2025 Sohn San Francisco: Aequim’s Franklin Parlamis Pitches Bitcoin Long/Short Arbitrage Idea

Franklin Parlamis, Founder, Portfolio Manager, and Chief Investment Officer of Aequim Alternative Investments, pitched a short at the 2025 Sohn San Francisco Conference, arguing that the frothiness observed in certain asset classes necessitates rigorous risk management and the identification of clear exit strategies. Parlamis’s thesis is that the significant and structurally unjustified premium applied to a specific corporate vehicle holding Bitcoin must erode, leading to a profitable convergence trade for sophisticated investors. The proposed arbitrage strategy involves buying a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to maintain direct exposure to the underlying asset while simultaneously shorting the overvalued corporate equity.

Also see:

• 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit
• 2025 Capitalize For Kids Investors Conference
• 2025 Invest For Kids Conference

In the early 2000s, Parlamis joined an internal trading group at Paloma Partners that subsequently spun out to form Amaranth Advisors. At Amaranth, he co-managed substantial portfolios spanning credit, convertible arbitrage, and Credit Default Swaps (CDS).

In 2007, Parlamis founded and managed the West Coast Office for Pine River Capital Management, successfully expanding the firm’s platform into credit and structured products. While at Pine River, he oversaw approximately $600 million in AUM and served as Portfolio Manager of the Pine River Convertibles Fund from 2009 through 2017. He was named a partner in 2010 and also managed capital within the firm’s flagship multi-strategy product, the Pine River Fund, and its fixed-income specialty product. He departed Pine River in 2017 to launch Aequim Alternative Investments in January 2018, which specializes in in convertible debt, which forms a key part of the current trade analysis, and has $5 billion AUM.