Bad Ass Motherfucker

BAMF = Kyle Bass

I will be honest.I only heard of this guy until someone posted a video of him buttfucking the BBC anchor on Hardtalk. Bass came from a non-target background; he graduated BBA Finance and Real Estate Finance from Texas Christian University in May 1992 and attended TCU on a Division I scholarship for academic achievement and diving.
He started his career in corporate finance, then after a successful IPO jumped ship to Bear Stearns, then Legg Mason before starting event driven fund Hayman Capital Management LLC.

Bass mentions his theory of "asymmetry" - finding bets whose risk/reward ratio is way off and doesn't justify the ongoing market price (basically riding a covered short position). Bass made "mulah" for his investors by shorting the sub-prime mortgage bonds (CME future contracts of the Case Shiller Home Price Index) in 2006 at only 36 years of age. For his research Bass read "Collateralized Debt Obligations: Structures and Analysis”, a book by Frank Fabozzi. Although he never discloses his payoff, its estimated he raised $110M and shorted $1.22B sub-prime derivatives!

In the BBC interview Bass gave insights on the Japan and France's debt and called them out on default by 2013. He probably has huge position riding on them in the CDS market. From the last interview I saw of him, he flat-out predicts the collapse of the EU (he stands to make 6500% return) as Germany will be forced to re-capitalize and get....you guessed it.... raped.

For little guys like us, I believe, it makes sense shorting ETF's (iShares, SPDR etc.). Bass recommends buying gold and guns. Also by gold he means physical metal as the paper gold far outweighs the physical metal. Which guns to buy? Well Bass likes snipers and the bumper sticker on his Hummer reads “God Bless Our Troops, Especially Our Snipers”

Also, I like the no BS nature of Bass. Besides Jim Rogers, he is the only other guy who goes straight for the interviewer's jugular.

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His investment portfolio:

His last letter to investors, courtesy JeffSkilling:

Hayman_Nov2011

 

Can someone explain the pie chart? If it is true that Mr. Bass "flat-out predicts the collapse of the EU," why is 83% of his portfolio loans? A collapse of the EU would be devastating to asset classes such as US mortgages and US high yield debt.

 

I think that may be his normal investments, with the hedge of the other things he is shorting not included, but I may be wrong?

“...all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” - Schopenhauer
 

Go with the flow, I just saw the same thing on Hardtalk and now hes one of my favs as well. Great post!

One point though. "Bass mentions his theory of "asymmetry" - finding bets whose risk/reward ratio is way off and doesn't justify the ongoing market price (basically riding a covered short position)." Is that really his theory? I don't think he developed the asymmetry theory by any means, but he sure knows how to use it.

 

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