Peter J. de Marigny
is Portfolio Manager of DITMo® Strategies, an Equity Hedge, Aggressive-Income Objective, Buy/Write Portfolio for an Aggressive-Income Objective used as an Enhanced Cash investment vehicle. Pj is also Head of Risk Alternative Strategies for Newport Beach, CA advisor Renovatio Asset Management.
» View Peter J. de Marigny
Jesse Marrus
Jesse Marrus is the Founder and CEO of StreetID, a financial career matchmaking, news and networking site. He has unique insight into the financial services job industry including career advice, employment trends, fund formations, layoffs and hiring developments.
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Rashida Fleet is involved with consulting and working with managers during the fund launch phase. Her work includes; interviewing managers, collecting information for the HedgeCo database and contributing to the HedgeCo News feed.
» View Rashida Fleet
Tim Seymour is co-founder and managing partner of Red Star Asset Management, as well as Chief Operating Officer of the $116 million Red Star Double Alpha Fund. » View Tim Seymour
Richard Heller Richard Heller is a partner at the New York City law firm of Thompson Hine LLP. His experience is in the formation of private offerings for hedge funds as well as the formation of registered broker-dealers and RIAs.
» View Richard Heller
Cameron Hight, CFA, is an investment industry veteran with experience from both buy and sell-side firms, including CIBC, DLJ, Lehman Brothers and Afton Capital. He is currently the Founder and President of Alpha Theory™, a Portfolio Management Platform designed to give fundamental money managers the ability to create their own repeatable discipline to organize the complex process of portfolio management.
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If you’ve talked to a hedge fund manager for any amount of time, the topic of prime brokers will come up. One of the fundamental issues when setting up a hedge fund is finding a prime broker who will fit your balance of price vs. services rendered.
In the world of prime brokerage, there are the Goldman’s, the Morgan Stanley’s, and the JP Morgan’s, and then there is everyone else. The big boys of the prime brokerage world offer the best of trading platforms and great customer service, if your hedge fund is big enough for them to turn a profit on your account. Hedge funds under $100 million in assets might have a hard time getting Goldman Sachs on the phone. Even if that fund was able to get into the Goldman customer book, what kind of servicing do you think they could expect?
Alex goes on to answer the following important questions regarding your prime brokerage relationship and specifically when is the right time for your hedge fund to use a mini prime.
Why Use a Mini Prime
Benefits of Mini Prime Brokers
How to Choose a Mini Prime Broker
The conclusion which is drawn is that if you choose to use a mini prime you should either get better pricing or better services. If you don’t get one or preferably both, then keep shopping!
Andrew Schneider has been appointed as Director of the HFA Southeast Chapter. In this role he will lead regional efforts to foster growth and development of the hedge fund community throughout the Southeastern U.S.
Andrew is founder and co-principal of HedgeCo Networks, a hedge fund research and services firm. At HedgeCo, he provides consulting services to new and existing hedge funds, and oversees a database of over 6,500 hedge funds, including a community of over 35,000 members. Andrew is often sought by major media outlets and industry publications for his expertise on the hedge fund industry. He appears regularly on CNBC and has been quoted in over 200 financial publications.
HFA Member programs are driven by Regional Chapters in Northeast, Midwest and now the Southeast. The Director of the HFA Northeast Chapter is Michael Scanlon, and the Director of the HFA Midwest Chapter is John Peterson.
HFA is also pleased to announce the addition of Anh Huynh as Manager of HFA Government Relations. Anh is based in Washington D.C., and will help expand efforts to educate the public, media and lawmakers to dispel myths and advocate for all industry participants.
There are a lot of factors that come into play when trying to determine what group of websites get the most traffic. Many people have used the “Reach” statistic from Alexa.com to determine how much traffic that a website receives.
The inherent problem with Alexa is that it estimates the traffic based on the number of people who use the Alexa Toolbar (which is flagged as spyware by most antivirus programs). These estimations give a general idea of how much traffic a site gets, but because of the flawed methodology, Alexa can easily be gamed to show more traffic than a site actually gets. For more information about the inherently problems with Alexa rankings read this creative blog entry titled “20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank“.
Quantcast: A Quantitative Alternative
Quantcast is an alternative which uses far more efficient technology to get direct information about the site traffic as well as the user base of the site. This traffic is not estimated, but gathered directly from your site. This technology makes Quantcast a far better technology to use for comparing site traffic. For a detailed look at how Quantcast works read this article from their website.
Quantcast.com Top 5 Hedge Fund Websites
Based on data from Quantcast, I’ve created the list of the top 5 hedge fund database websites – the lower the number the more traffic.
There are many types of traffic which quantcast will not catch, but it is by far the most accurate of all third-party online website traffic tracking services.
Compete.com tells a different story & puts HedgeCo.Net as #1
Showing that not all third party web site traffic trackers are created equal, I ran the top 3 contesters HedgeFund.net, HedgeCo.net and BarclayHedge through compete.com yet another third party traffic tracker.
As you can clearly see from this graph, Compete.com is estimating that HedgeCo.net has over 3 times as many Unique visitors as HedgeFund.net and BarclayHedge.com
Evan Rapoport, Co-Founder of HedgeCo Networks, has been blogging up a storm over at his Capital Introduction Blog.
Borrowing from years of experience raising capital for hedge funds and other institutions, Evan takes a very direct and knowledgeable approach to navigating through the often tricky waters surrounding marketing your hedge fund.
First, the basics. What is hedge fund third party marketing? Third party marketers (3pm’s) are essentially hedge fund brokers. They represent various hedge fund products and introduce and sell these products to qualified investors. As a result of the introduction and follow up by the marketer, if an investment is made, the 3pm gets compensated. Usually compensation comes in the form of a portion of fees. The ‘standard’ 3pm fee is 20/20. That is, twenty percent of both the management fee and the performance fee. This is usually paid to the 3pm’s brokerage firm as the fund receives its fees, and is usually paid to the marketer for the life of the client.
Where does a hedge fund manager find third party marketers to market their hedge fund? The Third Party Marketers Association (3pm.org) estimates there are about 500 third party marketers in the United States. Not very many, relative to the amount of hedge funds that are out there. There are several firms like mine, HedgeCo Securities, that are set up to exclusively market hedge funds. You can find these firms by searching some of the various hedge fund website service provider directories, or by looking at 3pm.org. Keep in mind, with some 10,000 estimated funds, and only 500 3pm’s, it is easy to realize why 3pm’s have a reason to be picky. So if you are a hedge fund that is less than 10-25 million (and I am being very generous here), don’t be surprised if you do not find a third party marketer to represent your fund…
Evan Rapoport also wrote a 3-part series on Hedge Fund Administration and how it not only is necessary for the running of a hedge fund, but is also crucial for your investors and your marketing efforts. This series is a must-read for investors and hedge fund managers alike.
I received this email from Daniel Viola at Sadis & Goldberg LLP this morning
Don’t be surprised if you receive a subpoena or are contacted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The SEC has significantly increased its enforcement efforts since the recent discovery of certain high profile Ponzi schemes. Effective August 11, 2009, the SEC has also made it easier for its staff attorneys to issue subpoenas. [1] Thus, the SEC staff attorneys will no longer have to obtain formal approvals to issue subpoenas; instead, they will simply need approval from their senior supervisor. If you receive an inquiry letter or subpoena from the SEC, remain calm. This is not uncommon given the current regulatory climate. Above all, do not respond without first contacting legal counsel.
The SEC appears determined to issue more subpoenas and give people more incentives to cooperate with investigations as it works to enhance its oversight of the financial markets. The SEC generally has broad powers to conduct investigations of potential violations of the federal securities laws and often works with the Department of Justice in connection with joint proceedings, often known as “parallel proceedings.” Our Regulatory Practice Group consists of former SEC personnel and litigators with experience regarding civil and criminal proceedings. Please feel free to contact Daniel G. Viola at 212.573.8038 (or dviola@sglawyers.com) or Christiaan Johnson-Green at 212.573.8169 (or cjohnsongreen@sglawyers.com) with any questions.
In the wake of the subprime meltdown and the Madoff scandal, one of SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro’s first official actions was to streamline requirements for initiating formal investigations. Formerly, the full SEC Commission had to take action at a scheduled meeting in order to approve a formal investigation (which arms SEC investigators with subpoena power). In February of 2009, Chairwoman Schapiro’s changes allowed Commissioners to sign off on formal investigations outside of scheduled meetings and allowed certain investigations to be approved by a single Commissioner.
On August 5, 2009, the Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, Robert Khuzami, announced that the SEC had adopted an even more aggressive approach: the Commission had approved an order delegating the Division Director authority to approve formal orders of investigation, and Director Khuzami stated that he intended to further delegate this authority to Division senior officers throughout the country. According to Director Khuzami, “This means that if defense counsel resist the voluntary production of documents or witnesses, or fail to be complete and timely in responses or engage in dilatory tactics, there will very likely to be a subpoena on your desk the next morning.”
The changes in SEC policy are indicative of the agency’s overall shift towards greater emphasis on enforcement actions. Director Khuzami pointed out that “Comparing the period from late January to the present to roughly the same period in 2008, the Division has opened 10% more investigations (approximately 525, compared to 475); has been granted 118% more formal orders (which grants us subpoena power) (275, compared to 126); has filed 147% more TROs (52, compared to 21); and has filed nearly 30% more actions (397, compared to 306).”
Market Watch, with the help of regulatory filings has released an article which indicates that Colony Capital is raising money for an upcoming IPO:
Colony Financial Inc. will be a real estate investment trust managed by a subsidiary of Colony Capital. The new REIT plans to mainly buy, originate and manage commercial mortgage loans and other commercial real estate-related debt investments such as commercial mortgage-backed securities, the company said.
Despite it’s impressive 18-year track record, Colony capital may be best known for its 2008 purchase of the Neverland Ranch from Michael Jackson. The property was bought by Michael Jackson for a total of $22.5 Million.
In reaction to Michael Jackson’s death & the future of the Neverland Ranch, MarketWatch quotes Thomas Barrack, founder of Colony Capital saying:
“We are deeply saddened by yesterday’s tragic news about Michael Jackson,” Barrack said in a statement on Colony’s Web site after Jackson passed away last week. “Over the last year, I have had the opportunity to know and work with this gentle and talented man. We were pleased to help support his return to public life through our acquisition of Neverland Ranch.”
“Neverland itself is now a mythical sanctuary to Michael and we are doing our best to accommodate the throngs of global press and fans arriving there to express their grief,” Barrack added.
The Bull Path Long Short Fund adopts a strategy developed and run by Bull Path Capital Management since 2002. During that time, the strategy has consistently delivered returns above its benchmark by utilizing a fundamentally-driven, bottom-up investment process that does not employ leverage. Focused on US mid-capitalization stocks, the strategy seeks out companies with recurring high margins, revenues or strong franchise positions while also favoring issues with strong barriers to entry and successful, entrepreneurial management teams.
Wall Street Journal discusses the “unusual” aspects of converting a Hedge Fund into a Mutual Fund, in an interview with Kaimowitz, discusses why they made the change.
Kaimowitz, like many other hedge-fund managers, suffered dearly last year, but also experienced his share of redemption. The fund’s loss is not something he was happy with, but he said it is in line with other hedge funds. Bull Path’s long-short hedge fund, launched in 2002, had $530 million at its peak and $473 million in January 2008, but is now down to just under $100 million.
“Every single hedge fund on the planet had redemptions,” Kaimowitz said. “We did not have lock-ups, and we tried to do the best we could to be investor-friendly.”
He contends that this wasn’t a factor in converting the fund. There now is pressure on hedge funds to lower fees and lighten up investment strictures, while sharing more portfolio information with investors, Kaimowitz said.
“A mutual fund addresses these issues quite well,” he said.
It has been a pleasure to work with the team at Bull Path Funds, we wish them all the best with their new funds!
Follow @hedge_funds in twitter and send a Direct Message (or an @reply) to @hedge_funds and you WILL get a free 3-month subscription to the Hedge Fund Calculator.
This offer is good TODAY ONLY (expires on June 18th) so get on twitter and send us a message as fast as soon as you can!
This week I’m taking a bit of time out of my schedule to work on expanding the “Social Media Footprint” of HedgeCo Networks. We understand the importance of interaction with the broader hedge fund community, and to this effect, we are as active on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as time will permit.
This week I’m going to be focusing on expanding our twitter follower base and will be giving away free stuff! We have free copies of our software, special offers, as well as a stack of Starbucks gift cards that we will be up for grabs in the upcoming days! We want to stress that this is not an official contest, but simply a way to have some fund with the community, present simple rewards people who are interacting with us, and most importantly promote our incredible products.
TODAY’S “REWARD”: a $20 starbucks gift card!
To Enter this you need to do three simple things:
Be a real person who has a genuine interest in Hedge Funds
If you’ve talked to a hedge fund manager for any amount of time, the topic of prime brokers will come up. One of the fundamental issues when setting up a hedge fund is finding a prime broker who will fit your balance of price vs. services rendered.
Andrew Schneider has been appointed as Director of the HFA Southeast Chapter. In this role he will lead regional efforts to foster growth and development of the hedge fund community throughout the Southeastern U.S.
The inherent problem with Alexa is that it estimates the traffic based on the number of people who use the Alexa Toolbar (which is flagged as spyware by most antivirus programs). These estimations give a general idea of how much traffic a site gets, but because of the flawed methodology, Alexa can easily be gamed to show more traffic than a site actually gets. For more information about the inherently problems with Alexa rankings read this creative blog entry titled “
