How Billionaires Invest: Mike Sullivant on Alternative Investments, Multifamily, and Wealth Strategy

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (00:00)
⁓ People will be surprised to see how billionaires have structured their portfolios. pretty fascinating.

We’ve written a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s an actual best seller, not like a Amazon best seller, like a USA Today best seller. sold thousands, thousands of copies last year is invest like a billionaire saying same name. So Bob and Ben Frazier are two of our partners here have written that book. And that really goes, that’s more of a, ⁓ call it a, ⁓ taking conceptual into some of the tactical of looking at portfolios,

Quentin Edmonds (02:06)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I’m excited to be here today. Have another fantastic guest. He’s been doing what he do for 14 years. I’m gonna let him tell you everything that he does. One thing that I love is that he’s the data approach.

that data approach that him and his company takes. And I believe that’s the driving force of why they’re so accurate and able to do what they do at a very, very high level. And so I am so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Mike Sullivant Mr. Mike, how you doing today,

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (02:40)
You know doing well. Thanks for having me.

Quentin Edmonds (02:41)
Absolutely. No, man. So glad you’re here. Thank you for spending some time with us. And listen, I’m the type I just like to dive in. And so I would love to know what your main focus is these days. I would love a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you are now. We like we love the hero’s journey, man. And then where you are in the world, people love knowing where you are geographically, especially like.

And he’s super close. Maybe we can connect, collaborate. And so what you’re up to, what’s your main focus, your origin story, and where you are. Mr. Mike sir, you have the floor.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (03:12)
Thank you very much. Yeah. So based out of Kansas city, ⁓ our firm’s called Aspen funds. And really what we focus on is macro driven alternative investments. And so we create fund structures that go after, you know, various real estate assets, oil and gas. we have debt funds, we have credit funds, all sorts of things, but really driven off of macro economic data. That’s informing the buying decisions and the deployment decisions for today. So.

Yeah, what we’re into is all sorts of things. We’ve got a few distinct verticals that we’ve been operating for 14 years and have ⁓ kind of a long track record of success with our investors. So we work with a lot of high net worth investors, ⁓ RIA channels, family offices, fund managers who are kind of raising capital into our funds. So we operate these funds and go after the best buying opportunities today.

We’re up to all sorts of stuff, Q. Every day is an opportunity. Every pain point is two sides of a coin. And so that’s really why that macro is looking ahead. So that by the time we’re at the right buying time, we’ve been ready and prepared and capitalized to go take advantage. So yeah, that’s what we’re up to. really the origin story is in the wake of the great financial crisis. So 2008, kind of into 2012, what?

Quentin Edmonds (04:11)
Yeah.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (04:30)
What kind of that first macro opportunity was, was a lot of distressed residential mortgages that banks were selling. kind of the genesis of Aspen was that, and it’s created very, very unique buying opportunities and kind of secondary markets that we’ve been buying for years and operating. we become the bank, if you will. And so we’ve been doing that for a long, time, working out loans, working with borrowers. We’ve got

a big asset management team that does all that. that’s really where the success started and it’s continued to compound across different assets since that time. that’s in a nutshell, that’s where it all started.

Quentin Edmonds (05:06)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it, man. Thank you for walking us through the journey a little bit. I want to peek into you a little bit just as a person. And I love how you talked about as your company, you’re kind of looking ahead, looking at opportunities. But I want to peek that just a little bit, right? So, Mike, I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning no matter what we go through in life, it of prepares us for the moments where we are now, right? And so I would love to know through your journey,

through your career, through your journey. I know you said you guys been at this for 14 years. Throughout your journey, what has the journey kind of taught you about yourself? Has it taught you like discipline, resilience? Has it helped with kind of like you being innovative, being able to look ahead? Like what is these moments within the journey taught you about you?

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (06:40)
Yeah, great question. I would say you got to be grateful for every moment, even the hard moments, especially the hard moments in a lot of cases, because the lessons learned are invaluable. So even when there’s failure, even when there’s ⁓ challenges, those are always opportunities as well. not just investments, but personal growth and those types of things typically get forged in the fire of difficulty.

Yeah, for me, my story kind of rewinded back is when I was in college, I worked my way through college doing property management by accident. I met my then girlfriend, now wife of over 16 years that, you know, I was trying to figure out how to build a life together. And we were just poor college kids and I needed to find a place to rent and get a place for us when we got married and all these things. So

Quentin Edmonds (07:16)
Hmm.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (07:33)
I kind of by accident stumbled into a property management group that in the pirate me and it kind of set a course for my career in real estate. So started in property management, worked into kind of large corporate property management early part of my career and then became an investor. And, you know, fast forward now again, over 16 years later, I’ve been investing, managing, operating investment properties for a long time. And, you know, to, to your question at the beginning, what are the, what are the things that shaped me was really

taking advantage of the open doors. Life is pretty unpredictable for all of us. We make our plans and for me, I’m a person of faith. so my journey there was just following the Lord’s calling and walking through the doors that He opened for me. it’s, in my case, a little better to live miraculously.

And it’s gone very well through the years. So I’m just very grateful for all the unknowns and all the ⁓ ups and downs that are in between because it shapes us and builds character.

Quentin Edmonds (08:37)
Man, I love it. It’s instantly when you said, we make our plans. The scripture came to mind that we make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. So he determines our outcome, right? And so, I mean, he’s gracious that he let us make our little plans. You know, we go here to plan it along. But man, the end result, he’s like, yeah, but this one is on me. I’m going to decide how this thing ends. And so, I you saying that, man.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (08:47)
That’s true.

Stress.

That’s right.

Quentin Edmonds (09:01)
And I just, love your perspective. Thank you for taking this back. I’m walking us through even your personal journey. And I absolutely love that word gratitude. Last year, my wife and I, started something different. We started a gratitude jar. And so we would write just, know, every night or periodically we will write these things, what we were grateful for in a gratitude jar. And then at the beginning of the year, we brought in the year reading the different things that we was grateful for.

And it was amazing to be able to track just how good God has been like throughout the year. And like things you forgot about, you was just like, oh wow. And like, and you look back and was like, oh man. So I love the point that you brought out just being grateful for the journey, grateful for the hardships. I appreciate that.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (09:35)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Well, you’ll have to look into this as a side note, but the science now that’s backing this is that gratitude is the gateway for joy. And joy in your brain as the starting point rewires your brain. They’ve tested it, they’ve proved it, they scanned it. The science is solid and it all starts with gratitude.

Quentin Edmonds (10:07)
To your absolute point, you’re absolutely right. People probably heard me mention this before. Dr. Caroline Leaf, she has a book called Switch on Your Brain. And she’s a neuroscientist, but she’s also a Christian. And one of her open thesis statements is she said, the science is just now catching up to the bottom. And so she literally talks about the rewind of your brain, absolutely what you just said, the gratitude and joy. One of my mentors said, it’s hard to be angry and grateful at the same time. And so I’m like.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (10:23)
you

That’s true.

Quentin Edmonds (10:34)
That’s a good point. You know what I’m saying? So, so to your point, man, I appreciate that. And I think it was just taking us into a reflection of you because I tell people all the time, one constant in our businesses is us. know, things, things may fluctuate, money may fluctuate. We may implement new strategies, but the main thing is us. And so sometimes I like taking that reflection just to remind us kind of where we came from.

where we are now and pull on some of the tools that we literally been developing all our life. And sometimes you realize, don’t realize how much they play a big role in why you choose what you choose, why you’re passionate about what you do and why, you know, your why is your why. And so again, man, I appreciate that thoughtful answer from you, So I would love, man, you talked about hardships within your world. How does adversity look?

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (11:20)
Yeah, you bet.

Quentin Edmonds (11:27)
⁓ I’m not sure, it, you know, I always, never know because so many people got different things that they face daily at the things that they do. So is it like people lying on the application or like, what are some like adversities that come up sometime that you have to face, you know, based on sometimes human interaction or just system interactions?

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (12:19)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we operate pretty large funds. You we’ve got over $800 million in assets under our management. there’s, there’s all sorts of things that can go wrong in the world of real estate and investments. So I think the way to the way that we navigate those and, and what we kind of firmly believe in is transparency and communication. at the end of the day, you can, you can do

You can pull certain levers to try and control outcomes, right? But the thing that you can absolutely can control is the way that you communicate, navigate with your partners. And so we have about a thousand high net worth investors that invest with us alongside of us. put our own money and everything that we invest in. so, you know, everyone’s interests are aligned in that way. And so really how we navigate that is openly and aggressively. So when problems arise, be very aggressive to understand.

first, like have we actually identified problems? Then we’ve got kind of a core team that discusses those problems. And then we go, you know, execute and solve those problems. So it’s, you know, as ⁓ simple as that, you know, difficulty is different, but it’s as simple of a framework as that and communicate your way through. So the problems in our world typically arise when

firms are not communicating with their partners. And they say, hey, everything’s good, everything’s good, everything’s good. And then all of sudden it’s not good. And that’s a big problem. so transparency and a desire to care, like actually care. So we’ve got, you know, I won’t go super deep on this, but within our team in particular, we have 11 kind of values of our team. And the first one is care. And the second one is

Understand that discretionary income is really hard to come by and to do for do for one that you could what you wish you could do for many like those are kind of our top three and Really kind of understanding, you know who it is that we serve and we really ultimately serve our partners and Communicating through difficulty. This is really the only way to do that and then it allows it allows freedom You know when things are out on the table and out in the light

Just like in life, you know when things are hiding that’s when the problems compound and so you’re gonna have avoid all that

Quentin Edmonds (14:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I love that. It reminds me of a saying I say amongst, just like my peers and even just with my wife and just the way I lead my life, you only as sick as your secrets, right? So if you’re not transparent, if you’re not open, if you’re not communicating, if you’re hiding stuff, that’s like a cancerous cell that just grows and just spreads, right? And so that can just corrupt.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (14:57)
100%.

Quentin Edmonds (15:00)
Trust, can corrupt like integrity. And so I love that, man. love being with communication. I love at the top of the 11 is care, man. That really gives me a peek into the core of what you guys are trying to do. Speaking of what you’re trying to do, what are your next goals? Like, what are you guys looking to solve a scale next or at Aspen?

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (15:18)
Yeah, yeah, we’re on our way to a billion dollars in assets under management. So that’s a big, you know, kind of threshold. And, you know, that’s been hard fought, slow one kind of battle. But we’ve seen a lot of that significant kind of hockey stick growth in the last really kind of six years. So you got to be faithful and faithful and faithful and diligent. And then, you know, things things do compound activities and capital compounds. So that’s really

The phase that we’re at is continuing to compound our growth by doing the right things. We’ve been doing that even further. We had a record year last year in terms of capital that we’ve raised and deployed. So over $150 million that we’ve raised and deployed across multiple assets. So really what’s next is a continuation of that. But continuation into this kind of macro-driven thesis is finding those right assets and opportunities. So we’ve got a new fund coming out here.

next week on the 8th is we generally do kind of open-ended structures, open-ended funds that are very unique to the markets in terms of the structure of them that are very investor friendly. So that’s a big thing that’s focused on multifamily acquisitions. There’s been a lot of distress over the last several years in the kind of institutional grade multifamily sector where a lot of overpaying in the kind of 2019 to 2022 and then

We all know what happened in 2022 with rates and that’s created a lot of distress on really good high quality assets, but distress kind of financing situations. And that’s creating unique buying opportunities for those that are capitalized to do it. So we are, going big. That’s, that’s going to be one of our biggest allocations this year. We’re continuing to grow. ⁓ we, have a commercial real estate credit fund that does, preferred equity, mezzanine debt, bridge loans, things like that for multifamily industrial.

retail medical type of buildings. And so we continue to grow that. So that same thing has been growing for a couple of years and now it’s really starting to scale up even bigger. So that’s what we’re focused on. There’ll be other unique opportunities that pop up. ⁓ That’s a big driver for us on the macro scale right now is unique buying windows in multifamily.

Quentin Edmonds (17:30)
I love it man, I love it. Listen, I wanna say this one word to you so I can get your perspective on it, your unique perspective on it. The word relationship. When you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind immediately?

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (17:39)
Peace.

Hmm.

I would say it ties back to that kind of care ⁓ value. there’s a certain, I would say the word that like immediately came to mind, mine was authenticity. ⁓ So like a real relationship is authentic. And in business, you know, that that’s not necessarily the case a lot of times, a lot of folks are transactional. ⁓ In our business, there’s always a temptation to do that.

is, you know, when you’re working with investors is, hey, I want money and then I disappear. Right. So so real relationship is authentic and it cares. And so that’s what that means to me and my team and how we treat our investors. And so it’s without that. It doesn’t that core value doesn’t inform the activities of today, if that’s not there.

Quentin Edmonds (18:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (19:14)
and then you don’t have a real relationship. I suppose you have a relationship, but you have a transactional relationship and it’s not authentic. They’re not a true friend and somebody who actually cares about you.

Quentin Edmonds (19:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, I’m loving, man. Thank you for that. Yeah. One of my keywords is organic. When I’m talking about relationships in any capacity, it has to be organic. I don’t believe in forcing it. I believe we’re supposed to connect with the right people, you know? And so I love it. And authenticity, man, that’s a word my mother gave me when I was younger. She gave me a book and she wrote in the book, authenticity, always be authentic. And so I love that. Man, you hit on some keywords, authenticity.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (19:29)
Great words. Great words.

Quentin Edmonds (19:52)
communication, care. And so I really appreciate your approach to business and just your approach to life. And I’m so glad you’re on this podcast because I continue to try to let those kinds of messages ring out because we can talk business, we can talk numbers, we can talk strategy. But when it’s all said and done, you know, we should be in the business of servitude, of serving people to make sure we can continue the ecosystem. And I know particularly for you and I, that our savior, that kingdom kind of teaches

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (20:21)
Mm-hmm.

Quentin Edmonds (20:21)
I just feel like thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Like if we can create that on earth, it would make it so much better place. And so I appreciate you saying those type of things, man. I really do. really do. Listen, before we get out of here, is there a topic I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Like, is there any other words of education, inspiration, motivation?

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (20:27)
Mm-hmm.

Of Thank you.

Quentin Edmonds (20:43)
Or did you come in here with something on your mind that you want to make sure lands for our viewers? I kind of just want to open it up to you if there’s anything like that that you want to say to share to the viewers.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (20:52)
Yeah, I really didn’t have an agenda. You know, I was interested to get to know you and have a conversation. It’s been, you know, a wonderful conversation. So I appreciate that in terms of what’s interesting to me is really the education elements right now. You know, so your podcast being one of those, we also have a podcast called invest like a billionaire. So Aspen phones is kind of our investment firm. We have kind of an educational

platform, is the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast that’s been going for a number of years and top 1 % podcasts and really unlocking the strategies and secrets of the ultra wealthy. How do they structure? How do they think about money? How do they think about investments? How do they structure portfolios? Things like that.

⁓ People will be surprised to see how billionaires have structured their portfolios. pretty fascinating.

We’ve written a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s an actual best seller, not like a Amazon best seller, like a USA Today best seller. sold thousands, thousands of copies last year is invest like a billionaire saying same name. So Bob and Ben Frazier are two of our partners here have written that book. And that really goes, that’s more of a, ⁓ call it a, ⁓ taking conceptual into some of the tactical of looking at portfolios,

looking at, there’s concepts called modern portfolio theory.

It’s unpacking how to create non-correlation in your portfolio. So I may have a diversified publicly traded stock portfolio of company A and company B, but if they both do up and down at the same time, you have correlation. So I may think I’m diversified, but if they do the same thing at the same time, I have more volatility than is accounted for. And so what a lot of the billionaires do is create non-correlation. ⁓

by having private alternatives that don’t have this, they’re not impacted the same way as public markets are. And so it’s really democratizing how that has been executed in the billionaire portfolio and a lot of data, a lot of detail, but very user friendly. So this is again, kind of trying to take something fairly complex and making that more simple. And then we have a kind of a online community of investors who

Uh, by the same brand name is invest like a billionaire.org. Uh, or, uh, uh, the billionaire podcast. Or I’m sorry. No, actually we just got, we just got the rights. finally got the right. yeah, invest like a billionaire.org. Um, is, is the place. So it is, uh, we’ve got the online communities. There’s a school community in there. So very educational. There’s no, you know, we’re not selling anything. That’s a, that’s community that’s free to join. Uh, we have the podcast and then the book.

Quentin Edmonds (23:16)
bit.

That’s cool.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (23:35)
So I’d encourage people to just learn and learn from anywhere and everywhere that you can learn. And we’re super passionate about that and making this information available to the everyday investor and you don’t have to pay for the information.

Quentin Edmonds (23:49)
Yeah. Well, listen, you walk me right up and sort of, I was going to say, how can people get in contact with you? But you then gave an invest like a billionaire, the podcast, invest like a billionaire, the book, invest like the billionaire.org, which you just got the rights to. so any other place you want people to reach out to is any other stuff that we can think about that we need to plug.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (24:11)
Yeah,

well, I mean, if people are more interested on the investment side, you know, that’s really where, ⁓ you know, my, where my day to day is, is, is mostly there as a aspenfunds.us like United States, ⁓ that that’ll go deeper into kind of the investments and our performance and what’s available and that kind of stuff. And the people we’re interested in engaged with in this community is, you know, anybody that’s interested in the conversation. ⁓ you’ve got a lot of, you know, something kind of newer is.

The last few years, we’ve started to see a lot of ⁓ what we call fund to funds. So a of folks who’ve been active real estate investors themselves are currently, you know, they’re funding their project with their investors. They may be looking for kind of complimentary type investments that are, you know, in those idle times where you maybe don’t have a deal. We’ve got a lot of, we’ve got a fund ⁓ manager program. So I direct all of that as well. We’ve been growing that and have created really significant.

outcomes and value for fund managers and ultimately their investors. So that would be something interesting and top of mind that might be relevant to this community.

Quentin Edmonds (25:18)
appreciate you, sir. Thank you so much for coming through. Let me say three things to you sincerely. First, thank you for your time. You can be doing anything with your time. I’m sure you can be filling your time with so much different things right now. So thank you for sharing your time. Secondly, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for leading with authenticity, integrity, transparency. I believe stories have a way of planting seeds in people that can literally cause correct.

that can literally spark up different ideas. And so I really thank you for coming through sharing your story. Lastly, thank you for your perspective, the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you being here today, Mike.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (25:58)
Thank you, pleasure. I feel like I made a friend today, so I appreciate the time.

Quentin Edmonds (26:02)
Absolutely. Well, y’all heard it. Y’all heard it from my new friend, right? You heard what he’s involved in. You heard how he can help. Please check the show notes, the things that he mentioned, how you can get in contact with him. They’re in the show notes. Connect with him. Connect with the podcast. Listen. And that’s like a billionaire. mean, come on. I think we all want to do that, right? I think if we did that, our lives could be so much better. So connect with him.

But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Mike. So, sir, I say thank you again and everyone else. You have a fantastic day.

Mike Sullivant – Aspen Funds (26:26)
Yeah.

and I’m excited.