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On my recent trip to Toronto, I had the opportunity to visit the operations of legendary and reclusive portfolio manager Albert Friedberg, who began his Global Macro Fund in December 2001 — and refused to market it.
Typical behavior for a guy Barron’s termed “nonpareil.”
“I started the fund as a vehicle to manage my own money and the investments of family members and a few close friends,” he recently explained. “And I am still not marketing it. Niagara Capital Partners approached me to market it. I’ve given Niagara up to $300m of capacity. After that — or even before, if slippage begins to eat into returns — we’ll close it up.”
Using an economic foundation framed by an interest in monetary policy and the Austrian School of economics, Friedberg started as an introducing (futures) broker in Toronto in 1971, the year the dollar went off the gold standard. In the late ’70s he began investing in Chile, Argentina, and New Zealand, experiences that helped forge an interest in global equity and fixed income.
His Global Macro Fund incorporates his experience, and the experience of his long-serving team, under a single umbrella.
“Experience tends to focus the mind on risk management,” Friedberg asserts. “It may not make you more creative, but it will make you more prudent.”
Fundamental to his risk management system is the eccentric way Friedberg allocates capital: “Essentially we allocate in inverse proportion to the risk we have experienced in a p...................... To view our full article Click here
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