Top Hedge Fund Investors: Stories, Strategies, and Advice

My first book, Foundation and Endowment Investing: Philosophies and Strategies of Top Investors and Institutions, profiles twelve well-regarded Chief Investment Officers at leading university endowments and foundations. It chronicles the investment philosophies, strategies and challenges of leading CIOs, and shares their ideas and advice with investors. The stories of such accomplished investors – most known only within a segment of the institutional investment community – provided readers with valuable information and ideas. Descriptions of their long-term investment process taught investors useful lessons about asset allocation, manager selection and alpha generation. Their opinions and advice left readers with a better understanding of the top investor mindset.
 
Co-author Larry Kochard best describes the value of writing and reading about successful investors in this excerpt from the conclusion of Foundation and Endowment Investing:
 
“Successful people in any field don’t stick their head in the sand – they are always hoping to learn new ideas from other innovators and leaders in any field.  As investors we all want to do a better job establishing a disciplined and successful investment process and generating better returns on our portfolio, whether it benefits an institution or our families.
 
“Now that we know how much we can learn from interviewing different types of investors, we look forward to hearing their insights.”
 
I too found the experience of interviewing and writing about such accomplished investors to be engaging, enlightening and, quite honestly, entertaining. We knew the format – overview, interview, review and preview – would work well in books about other interesting and important investment industry insiders.  And we knew a group of investors that fit the profile: Top Hedge Fund Investors.
 
Larry Kochard and I feel privileged to have worked with and learned from these leading hedge fund investors.  We cannot express enough gratitude for their participation.  Our goal was to capture their thought processes, so that we, and our readers, would gain investment insight.  We believe we have achieved our goal. 
 
–Cathleen M. Rittereiser

Throughout the recent financial crisis, many hedge funds suffered massive losses and were often blamed for the extreme market upheavals. Performance soon rebounded and approached record-breaking heights. In the wake of these events, hedge funds remain a source of fascination for the media, legislators, and investors.

Historically portrayed as risky investments run by swashbuckling managers—and reserved only for the very wealthy—hedge funds are simply an investment vehicle designed to generate superior returns and reduce an investor’s overall portfolio risk. Although many individual funds have underperformed or collapsed, hedge funds as a whole have proved resilient and achieved their objectives.

Investing in hedge funds requires sophisticated knowledge, understanding, skill, access, and experience. Individual and institutional investors, whether they are hedge fund novices or experts, can find these attributes in the stories of the successful hedge fund investors profiled in Top Hedge Fund Investors.

This accessible resource chronicles the challenges and rewards these investors face in selecting hedge fund managers, managing risk, and constructing portfolios. Through revealing conversations, leading hedge fund investors—with hundreds of billions of dollars in hedge funds—share their philosophies, strategies, and advice. Page by page, this timely guide:

• Profiles a variety of different investors from the pioneers in hedge fund investing to managers for high-net-worth individuals and fund of funds investors

• Discusses winners and losers in the recent market decline, problematic hedge fund strategies, and how recent events will change hedge funds forever

• Provides lessons, insights, and advice beneficial to all hedge fund investors

• And much more

Engaging and informative, Top Hedge Fund Investors will prove valuable to anyone involved in placing money with hedge funds, as well as hedge funds that seek to better understand their clients.

TOP HEDGE FUND INVESTORS

Throughout the recent financial crisis, many hedge funds suffered massive losses and were often blamed for the extreme market upheavals. Performance soon rebounded and approached record- breaking heights. In the wake of these events, hedge funds remain a source of fascination for the media, legislators, and investors.

Historically portrayed as risky investments run by swashbuckling managers and reserved only for the very wealthy hedge funds are simply an investment vehicle designed to generate superior returns and reduce an investor’s overall portfolio risk. Although many individual funds have underperformed or collapsed, hedge funds as a whole have proved resilient and achieved their objectives.

Investing in hedge funds requires sophisticated knowledge, understanding, skill, access, and experience. Individual and institutional investors, whether they are hedge fund novices or experts, can find these attributes in the stories of the successful hedge fund investors profiled in Top Hedge Fund Investors.

This accessible resource chronicles the challenges and rewards these investors face in selecting hedge fund managers, managing risk, and constructing portfolios. Through revealing conversations, leading hedge fund investors with hundreds of billions of dollars in hedge funds share their philosophies, strategies, and advice. Page by page, this timely guide:

• Profiles a variety of different investors from the pioneers in hedge fund investing to managers for high-net-worth individuals and fund of funds investors
• Discusses winners and losers in the recent market decline, problematic hedge fund strategies, and how recent events will change hedge funds forever
• Provides lessons, insights, and advice beneficial to all hedge fund investors
• And much more

Engaging and informative, Top Hedge Fund Investors will prove valuable to anyone involved in placing money with hedge funds, as well as hedge funds that seek to better understand their clients.

CATHLEEN M. RITTEREISERis the coauthor of Foundation and Endowment Investing (Wiley) and informs and educates institutional investors as a writer, speaker, and consultant. An alternative investments marketing executive with over twenty years’ experience, Rittereiser has held positions with leading financial firms, including Symphony Asset Management and Merrill Lynch. She received a BA from Franklin & Marshall College and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

LAWRENCE E. KOCHARD, PHD, CFA,is Chief Investment Officer of the Georgetown University endowment and teaches at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown. He is a leader in the foundation and endowment investing community and coauthor of Foundation and Endowment Investing (Wiley). Previously, Kochard was managing director of equity and hedge fund investments for the Virginia Retirement System, an adjunct finance professor at the University of Virginia, and a vice president with Goldman Sachs. He holds an MA and PhD in economics from the University of Virginia and is a CFA.