Death of a Salesman

47 Degrees North Capital Management is a specialist alternative investment firm, and a pioneer in early-stage hedge fund investing. It was selected as one of three successful candidates out of 97 applicants to manage the emerging hedge fund managers program at CalPERS. 47N is a leading proponent of corporate governance in the hedge fund industry; so the objective of this series of articles is to discuss and inform on current corporate governance issues.

Fraser McKenzie

Arthur Miller-s character Willy Loman in his theatre play Death of a Salesman evokes the feeling of despair and dread that can come from the failure to achieve something we had hoped for. As specialists in early-stage hedge fund investing, we routinely see failure - although not often on the dramatic scale of Death of a Salesman. This article - one in a series on issues and problems facing early-stage managers - outlines some hopefully helpful hints on how salespeople for early-stage funds can avoid the pitfalls of the initial pitch to investors. What are we looking for and what-s important? We don-t wish to play the armchair arbiter of sales skills or to try and make ourselves appear better than our applicants - but the fact is we do sometimes see some howlers and, more commonly, oft-repeated avoidable mistakes.

Firstly, make sure you have a clear value proposition; how are you going to make money? Is it because of cheap underlying securities where you will run a long bias? If yes - ma......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.