I invest in hedge funds.

There appears to be a lot of confusion about what hedge funds are and what they do. I'd like to help answer some questions and share my opinions (along with my biases).

About me: I've been involved with hedge funds in various roles since 2000. For the past 5 years I've been working for a NYC based firm which invests in hedge funds (among other investments) on behalf of pensions, charities, and wealthy families.

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Cool thread, thanks for the effort. 

1. What, in your mind, constitutes a track record that piques your interest enough to start a conversation with a prospective manager?

  • % absolute return?
  • % relative return/outperformance?
  • Asset base on which track record was achieved?

2. Why do you think your industry focuses so much on investment process, quarterly questionnaires justifying positions, etc.? A manager can practically buy anything they want and then back into a very rational justification to put on paper.

 

Thank you so much for doing this. Could you discuss the following? 

  • What key factors did you see in a start-up fund that propel them into an established one? Conversely, why do most start-up funds fail to scale? 
  • Have you seen a shift in interest toward deep value / traditional value from TMT / health care style shops? 
  • Is ESG impacting the hedge fund space yet? What 3 big trends do you see in the hedge fund land over the next decade? 
 

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