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Chris Heller of Cordillera Investment Partners joins Capital Allocators to discuss Ten Years of Weird Alternatives

December 2, 2024 – Chris Heller is the Co-Founder of Cordillera Investment Partners, a $1.6 billion manager of non-correlated, niche investments, or weird alternatives. Cordillera looks for investments ahead of the crowd that offer compelling returns and significant diversification. Chris came on the podcast two years ago in our Manager Meeting series interviewed by FEG’s Greg Dowling, and that conversation is replayed in the feed. Our follow-up covers lessons learned over ten years of focusing on off-the-run investments...

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Sports law firm behind Chelsea sale sells stake to private equity group

March 31, 2026 - A boutique UK law firm behind some of the biggest football deals has taken an investment from a US private equity group, in a sign of the growing interest from private capital in both the legal and sports industries. San Francisco’s Cordillera Investment Partners has taken a minority stake in Northridge Law, whose clients include English Premier League football clubs such as Chelsea. The deal, which will give Cordillera a board seat at Northridge, comes as private capital has shown an increasing appetite to invest in professional services firms. Several legal and accounting firms have taken investments over the past two years, with many private equity investors seeking opportunities in the highly profitable sector.

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Chris Heller – The Psychology of Niche Assets

February 16, 2026 - The term uncorrelated is used so often it tends to lose its meaning. Today we are talking to someone who seeks out truly uncorrelated assets in niches you've never thought of. How do you turn a barrel of bourbon into a predictable financial instrument? And why is women's soccer a more compelling bet than a minority stake in an NFL team? Investors often confuse unusual with risky. According to today's guest, Chris Heller, psychological bias is exactly where the opportunity lies. As a Co-Founder of Cordillera Investment Partners, Chris specializes in exploiting the delta between perceived risk and actual risk. In this wide-ranging conversation, we dive into the heuristics of investing, the importance of creative hiring, why a background in the liberal arts might be the secret weapon for identifying the next great niche market, and why alligator farms are ultimately a niche too far.

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Triathlon gets F1-style makeover as endurance sports boom

August 9, 2025 - Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty and TV chef Gordon Ramsay will be among almost 6,000 amateur triathletes plunging into the water in London’s Docklands this weekend. They are competing in the T100 triathlon, an event run by the Professional Triathletes Organisation, which last month raised $40mn from investors including Saudi Arabia’s Surj Sports Investment, Cordillera Investment Partners and venture capitalist Sir Michael Moritz.

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One to watch: Cordillera Investment Partners digs into NWSL

June 24, 2025 - When my SBJ colleague Chris Smith read the list of investors for the NWSL’s expansion team in Denver earlier this month, names like Peyton Manning and Mikaela Shiffrin leapt off the page. One name not as familiar to the sports industry? Cordillera Investment Partners. Smith notes the $1.8 billion private equity firm has made a specialty of investing in “niche, non-correlated assets” like boat marinas and whiskey barrels. Cordillera recently turned its attention to the sports world, with its Denver NWSL stake following an investment in the Pro Triathletes Organisation. Firm co-founder and co-managing partner Ashley Marks explained that some categories within sports -- namely emerging leagues, women’s sports and ancillary businesses -- are an ideal fit for Cordillera’s focus on pre-institutional, niche businesses.

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PTO’s ‘diversified revenue model’ key to landing US$10m Cordillera investment

March 19, 2025 - ...Speaking to SportsPro, Cordillera’s co-founder and co-managing partner Gus Araya said the firm was focused on investing in areas that “are not already crowded with a lot of institutional capital”. “Our approach is really to go after what we call the nooks and crannies of sports,” explained Araya. “Obviously, you’re seeing a lot of interest in NFL teams or Premier League teams, which is great. [But] that is not our mandate and we think that’s an area that is most likely to get crowded or be crowded sooner. “For us, the PTO really fits in that category of an emerging league commercialising a popular sport.”

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‘Weird’ Cordillera Dives Into Sports with Pro Triathlon Purchase

March 18, 2025 - ...“We invest in things like whiskey and wireless spectrum licenses—things that march to the beat of their own drummer,” Cordillera co-founder Chris Heller said on a video call. “As it relates to sports, it’s an area we find very interesting because of the potential non-correlation” to other assets. “We’re not Arctos, Blue Owl, RedBird—we’re focused on the weirder, nichier part of sports.” Over its 11 years of operations, Cordillera has touched sports at times, mainly specialty financing. Now the firm is seeking to shift assets into equity investments in teams, leagues and associated businesses that it believes can meet its investments goals. In the long run, Heller says Cordillera “would like to deploy 20% to 40%” of its assets in and around sports.

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Cordillera Co-Founder Ashley Marks Makes the Case for ‘Weird Stuff’

January 15, 2025 - 'Investments in niche, non-correlated assets are often smaller in scale, less competitive, and outcomes tend to be more dependent on idiosyncratic factors such as the supply chain for whiskey, the price of carbon, or federally insured crop insurance.' PE Hub's ongoing series of thought leader Q&As continues here with Ashley Marks, a co-founder and co-managing partner of Cordillera Investment Partners, a San-Francisco based private equity firm that invests in niche assets.

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The Super-Rich Are Buying Marinas, Whiskey Barrels, and More Offbeat Investments. Here’s Why.

December 18, 2024 - Some wealthy families look elsewhere to invest as private-equity funds become too big. The strategies aren’t for the average investor...As private-equity funds begin looking more like traditional investments, family offices looking for an edge are going further afield into off-the-beaten-track asset classes.

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Chris Heller of Cordillera Investment Partners joins Capital Allocators to discuss Ten Years of Weird Alternatives

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