Oct 8, 2026 · 50 min · 17 segments
Bryan Gelman built Albert Gelman Inc. from a basement into a leading insolvency and restructuring firm, and in 25 years he's sat across the table from thousands of business owners at their lowest…
[upbeat music] When you say the economy is really shit right now, and in a way that benefits you, how, how do you think about it? And, and as someone who's been in the industry that you're in for so long, 25-plus years, like, are you rooting for a downturn?
Okay, so I think to, just to get at your first point, question, it's that I'm in a counter-cyclical environment, okay? So my business tends to earn the most amount of income when the economy is not doing well.
When the economy is not doing well in certain sectors that expose certain creditor types like lenders who lend on development lands and development properties, those lenders typically call me, and we work through the problems that they're having.
When the development sector is doing perfectly well and everybody's building homes and condos, and they're selling it at, or they're closing at prices that they originally sold at, I'm not getting phone calls.
So I wouldn't say that I'm rooting for problems at all, because this impacts my family and friends.
People who are in, who are not in a counter-cyclical industry, those people, they're rooting for a good economy, and I'm rooting for them.
And you know, I, I probably told you before when we were speaking, you know, I started the company now 15 years ago, and, and it hasn't always been, you know, a massive flow of income for our business.
There have been weeks where we're wondering where the next dollar's gonna come from.
But as you know, when you're in a business and y- when you're in a startup environment, when you start to get income, it typically trickles upwards.
So we've had the benefit of gaining maturity and income over time, and, and we've grown, in my view, quite slowly, actually, over 15 years, which I'm proud of.
Relative to what you've seen over the history of your company and your career, how bad is it right now?
You know, I can tell you that 25 years ago when I started in the industry, it was a busy time.
[upbeat music] When you say the economy is really shit right now, and in a way that benefits you, how, how do you think about it? And, and as someone who's been in the industry that you're in for so long, 25-plus years, like, are you rooting for a downturn?
Okay, so I think to, just to get at your first point, question, it's that I'm in a counter-cyclical environment, okay? So my business tends to earn the most amount of income when the economy is not doing well.
When the economy is not doing well in certain sectors that expose certain creditor types like lenders who lend on development lands and development properties, those lenders typically call me, and we work through the problems that they're having.
When the development sector is doing perfectly well and everybody's building homes and condos, and they're selling it at, or they're closing at prices that they originally sold at, I'm not getting phone calls.
So I wouldn't say that I'm rooting for problems at all, because this impacts my family and friends.
People who are in, who are not in a counter-cyclical industry, those people, they're rooting for a good economy, and I'm rooting for them.
And you know, I, I probably told you before when we were speaking, you know, I started the company now 15 years ago, and, and it hasn't always been, you know, a massive flow of income for our business.
There have been weeks where we're wondering where the next dollar's gonna come from.
But as you know, when you're in a business and y- when you're in a startup environment, when you start to get income, it typically trickles upwards.
So we've had the benefit of gaining maturity and income over time, and, and we've grown, in my view, quite slowly, actually, over 15 years, which I'm proud of.
Relative to what you've seen over the history of your company and your career, how bad is it right now?
You know, I can tell you that 25 years ago when I started in the industry, it was a busy time.
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