Why Did Oren Zeev Hold Navan Stock After the Lockup?

Oren Zeev held Navan stock after the lockup because he thought the share price was far too low and that selling then was not in his limited partners' interest. Over the last two or three years, limited partners had become extremely focused on DPI, the cash a fund has actually paid back. Some would count only that cash. A manager with a good portfolio can manufacture DPI by selling shares in the secondary market at a discount. His early funds were already far beyond the record he needed in order to raise again, so the discount would have been easy. He did not take it. Until a year or two before this conversation he still did not have good DPI, and he knows he lost limited partners over that. He calls it the price of doing what he said he would do.

He says his read of the company can sound arrogant, and that wishful thinking could have clouded it. He still refused to distribute. Even at the low price the stake was 50 times cost, which he says would have been a good result, and he thinks most limited partners would have sold because they do not know the stock. About four months later the price was almost four times higher. He still plans to distribute slowly. If the price had gone the other way, he says he would have looked very stupid, and he took that chance on purpose.