[Full Notes] Opportunities In Long Short Equity Panel – Gaining The Edge Conference 2018

Full notes from the "Where are the Opportunities in Long Short Equity and What Makes a Good Manager" panel from the 2018 Gaining the Edge Conference.

Check out our coverage of the 2018 Gaining the Edge Conference here.

Check out our coverage of the 2018 Robin Hood Investors Conference here.

Check out our coverage of Invest For Kids 2018 Conference here.

Check out our coverage of the 2018 Excellence In Investing Sohn Conference here.

Speakers:

Alternative Investment Group, David Storrs, President & CEO

Makena Capital Management, Jackson Garton, CFA, Managing Director

Optima Fund Management, Erik Welle, Partner

Private Advisors, Charles Honey, Partner

Moderator: Mirae Asset Securities (USA) Inc., Robert Akeson, Head of Equity Prime Brokerage

Where are the Opportunities in Long Short Equity and What Makes a Good Manager

Okay, our next panelists are going to make their way to the stage and will start in just a couple of minutes.  Where are the opportunities in long short equity and what makes a good manager, this is going to be a 45 minute panel and will be followed by a [0:00:17] in just two minutes.  [0:00:23].

Well, thank you very much and welcome ladies and gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to be here, [0:02:46].  So welcome to opportunities in long short equity investing and what makes a good manager.  As [0:03:00] said I’m Robert Atkinson at [0:03:02] Asset Securities, I will be moderating today.  And our panel is comprised of a very knowledgeable, experienced and assumed group of industry professionals, with broad and concise perspectives [0:03:18].  And I will tell you [0:03:20] it is very difficult with [0:03:23].  So, these guys are [0:03:25] to build into long short equity investing.  And before we begin though I’m going to ask the members of the panel to briefly introduce themselves.  And since I have the mic let me begin.  For those of you who don’t know my firm, we’re a relatively new entrant into the prime brokerage services of business and we target as clients are start-ups, small and emerging managers.  We are also affiliated with [0:03:59] largest non-[ 0:04:01] financial services company.  The company runs over 400 billion in assets.  The [0:04:08] family operates in 15 different country markets across five different continents.  I will tell you that we are also considering ways to expand our presence as an investor in the hedge fund space.  We currently invest fairly heavily on the private equity side and are now looking to get more involvement in this space, so without further ado.

Good afternoon, I’m David [0:04:38], I’ve been with an alternative investment [0:04:39].  I went to Yale and Harvard Business School and then [0:04:46] directly at Yale University.  And I think most of you know that Yale is 10, 20, 30 years number one basically in the whole country in terms of investment success.  And I think if you incorporate a lot of investments from Yale, [0:04:59] colleges and universities and that was a really big [0:05:07] interesting thinking to the educational development community.  The fund that we run now we launched in 1996, I believe that we are the only firm of hedge funds in [0:05:19] that outperformed the S&P for a 20 year period, [0:05:23] and that was with half the volatility.  So, I believe it works, [0:05:27] comments at lunch today, I believe, yes, the average does not work but the good ones do work, and that’s our thinking, we use currently, we have five different funds including working markets which was actually perhaps the most attractive on a fundamental basis, our sustainability which invests in [0:05:50] ESG oriented companies, which [0:05:54] given the national interest in ESG type things.  I look forward to us meeting [0:06:00].

Thank you, Jackson.