In our third Opalesque West Coast Roundtable we once again met with distinguished hedge fund managers and hedge fund investors from the region to speak and examine a wide range of relevant topics for our industry:

Why family offices shift assets from mega funds to smaller funds

As hedge funds have gone from $1 billion to $5 billion and then to $25 billion, investors feel they became a kind of commodity “sitting on a conveyor belt”. They are more distanced from the investment manager and complain about “canned” answers from IR rather than being able to have thoughtful discussions with investment managers. While the so-called mega funds can serve a purpose in a portfolio, some family offices prefer to rejuvenate the gene pool of their portfolios and are in fact “excited” about current opportunities with some smaller funds. Another consequence of the industry's asset concentration with the largest funds is that it has actually changed the due diligence process.

Should all hedge fund managers try to "manage the macro"? And if so, how?

In current times of uncertainty, many equity long/short managers who typically have been bottom up are now wanting to add a macro component to their portfolio management, usually by adjusting exposures more often. How should a hedge fund manager, that is not a global macro manager, go about “managing the macro”? And what do investors think about this trend?

Hyper Growth to create tensions – the demise of paper money?

Mapping countries like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea and Chile against the currently emerging China and India shows how the world is going to look like over the next 10 or 20 years. Hear the Roundtable speculate on some of the consequences of this hyper growth pattern that 50% of the planet's population is entering at this time. Until what point will paper money continue to devalue versus hard assets? How can systematic traders and CTAs help investors in such scenarios?

In this Roundtable, you will further read about:

• Is there a bubble in technology? A view from Silicon Valley
• How energy prices (oil & gas) movements can blind investors
• Democratization of Alternatives: For the past five years alternatives mutual funds are the fastest growing mutual fund sector, growth rates accelerate to 50-55% annualized
• Risk-based investing: New open architecture infrastructure solutions for liquid alternatives allows investors to manage, control and risk-budge investments in multiple managers and strategies and empowers managers to manage money across multiple investors and custodians from a single interface
• What is the strategy mix of emerging West Coast hedge fund managers
• And more Updates & News from the West Coast.

1. Alissa Douglas, Director, CM Capital Advisors
2. Charles Johnson, Managing Director, Tano Capital
3. Rob Romero, Portfolio Manager, Connective Capital
4. Steve Hotovec, Chief Operating Officer and Founder, Alchemy Ventures
5. Patrick Wolff, Founder and Managing Member, Grandmaster Capital Management
6. Chris Wolf, Chief Investment Officer and Founder, Preservation Trust Advisors
7. Jason S. Gerlach, Principal - Director of Strategic Planning, Sunrise Capital
8. Keith Sharkey, Director, KRFS

Matthias Knab
Director Opalesque Ltd.

Knab@opalesque.com

The Opalesque Roundtable Series offers unparalleled intelligence on the most important global hedge fund jurisdictions and their players. The Roundtable Series is a free publication from Opalesque and is continually updated. Please scroll down to view the full selection of our Roundtables - covering the globe!

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