Brian Murphy: Turning Broken Deals Into Billion-Dollar Structures

Brian Murphy spent thirty years building Portfolio Advisors from a bare office with no furniture into a firm that raised roughly $90 billion and delivered an 18.4% compounded return to its clients. In this episode of Case Studies, Brian sits down with Casey to trace that arc, from selling bootleg fireworks as a kid to restructuring a broken $395 million portfolio at twenty-nine years old, and ultimately building one of the most creative fund structures in private equity.

The conversation moves well beyond deal mechanics. Brian unpacks the mindset behind solving problems no one else would…