Hedgeworld article “New World of Hedge Fund Asset Raising”Jan26

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The article raises some excellent checklist items that all funds should be aware of when preparing marketing materials.

The right pedigree, strategy or track record is no longer a guaranteed recipe for success in the raising or retaining of assets. More so than ever both start-ups and established hedge funds are distinguishing themselves from similar strategies by marketing not only their track record and pedigree but also their operational, portfolio and regulatory infrastructure.

Funds that fail to address the growing concern over fraud, mismanagement, operational and regulatory risk may miss out on the opportunity to attract the billions of dollars of capital that has left the industry and may well be reallocated in 2009. Like it or not the perception of the new world investor is that infrastructure and performance are directly connected.

To be well positioned in 2009, hedge funds must address investors’ growing concern over operational and regulatory risk. This new level of scrutiny will increase the importance of effective and documented operational and regulatory risk management. Responding to a potential investor’s increasing desire for full transparency will be paramount.

Even if a fund’s amount of assets under management is small relative to its fixed costs, it can still improve its marketing position with investors in a cost effective manner by communicating a clear, transparent and customized plan to strategically mitigate risk as assets grow. Noted below are just some of the minimum “high risk” areas a successful hedge fund should focus on no matter its size or strategy:

Gary Mair is Principal of Fund Advisor, LLC. A former General Counsel, CCO and Executive at a leading alternative asset management firm, Mr. Mair advises start-up and established hedge funds on operational and securities law matters relating to fund formation, pre-launch marketing, due diligence, infrastructure, best practices or benchmark operational and regulatory processes and controls. He can be reached at gmair@hfundadvisor.com, or (203) 653-7159. His website is www.hfundadvisor.com.