Nov 5, 2026 · 50 min
Mavik bets on flexibility as real estate markets fragment
Opportunistic Real Estate and Hard Asset Credit at Mavik – Vik Uppal (EP.525)
The conversation examines how an investment firm can pursue distressed real estate and hard-asset credit while protecting capital and avoiding crowded trades.
- 1Mavik built its model around stable capital, aligned incentives, and flexibility across commercial real estate and credit.
- 2Uppal prioritizes collateral, current income, durable cash flows, and downside protection over fashionable opportunities such as AI infrastructure.
- 3The firm’s next challenge is institutional growth without becoming the large-scale investment factory it seeks to avoid.
Don't miss
Uppal explains why Mavik has largely avoided AI, data-center, and infrastructure trades in favor of collateral, income, and durable cash flows.
The brief
Vik Uppal’s path runs from a Minnesota family real estate business through Mount Kellett’s distressed investing world to building Mavik Capital Management.
Mavik was designed to preserve alignment and flexibility rather than force unusual opportunities into narrow asset-class mandates or crowded strategies.
Uppal describes finding scarce capital in overlooked commercial real estate, middle-market private equity, and private credit, with collateral and current income central to underwriting.
The firm has largely avoided AI, data-center, and infrastructure manias, favoring durable cash flows and the ability to exit when facts change.
Mavik’s central growth problem is institutionalization: adding process and scale without becoming the investment factory its model is meant to differentiate from.
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