I’ve talked to a lot of heavy hitters over the years on All Business, but every once in a while, someone sits across from me and reframes the way I think about risk, opportunity, and what it really takes to win. Soo Kim, Managing Partner and CIO of Standard General and Chairman of the Board of Bally’s Corporation, is one of those people.
We sat down live from the New York Stock Exchange, and what followed was one of the most honest, no-nonsense conversations I’ve had about how real money actually gets made, not in the obvious places, but in the seams.
The Accidental Career That Wasn’t Accidental At All
Soo didn’t set out to become one of the sharpest distressed investors on Wall Street. He started at Bankers Trust in 1997, fresh out of school, and as the junior guy, he got handed restaurants and retail, not exactly the glamour assignment at a high-yield hedge fund. He laughs about it now, but at the time he just thought, “I got the job, I get to wear a suit.” What he didn’t realize was that he’d essentially been handed a license to learn what nobody else wanted to learn.
When those companies started failing, and levered restaurants and retailers almost always do, he didn’t run. He asked, “What do we do when it fails?” And when he found out there was a specialty group that handled exactly that, he raised his hand and said he wanted in. That moment of curiosity set the entire course of his career.
The lesson? Opportunity often lives where other people aren’t looking, sometimes because it looks messy, and sometimes because it is messy. The question is whether you have the skill set and the stomach to figure out what’s worth saving.
Good Risk vs. Bad Risk
One of the things I pushed Soo on was the difference between smart risk-taking and just plain gambling. His answer was refreshingly straightforward: you cannot make a return without taking risk. Period. If you’re trying to minimize risk at all costs, you’re really just saying you don’t want a return. Don’t bet.
But here’s where Soo gets surgical. He’s spent the bulk of his career in two specific sectors, gaming and media, and it’s no accident. Both are licensed businesses. Licenses constrain competition. They create a floor of value that exists independent of how well or poorly a company is being run. Even a badly managed casino or broadcasting station has an asset that can outlast its own dysfunction. That’s what he looks for: assets that can survive bad management, bad markets, and bad luck.
That’s not reckless investing. That’s disciplined investing in places most people won’t go.
The People Are Already There
Here’s the part that surprised even me, and I’ve been in enough turnarounds to think I’d heard it all. When Soo steps into a troubled company, he doesn’t parachute in a rescue squad. He told me that 80 to 90 percent of the team he uses to fix a situation is already inside the building.
Think about what happens when a high-performing organization starts to fall apart. The elite performers leave first, they have options. Then the slackers dig in and coast. But there’s always a third group: the people who stay because they actually care. They might be in the wrong seat, they might be overlooked, but they believe in the mission and they’re willing to sit with uncertainty. Those are the people Soo builds around.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, you change the mood before you change the culture. Culture takes time. But when you find the believers inside a broken organization, you’ve already got the foundation. Soo confirmed exactly that.
Investing in the Seams
This is the concept I want everyone to take away from this conversation. Soo talks about “investing in the seams”, the intersections between debt and equity, public and private, where most institutional money simply doesn’t go. With over 60 percent of equity markets now driven by systematic, programmatic, algorithmic buying, the crowd is bigger and louder than ever. Which means the seams, the places between the big pools of capital, are actually getting wider.
His philosophy: look at a company’s entire capital structure and find where the value is mispriced. Don’t think like an equity investor or a credit investor. Think like an investor, full stop. Sometimes the opportunity is in the secured debt. Sometimes it’s in the equity. The point is to look where the money isn’t.
I always say, “riches in the niches,” and Soo’s version of that idea is one of the most sophisticated I’ve encountered. It’s not easy, he’s the first to admit it. But for those willing to roll up their sleeves and do the fundamental work, the opportunity is there.
Know When to Change Your Mind
The thing about turnarounds is that the facts on the ground change constantly. Soo made a point that stuck with me: he wants to be right all the time, and the way he does it is by changing his mind when he’s wrong. He’s always reassessing, always adjusting based on honest reads of actual conditions rather than the story he told himself going in.
Companies fail because people get stuck in a narrative. They can’t let go of the version of the business they believed in, even when the evidence is screaming otherwise. Whether it’s a leader who built the company and can’t admit it’s broken, or a team that’s too loyal to a bad plan, rigidity kills. Soo calls it out directly, and I think every operator, board member, and investor needs to hear it.
Drive a car down a straight highway and watch your hands, you’re making micro-corrections the entire time. You’re never actually locked in. Business is the same way. Adapt, change, or die.
The Investor-Operator Balance
As someone who chairs boards myself, I was curious how Soo navigates the line between investor and operator. His answer was clean: he doesn’t pretend to be an operator. The board makes capital decisions, borrow, pay down, acquire, divest. The operators run the business. And the moment your people on the ground are asking themselves “what would Soo think?” before making a decision, you’ve already failed them.
Empower your people. Hold them accountable. Know everything about the business but get out of the way.
The Bottom Line
Finance, at its core, is simple. Money runs toward situations that make more money and away from situations that lose it. What Soo Kim has spent nearly 30 years doing is running toward the losing situations and dragging them toward the winning side. That takes discipline, vision, honesty, and a very high tolerance for complexity.
Sitting at the New York Stock Exchange with him, watching the floor that used to be packed with traders now running mostly on computers, I was reminded that the game always changes. But the fundamentals don’t. Find the belief, do the work, stay honest, and find your seam.
That’s what I learned. And I hope you take it with you.
Watch my full conversation with Soo Kim on All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett – https://open.spotify.com/episode/4v11zLFeD08uRLc5cwirew
or https://c-suitenetwork.com/all-business-with-jeffrey-hayzlett/
