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Show Summary
In this conversation, Marley Hughes discusses his journey in real estate and sports investment, highlighting the importance of community development through placemaking. He shares insights on building relationships with high-profile individuals, fostering a strong company culture, and the significance of embracing uniqueness in business strategies. The discussion also touches on the growing prominence of women’s sports and the multifaceted nature of investing in sports teams.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Marley Hughes (00:00)
Yeah, so Magnolia Hill is our family office and our parent holding company. And that was born out of the success that we had at my prior firm that when I started was a relative startup and then grew into a pretty substantial firm. That firm was called FS Investments. They actually just changed their name to Future Standard. But I’ve spent my entire professional career kind of investing at the frontier of alternative investments. And all that means for folks that aren’t and, you know, don’t know what that definition is, you know, you’ve got your normal 60, 40 stocks.and bonds type of portfolio within most people’s portfolios of investments. ⁓ Alternatives is something that the institutions and the endowments have always had access to. That’s private equity, venture capital, private real estate, private debt, private credit. And so I spent my entire career unlocking that asset class for folks like my parents who are very blue collar and had your traditional 60, 40 portfolios. ⁓ And so we had a great deal of success. That company is about a hundred billion dollar company, FS Investments is today. We had an enormous amount of success.
and was able to parachute out of that company with one of the co-founders of that company. And Magnolia Hill Partners is really our alternative investment holding company. And then Momentous is actually something that we’ve been doing for a number of years,
Kristen (02:46)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Marley Hughes, who is the owner of Magnolia Hill Partners, as well as Momentous Sports, which is a subdivision of it. she has a very unique angle to the market. So I’m really excited to get into it. Thanks for being here, Marley.Marley Hughes (03:02)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Good to see you.Kristen (03:04)
So kind of give everybody a little overview of what Magnolia Hill and Momentous do. ⁓Marley Hughes (03:10)
Yeah, so Magnolia Hill is our family office and our parent holding company. And that was born out of the success that we had at my prior firm that when I started was a relative startup and then grew into a pretty substantial firm. That firm was called FS Investments. They actually just changed their name to Future Standard. But I’ve spent my entire professional career kind of investing at the frontier of alternative investments. And all that means for folks that aren’t and, you know, don’t know what that definition is, you know, you’ve got your normal 60, 40 stocks.and bonds type of portfolio within most people’s portfolios of investments. ⁓ Alternatives is something that the institutions and the endowments have always had access to. That’s private equity, venture capital, private real estate, private debt, private credit. And so I spent my entire career unlocking that asset class for folks like my parents who are very blue collar and had your traditional 60, 40 portfolios. ⁓ And so we had a great deal of success. That company is about a hundred billion dollar company, FS Investments is today. We had an enormous amount of success.
and was able to parachute out of that company with one of the co-founders of that company. And Magnolia Hill Partners is really our alternative investment holding company. And then Momentous is actually something that we’ve been doing for a number of years,
off of our own balance sheet and kind of on our own. But we publicly just formed Momentous as an outward external brand about a month ago where we had seen just this incredible opportunity to invest in sports teams in the real estate that unlocks those sports.
teams
around the country. And we came out with that company because no other company was doing it in the way that we were investing on our own with that intersection of investments into teams and the real estate around those teams. And so under Magnolia, we’ve got some great partners in Momentous, the likes of John Elway and Tim Tebow and Andrew Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A
on and on and on. And so we’ve got a great team and a really interesting focus there.
Kristen (05:54)
That’s so cool. How did you even come up with this focus?Marley Hughes (05:58)
That’s a great question. So sports, I’ve been a spectator of sports my whole life. I was never any good at them. I’m a very amateur golfer at best. And, we started investing after we left FS, we had the opportunity to invest in anything that we wanted, whether it was golf courses or wine and vineyards or technology or copper mines. And so we chose areas that we felt like we had a tremendous amount of conviction, a lot of upside where we could use our DNA of thinking differently. And then most importantly, surround ourselves withincredible people. And so we started investing in sports thematically a number of years ago. And then as we really leaned into that, we saw just a crazy amount of opportunities in terms of sports. And so it’s really gained a lot of popularity, a lot of headlines in terms of folks investing in sports teams and different things, but nobody was really investing in the way that we were. And so as you start to surround yourself with great people like John Elway or Tim Tebow or others, of course you see amazing deal flow. ⁓ And then we saw, because
nobody was doing it in the way that we were, which was diversifying our capital not only into the team, but into the real estate all around the team. And that’s not just the stadium, but that’s your multifamily residential, that’s your hotels, that’s your retail, that’s your medical office. All of those assets paired with the catalyst of sport, that’s how we were doing it, but nobody else was doing it that way. ⁓ And so after a while we said, well, there’s plenty of opportunity here and we can’t do it all on our own. And that’s when we launched Momentous.
Kristen (07:26)
That’s so cool. I mean, it is very unique. Can you tell us, you know, investing in sports teams? Can you give us some examples of that?Marley Hughes (07:35)
Yeah.So it’s wide ranging and there’s a lot of folks that are looking at it. For us what it means is backing great ownership groups and operators of sports teams so that the folks that are making the daily decisions every day of everything from the real estate to what players come onto the team to critical decisions. But we’re backing great operators of those teams, the owners of those teams, coming in in a very active way ourselves ⁓ and being a part of the governance or the board for those teams.
But you’re investing in a community asset in lot of circumstances where for us it’s a lot of men’s and women’s teams. For us it’s also appending in the youth athletics side of that. So for example in our Jacksonville project we not only have the women’s professional soccer team, we have the men’s professional soccer team kicking off here in a couple months, but then we just acquired the largest youth academy in the southeast. That’s 12,000 kids and all of their parents ⁓ and the identity and the opportunity to impact all of those kids and those families.
⁓ And that is part of one organization now. so investing in sports is multifaceted. I mean, it’s everything from concessions to parking to the team P &L to sponsorships to the media. I mean, it’s so fascinating. And then when you pair that with the opportunity to placemake ⁓ in and around those teams on the real estate side, it becomes really, really impactful and can be a huge opportunity. And there’s so many great cities across the country and even in Europe where we work as well that, you know, have an opportunity to truly
⁓ develop something, whether it’s an existing team to relocate them into a different stadium or to bring an expansion team, there’s so much opportunity.
Kristen (09:16)
I’m sure and I’m sure in Europe there’s a lot of opportunity there. You mentioned women’s sports. I feel like it’s a great time for women’s sports right now. I feel like there’s a little pop in basketball and soccer and all that. Are you seeing that?Marley Hughes (09:29)
Absolutely. ⁓ have two, I have three kids, two of them are daughters. ⁓ They play soccer and you know what? I have to be honest with you. I’ll say the blunt things and the honest things. A couple of years ago before my kids, ⁓ you would have asked me about women’s sports league. Nobody really was watching it. People had question marks about the viability of it. That’s not because women were any less talented. It was just…completely different than what we had consumed. But then you start to watch the women’s national team on soccer and they could…
arguably more talented than the men’s team in a lot of ways.
And then you start to apply that to basketball and Caitlin Clark and everything that she’s done for the game. And so the short answer is women’s sports is absolutely here to stay. I have so many friends of mine that are males that can name as many professional women’s superstars as they can male superstars. And so I think that only continues. And I think it’s a huge generational opportunity. And we’re just in the first inning of it. So it’s very important to us, again,
of our teams are both men’s teams and women’s teams, not just the men’s teams.
Kristen (11:09)
Yeah,I mean, think that’s such a great opportunity to kind of be like almost on the ground floor. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say, but you know, as it’s kind of on its way up. So talk more about the surrounding businesses, know, surrounding stadiums and kind of what you’ve seen there, what you invest in. Because I think that’s such an interesting opportunity there.
Marley Hughes (11:29)
Yeah, so the word that we use and is a bit common on the real estate side is placemaking. all that means really in terms of my definition is being very thoughtful about what types of retailers are we putting in, nothing against a cheesecake factory, are we putting in more local establishments that have great regard but only have one or two locations. so placemaking is being very thoughtful about the entire complex, the entire district that we’re creating around these stadiums and ensuring that weWe
are truly going into each community and…
working and partnering with those communities to understand what that community has already and what may be an opportunity for it and not to just come in and put down a Walmart and a Cheesecake Factory and call it a day, which a lot of former projects have done, but to actually come in and say, who are the best chefs in town or in the local region? How can we bring them and allow them to expand? Who are the best consumer goods companies? then pairing that with thoughtful ideas on how to bring in great hospitality brands and partner with the
hospitals like up in Jacksonville, you know, we’re working with one of the best hospital brands to bring in a medical office space that they don’t have access to anything like that in Jacksonville right now. And so it’s an awesome opportunity to be creative in every single project that we’re in by sitting at the table with the councilmen and women, the mayors, all of the municipal folks to really create a community asset. I mean that a community asset for those communities. And each one feels and looks a little bit different depending upon how big that community is.
where they are in their life cycle, but really trying to be thoughtful about who comes in and how we can create that catalyst for that community.
Kristen (13:12)
Yeah, and I mean you have such a unique angle on everything and such an impressive approach. Can you talk about how you’ve been able to get these high profile ⁓ celebrities kind of involved with you?Marley Hughes (13:26)
I wish I had an easy answer. ⁓ You know, I spent my entire life trying to not be different, right, as we grew up and we just want to fit in. And I think in my professional career, it’s kind of been the antithesis of that, where I’ve always…Questioned how to do business and how to to be a little bit different I think that’s worked in my favor and that is everything from how we do business to how we think about relationships and so we’re incredibly intentional with the relationships that we have we didn’t just Blast out an email to people saying hey, this is what we’re doing Do you want to come work with us? Like these are you know Tim Tebow and John Elway and all the folks that are on our team are one Long-standing relationships that we’ve done life and business with that’s a that’s a motto that we use internally We want to do life and business with people. We’re not just somebody that’s taking a check-in
moving on to the next person. ⁓ People that align with our values and people that truly care about what we’re doing. And so I think for a lot of funds out there, they’ll put, you use the word celebrity. I guess they are celebrities. Absolutely. Like Tim Tebow was arguably the best collegiate athlete that ever played the game. ⁓ John Elway, everyone knows who he is. Of course they’ve got their accomplishments on the field and they have a celebrity factor. But for us, those are people that are at our table with a purpose, not because of their name,
but because Tim Tebow is constantly saying, hey, how do we go into these communities and truly make an impact? Like how do we focus on the MVP? Not most valuable player, but you know, for him, it’s the most vulnerable people. How do we start to think about, you know, folks that have special needs and different things within our stadium, within our communities? Like how do we think about those people?
Kristen (14:53)
Mmm.Marley Hughes (15:41)
And so we surrounded ourself with people that are very values aligned, but it just comes from the business that we’ve done in the past, how we do business and the relationships andhow we pour into that. so that, you all of these relationships for momentous have been long, long standing and we’re just humbled to be working with folks like that.
Kristen (16:01)
That’s amazing. That must be very fulfilling to kind of for them to be sort of on the other side of it and really be able to make a difference in the community. ⁓ So you mentioned, you know, the values and kind of culture alignment. How do you foster that with such a big company with so many different subsets? How do you kind of foster that community and culture within your business and keep it consistent?Marley Hughes (16:25)
That’s a great question. I try to do that every day and it’s not easy some days and one of my God-given talents was not to be necessarily somebody that espoused culture. Like that was something that, you know, back in my old family, we always talked about culture. We had a great culture, but it wasn’t something that I thought about every day. But now being a leader here in all of the different organizations that we have, it’s so important and it’s just…There’s nothing simple about it. It’s just being vocal about what our values are, how we do business, how we treat people, all of those things. you quickly understand if somebody resonates with that and kind of lights up, or if they’re just not on the receiving end of that. And so it’s hard. It takes work, but it’s surround yourself with the same types of people that have that same type of focus. And they don’t have to have the same barometer of that, but just being able to pour into people and know that we’re doing this for something other than
and just making money and getting rich. And like we’re truly doing this to go into communities and place make and create an impact. And so people either resonate with that or they don’t. But it’s an interesting thing to build a culture at the rate that we’re growing. You you can’t always hire just people that you know, which I’ve done a lot of is going back in my networks and hiring people that we know, you know, link to how we do business and our values and all of that. But sometimes you have to send out a job posting and just kind of go out there into the dark world and find.
somebody and so usually you know quicker than than you don’t know if somebody’s a right cultural fit.
Kristen (17:55)
Yeah, and what happens if they’re not? What are your tips for that?Marley Hughes (18:00)
⁓ If you have any, would be ⁓ very receptive. no, I mean, it’s just knowing when somebody’s not a fit. And it’s not a selfish thing to say that you’re not a right fit for us, but rather the other way around. Like we want that person to still be successful. And so again, the way that we do business, we haven’t let anyone go, like trying to find the…next best thing for them is the best thing that we can do. ⁓ And so, you know, I guess a great example is with our interns. We have a great internship program. I had five internships when I was in college. I credit it to a large degree of what I found out I did not want to do professionally, which is just as valuable as finding what you do want to do perhaps. But for all of our interns, like, you know, spending the time with them and opening up my Rolodex to them, to some of the most influential connected people that I know to go meet with
ask them questions, be mentored by them and go find a better job or go find an incredible company to work for is the best compliment that we can get.
Kristen (19:02)
Yeah, I think that’s wonderful. That’s a really good approach with it. So to kind of wrap it up, what would be a piece of advice that you wish you learned in the early stages of building this business that you could share with everybody? ⁓Marley Hughes (19:18)
I would say just continue to be intentional with what you do and don’t be afraid to be different. know, for us, as again, you know, we were investing off of our own balance sheet so we could do whatever we wanted. We didn’t have to. ⁓We didn’t have to report to anyone. We didn’t have any bureaucracy, all of those things. And so for us, investing in the team and the real estate was very appropriate and important because it was very aligned. But we saw that a lot of folks either invested in one or the other. And so as we look to open this up to other folks, we had some large institutions which are phenomenal, trillion dollar institutions say, well, we only invest in one or the other. We can’t kind of wrap our heads around doing both. And so back to the comments that I said earlier, I tried my entire life early.
in my life to not be different. But being ⁓ faithful to who you are and how you do business and knowing that that will eventually resonate with the right people. so family offices, RAs, other very high net worth people, and even retail investors have resonated tremendously. And institutions will as well. We’ve got some incredible institutions that we’re partnered with. But don’t be afraid to be different. even, don’t, don’t.
Don’t try to fit in just for the sake of fitting in, because you can do that a lot in Wall Street in terms of like, where’s the capital at? And how do we just find the easiest bucket of capital? For us, it’s OK to be different and to do it the way that we’ve always done it. ⁓ So I would just say keeping that as a reminder in the back of my head, even when things seem like it might not be as easy as it could be, we could radically change our structure and focus on a different ⁓ platform and different things, and it would be a lot easier. ⁓
I’m not afraid to be different anymore.
Kristen (20:59)
Yeah, and where did that confidence come from? Because I feel like there is kind of a fine line when you’re building something, institutions tell you that’s not the way it works. It is kind of a fine line of like, what should I listen to and what shouldn’t I? Where did you get the confidence to just kind of be true to your vision?Marley Hughes (21:17)
I think it just comes from perspective and the amount of years that I’ve worked in the space and recognizing, yes, there are big silos of capital and they all think a little bit differently, but there’s a huge swath of the populace that thinks like us and acts like us. And maybe they’re not as vocal and they don’t have as much power per se, but the family offices, the RAs that are fighting for their clients day in and day out and other high net worth people, ⁓ it’s just knowing that your tribe is out there somewhere and maybe it’s notthe loudest ones that are telling you that you don’t fit in like them. ⁓ But it’s just coming from working in this space for almost 20 years now and knowing that if you’re different but you’re good at what you do, that you have success.
Kristen (21:59)
Amazing.Well, thank you so much for being here. I think this is really interesting and people probably learned a lot and got some good
tell everyone where to find you, Magnolia Hill, and how to ⁓ find out more about momentous sports.
Marley Hughes (22:13)
Yeah,absolutely. You can find us on one of two websites, ⁓ either Magnolia Hill partners.com or momentous sports.com. And there’s a dash between momentous and sports. Unfortunately, somebody grabbed that one before we could. And then we’re all my entire team is very active on LinkedIn. And so we try to be as much as we can be good stewards of obviously capital, these communities, but then, you know, thought leaders and on LinkedIn and other things where we’re really providing more transparency on what we’re doing. And so I urge anyone that has interest or
even questions about what we’re doing to find us on our websites or to feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Kristen (22:49)
Amazing. Well, I really encourage everyone to do that and learn more. So thank you everyone for listening. We hope that you took a lot from this episode and we will see you back next time. Bye.Marley Hughes (22:59)
Thank youso much.
