch · Sunday, September 13, 2026
American Securities co-founder and CEO Michael Fisch joins host David Weisburd to discuss the evolution of private equity from sub-billion-dollar leveraged buyouts into a multi-trillion-dollar industry. Fisch details his firm's 30-year philosophy of disciplined middle-market industrial investing, maintaining an 80%-plus CEO win rate through functional resources, the rigorous triangulation framework behind executive hiring, and why human relationships and proactive communication remain indispensable in an AI-driven dealmaking environment.
Key takeaways
- In 1983, the entire institutional private equity market was smaller than $1 billion, split among fewer than ten firms. Read more →
- American Securities maintains an 80%-plus CEO retention rate across its 30-year history, keeping the incumbent executive from acquisition through exit. Read more →
- American Securities grew assets under management from $71.4 million in 1994 to $23 billion without straying from U.S. industrial and industrial-service assets. Read more →
- American Securities co-founder Michael Fisch built a 30-year investing track record by prioritizing active human contact over passive spreadsheet modeling. Read more →
- American Securities maintains an 80%-plus CEO win rate across its 30-year industrial portfolio by treating executive talent evaluation like commercial due diligence. Read more →
- Institutional pension funds currently allocate 8% to 15% of their capital to private equity, while retail investors sit between 0% and 1%. Read more →
6 articles from this episode
Why American Securities Keeps 80% of Portfolio CEOs
American Securities keeps 80% of acquired CEOs by replacing shadow operators with a 50-person functional resource group.
Scale Under Mega-Funds: Michael Fisch on PE Specialization
American Securities CEO Michael Fisch explains how staying in middle-market industrials drove growth from $71.4M to $23B.
Michael Fisch on Why AI Collapses PE Analyst Pyramids
American Securities CEO Michael Fisch explains why AI collapses finance analyst pyramids and makes direct communication the real deal edge.
Michael Fisch: De-Risking PE Talent With Triangulation
American Securities CEO Michael Fisch explains how standardized testing and triangulation remove executive hiring bias in private equity.
Why Private Equity Cannot Scale Like Private Credit
Michael Fisch explains why retail capital inflows threaten to break private equity deployment capacity while private credit scales without friction.
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