Tag Archives: start-up hedge fund

Raising Hedge Fund Capital is Not Easy

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I have written before that the biggest issue start-up and emerging hedge fund managers face is raising capital for their funds.  I seem to have the same conversation on a weekly basis – the “how to do I grow my fund” conversation.  Unfortunately I do not have the guaranteed step-by-step guide to raising boatloads of capital, but that is not to say that smaller managers cannot raise capital.  I have seen plenty of groups who have made it over the proverbial hump by working ridiculously hard.

The article below (written by Richard Wilson of Hedge Fund Blogger) discusses some ideas that managers will want to consider when developing a program to raise hedge fund capital.  Richard’s group provides consulting services and helps managers to raise money for their hedge funds.

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This is Bad News: There is NO Magic Bullet
Richard Wilson

The bad news is there is no magic bullet to raising capital. I spoke with at least a dozen managers this past week at our Hedge Fund Premium networking event in Chicago. Most were looking for capital raising help of some type and we discussed many roadblocks that managers are seeing between them and the AUM levels they are trying to achieve.

Our firm provides some capital raising tools, but I believe that daily action and discipline is the best thing that a fund can do to raise capital. They must take responsibility for marketing their fund and have someone reaching out to new investors on a daily basis, if they do not they will forever remain in the bottom 20% of the industry in terms of assets. Very few funds gain their initial assets through a super powerful third party marketing firms, third party marketers like to typically work with managers which have some AUM momentum or foundation underneath them.

To raise capital I believe that managers need to have superior tools and processes when compared to their competitors. This means superior investor cultivation processes in place, superior investor relationships management, superior marketing materials, superior outreach efforts, superior email marketing, and superior focus on investors which actually have the potential of making an investment. Each of those topics mentioned above could be discussed for a whole conference and all of these moving parts need to be in place to compete in today’s industry. While this does not mean you need to out-spend others you do need to strategically plan your marketing campaign.

There is a good quote that I heard which goes something like “If you want to have what others don’t you have to do what others won’t” In other words if you want to grow assets you must put in the extra work, planning, and strategy that others skip over.

Every morning I try to listen to a 45 minute custom MP3 audio session of business lessons, marketing tips and positive thinking notes. One great quote I hear every morning by our friend Brian Tracy, “Successful people dislike to do the same things that unsuccessful people dislike to do, but successful people get them done anyways because that is what they know is the price of success.” This is connected to an interview Brian conducts in which a multi-millionaire says that success is easy, “you must decide exactly what it is you want, and then pay the price to get to that point.”

All of this may sound wishy washy or non-exact but I think it is very important to realize that there is no one single magic bullet for raising capital. It takes hard work, trial and a superior effort on all fronts to stand out from your competition.

Read dozens of additional articles like this within our Marketing & Sales Guide.

– Richard

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Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to start a hedge fund. Other related hedge fund law articles include:

Bart Mallon, Esq. runs hedge fund law blog and has written most all of the articles which appear on this website.  Mr. Mallon’s legal practice is devoted to helping emerging and start up hedge fund managers successfully launch a hedge fund.  If you are a hedge fund manager who is looking to start a hedge fund, or if you have questions about investment adviser registration with the SEC or state securities commission, please call Mr. Mallon directly at 415-296-8510.

Hedge Fund Hotels

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Office Space, IT, Trading For Start up Hedge Funds

The term hedge fund hotel generally describes the offering of office space, IT and consulting services (including, potentially, capital introduction) for start up hedge fund managers.  Most of these relationships are established as turn-key solutions for managers which provide them the back-office infrastructure to run a hedge fund without the headaches of managing the development and maintenance of such infrastructure.  Many times the rent is discounted and the managers are encouraged to utilize the services of the group that is providing the hedge fund hotel.  Groups which typically provide these hedge fund hotel relationships include prime brokers, banks, and other hedge fund service providers or consultants.  These relationships are not without controversy and

Issues with Hedge Fund Hotels

One of the major issues with hedge fund hotels is that they will pay below market rate for office space and IT which implicates issues is similar to soft dollar issues.  Managers who use soft dollars need to be very cognizant of the conflicts of interest which may arise in soft-dollar contexts, especially if the manager has any ERISA fiduciary duties.  Likewise, managers who have hotel relationships need to be cognizant of issues related to conflicts of interests with regard to brokerage and execution.  Because managers will normally choose (and periodically review) their brokers based on a variety of criteria (such as pricing/speads/commissions, execution of orders, financial strength of the broker, available research, etc.), the fact that they receive (in certain cases) reduced rent should not influence the manner in which they decide upon brokerage.  In theory it is easy to say, but in practice it is hard to do.  As such, there have been a few recent controversy’s which have acknowledge the potential conflict of interest issues with these relationships.

Hedge Fund Hotel Controversy

In 2007 the Massachusetts Securities Division filed an action against UBS for its activities related to it running a hedge fund hotel.  Below are a couple of excerpts from the UBS Hedge Fund Hotel Administrative Complaint:

Other than hedge fund adviser, prime brokers are the primary third party service providers to hedge funds.  Prime brokers provide a suite of services essential to the successful implementation of hedge funds’ individual objectives.  Prime Brokers generate substantial revenue from those hedge fund clients in exchange for these services.  UBS competes for prime brokerage revenue in part by providing a range of benefits to the advisers of those hedge fund clients to induce the advisers to bring and keep the hedge fund business with UBS.  Among the methods UBS used to influence or reward hedge fund advisers and their principals are: Provision of office space to hedge fund advisers at rates that are substantially below market rate; Free access to information technology personnel and other office personnel; Introductions to potential new clients (that would increase management fees for the adviser); Low interest personal loans; and Tickets to sporting events and other forms of entertainment.

Unbeknownst to the pension funds, university endowments, charitable foundations, institutional investors and individuals who invest in hedge funds, the rewards for the hedge fund advisers come implicit and sometimes explicit quid pro quos.  UBS requires the hedge fund advisers to cause the hedge funds they manage to meet certain benchmarks of profitability for UBS or ensure they do not use other prime brokers.

Page 2-3 of the complaint

Later on in the complaint, the Enforcement Section of the Massachusetts Securities Division provides the following definition of prime brokerage and the fees generated by prime brokers.

“Prime Brokerage is a service provided by certain broker-dealers to facilitate the clearance of securities trades and other services to substantial retail and institutional customers, including hedge funds.  The services offered by Prime Brokers may include: trading, securities lending, margin lending, customized reporting; research; valuation; technology; operations services; and other services needed by hedge funds or other large clients.

Prime Brokers generate revenue on hedge fund business from commissions, spreads, administrative fees, ticket charges, stock loans and credit interest earned from providing position financing and arranging securities loans (“Prime Fees”).

In the Prime Brokerage relationship, the client who pays the Prime Fees is the hedge fund.  The Hedge Fund Adviser is an agent of the hedge fund, acts on behalf of the hedge fund and has fiduciary duties to the hedge fund.

Page 9 of the complaint

Conclusion

Hedge fund hotels actually can provide valuable services to start up hedge funds during a very important part of the hedge fund life cycle.  However, there are a number of disclosure issues which must be addressed and which should be discussed in detail in the hedge fund offering documents.  The managers should discuss their brokerage/hotel relationship with their hedge fund attorney who will help them to identify and properly disclose the various compliance and conflicts issues which may be present.  Additionally, when a hedge fund and manager reaches a certain place in the fund growth/lifecycle, they may want to explore paying market rates for their space and/or moving to another location.  These issues should be contemplated by management in consultation with the hedge fund attorney.

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Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to start a hedge fund. Other related hedge fund law articles include:

Bart Mallon, Esq. runs hedge fund law blog and has written most all of the articles which appear on this website.  Mr. Mallon’s legal practice is devoted to helping emerging and start up hedge fund managers successfully launch a hedge fund.  If you are a hedge fund manager who is looking to start a hedge fund, or if you have questions about investment adviser registration with the SEC or state securities commission, please call Mr. Mallon directly at 415-296-8510.

Hedge Fund Law Blog Statistics | June 2009

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Most Read Hedge Fund Law Articles for June

I wanted to take a little time to thank all of the people who read this blog and who take the time to comment on articles or send me questions – your interaction helps make this site more informative and a better resource for everyone.  If you have any questions related to any of the articles, I ask you send them to me through the contact form.  If you have an RSS reader, please consider subscribing to the hedge fund law RSS feed to stay up to date on the new content posted in this site.

Hedge Fund Visitors for June 2009

According to Google Analytics, the following is the information on the number and people who have visited the website during the past month:

  • Visits – 14,744  (of these 10,472 were new visitors)
  • Absolute Unique Visitors – 11,415
  • Pageviews – 33,031
  • Top Nations – United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada, Hong Kong, Switzerland, France, Australia, Singapore, Germany

Top 10 Hedge Fund Law Stories for June 2009

According to Google Analytics, the following is a list of the most popular hedge fund articles for the month of June:

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Bart Mallon, Esq. runs hedge fund law blog and has written most all of the articles which appear on this website.  Mr. Mallon’s legal practice is devoted to helping emerging and start up hedge fund managers successfully launch a hedge fund.  If you are a hedge fund manager who is looking to start a hedge fund, please call Mr. Mallon directly at 415-296-8510.

Hedge Fund Domain Names

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Picking a domain name for your hedge fund website

Start up hedge fund managers always have the difficult task of thinking up a new, good names for their management company and hedge fund (see Naming Your Hedge Fund).  This difficulty is compounded by the fact that the desired name may not be available to use in the state which the management company resides (or with regard to the fund, in Delaware).  An added difficulty is thinking of a name that also has a good available website domain available.

Why Have a Hedge Fund Website?

Website domains are now an integral part of the hedge fund package.  Hedge fund investors are becoming more technology savvy and many communications can be done over the internet or through a website.  This means that the process of setting up a fund can potentially be more demanding (depending on the launch and the needs of the potential hedge fund investors) – not only must managers have all of the back end business operations and legal infrastructure in place, but the manager must also understand, implement and maintain an appropriate web presence.  The foundation for a strong web presence starts with the domain name.

Finding a Hedge Fund Domain Name

While we would all love to have a great one word domain name, it probably is not going to happen (unless you want to shell out a ton of cash).  Even good two word domain names are going to be taken.  To find out if a desired domain name is taken, you can go to any domain agent like www.godaddy.com.  If you search for your domain and don’t find what you are looking for, there are a couple of different options to get a domain you are happy with –

1. Modify your search parameters – if the domain you are trying to get is taken, you can change the wording of the name you are looking for.  If you cannot find a suitable

Company name: XYZ Capital Management, LLC
Desired domain: www.xyz.com  (not available)
Other options: www.xyzcapital.com, www.xyzcapitalmanagement.com, www.xyzcapitalmangementcompany.com, www.xyzcapmanagement.com, www.xyzcapitalmgmt.com, www.xyzcapmgmt.com

For other thoughts on changing the name or spelling, see this Business Week article on company domain names.

2. Buy the desired domain name – if the domain name is taken by a person or a company, you can contact that person or company directly or through a domain agent and try to purchase the domain.  I would expect that for a good domain name it will cost at least $2,000 upwards to $10,000.  Premium names of course can be sold for much higher amounts.  There are also a number of groups out there which domain squat – one group that has a number of hedge fund management company domain names is www.namethat.com.

Other notes

  • Price – the domain name will cost about $10 a year from a group like GoDaddy.
  • Length of time – I recommend buying a domain name for long period of time.  I would say the minimum length should be 5 years.
  • .com or .net? – always go with a .com domain name
  • Compliance – there are no compliance issues which jump out at me right away, but I will keep thinking of this issue.  Obviously if you host a website at the domain you will need to make sure that all marketing done is within the rules, see Hedge Fund Website Rules
  • Hosting – there are a number of ways you can host your domain name and I will be dealing with this issue in a later article on technology for hedge fund managers

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Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to  learn how to start a hedge fund.  Other related hedge fund law articles include:

Hedge Funds and OTC Products

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Some hedge funds use OTC products as part of their main investment strategy, or as a supplement to their main strategy.  In either event, there are a number of issues which hedge fund managers should consider when they decide to utilize OTC products within an investment strategy.  First and foremost, the OTC investment strategy should be adequately described in the hedge fund’s offering documents.  Secondly, the manager should consider the “back office” requirements for processing the OTC investments.  The following article gives a good background of the OTC processing requirements and issues.

Please contact us if you have any questions or you are interested in starting a hedge fund.

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The 5 Pillars of OTC Processing
Ron Tannenbaum, co-founder, GlobeOp Financial Services

As the OTC derivatives market expands in volume, complexity and sector interest, many funds face equally complex post-trade processing challenges in terms of operational processes & efficiencies. Can the key elements of a successful operational infrastructure to support a competitive OTC strategy be defined?

As a significant opportunity for alpha, the growing attraction of OTC derivatives is confirmed both at the industry level and on the “production floor”.  Supplementing Morse’s recent focus group confirmation that 64% of firms increased derivative contracts volume in the last 6 months, new trades by GlobeOp’s OTC clients in the same period increased 100%; monthly open positions increased 18%.

GlobeOp: Daily Average OTC Trade Volume

GlobeOp Monthly OTC open positions by Product Type, August 2008

In addition to traditional hedge fund activity, mutual funds liberated by the UCITS III directive are also increasingly including OTC derivatives in their trading strategies.  Exponential OTC volume growth, combined with the current market turbulence, is challenging in-house operational systems as never before. Legacy and “bolt-on” software systems struggle to communicate with each other. Spreadsheets strain to handle volumes and complexity they were never designed for, increasing the risk of error with each update. In parallel with portfolios becoming more complex, funds are facing increased investor pressure to demonstrate enhanced operational control, independent valuation, higher levels of disclosure and more transparent performance reporting. For many funds, processing derivatives internally quickly becomes cumbersome, inefficient and error-prone, increasing operational risk instead of delivering competitive advantage.

Is a water-tight process for OTC trade processing possible and if so what would it look like?
Eight years of daily OTC processing has provided GlobeOp with a crystallized perspective of the elements essential to a fund’s requirement for effective OTC derivative post-trade processing. Five core, integrated processes are needed to manage, track and report on trades end–to-end throughout their lifecycle:

  • Trade capture
  • Operations
  • Valuations
  • Collateral management
  • Documentation

Rigorous, reliable, daily reconciliation underpins much of the process, while scalability in terms of people and technology is needed to respond nimbly and promptly to trade volume growth, new products or unexpected market events.

The 5 Pillars

Trade capture – real-time, cross-product

Trade data entry sounds such a basic process that it is often underestimated as the cause of many issues further along the process. Incomplete and/or inaccurate detail risks being created when data is aggregated into an internal system from disparate silos or when bolt-on software is unable to communicate completely with front office configurations or legacy systems.

Also, due to their bilateral nature, derivative instruments do not always have established identifier codes, making them more difficult to process than securities with their standard ISIN, CUSIP or Bloomberg reference codes.

A real-time, cross-product, electronic trade capture environment can support the trading desk in developing and trading new OTC products.  Trades should only ever be recorded once, to eliminate the risk of errors associated with manual entry and spreadsheets.

Operations – the litmus test

Trade operations are the ‘litmus test’ of the entire process, encompassing the settlement of trades and reconciliation of cash and securities positions associated with individual derivatives transactions. Having cash and securities obligations in position at the time of settlement are essential to efficiently transferring ownership and moving funds.

Valuations – transparency, independence

The challenge of accurate, independent valuation can be addressed by pricing models that can adapt to new and complex instruments, and that are tolerance-checked against counterparty prices and other external industry and data sources.

Depending only on counterparty prices due to either insufficient valuation expertise or technology can increase the risk of a domino of delays to timely and reliable trade reconciliation, NAVs and investor reporting or returns.

Mutual funds face an additional regulatory dimension to their valuation challenges. In exchange for reducing mutual fund barriers to OTC derivative trading, the February 2007 UCITS III directive placed a high premium on transparent and independent valuation and risk management.

The requirement for mutual funds to demonstrate their ability to provide fully independent daily valuations and risk analytics can affect both mutual funds and their custodian bank. A mutual fund’s back office is often well-equipped to manage the long-only investments the fund traditionally makes. Operational knowledge, systems, models and capacity for complex derivatives is, however, either absent or insufficient. This is compounded when, as we have seen repeatedly, most mutual funds also initially tend to significantly underestimate their derivative trading volume,

Thus challenged, and to meet the UCITS lll independence criteria, the mutual fund turns to its custodian bank, its historic provider of a wide range of support services. While willing in spirit, most custodian banks quickly recognize that complex OTC trade processing, valuation and risk analytics exceed both their expertise and spreadsheet-based systems.

Collateral management – exposure management

Current market turbulence has sharpened the spotlight on the value of real-time, online collateral management to accurate trading and exposure management. What collateral is on the books, with whom, at what rate, for how long? What pledges are held vs. outstanding? Accurate, transparent collateral reporting will remain vital to the front office for months to come.

Effective collateral management usually includes ensuring the fund is net present value collateralised with each of its counterparties on a daily basis. In addition, an integrated facility should ensure appropriate movement of cash and securities to support revaluations and margin calls.

Documentation – integrated STP

According to recent ISDA statistics, approximately 60% of the hedge fund industry’s OTC instruments are still confirmed manually. This is not only time-consuming, but it also increases the incidence of error and leaves funds vulnerable to compliance risk, due to the high level of positions which remain based on verbal agreements. Integrated, straight-through-processing (STP) for managing, exchanging and storing trade documentation better enables both trade partners to reconcile economic terms with counterparties and meet auditor and regulatory compliance obligations.

Conclusion

A successful OTC trading strategy requires underpinning by an integrated platform of people, processes and technology that deliver post-trade processing and reporting that enables the fund to focus on its core objective of generating investor returns and expanding the capital base.

Informal industry estimates indicate that building an internal OTC processing infrastructure involves significant fund investment in cost and time — up to $50 million and five years of testing and development. Often unspoken are the risks that continued market and fund strategy evolution may result in a design neither suitable or scalable for long-term requirements, or able to deliver sufficient economy of scale.

The attraction of OTC derivative instrument strategies remains robust. As funds consider their future strategies, recent market events have only served to reinforce the need for post-trade processing and infrastructures whose key deliverables are:

  • Data and document management across the lifecycle of the trade that is timely, transparent, accurate, reconciled and real-time
  • Robust, scalable, online support
  • Independent, risk-based valuation that is tolerance-checked within well defined limits.

Starting a Hedge Fund – Primer for Start Up Hedge Fund Managers

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How to Start a Hedge Fund

Many future hedge fund managers have misconceptions about how to start a hedge fund – either they think it is a very basic process that takes no time or resources, or they think that it will take too much time and will be cost prohibitive.  For most start up hedge funds, the manager can be up and running within a month depending on whether the manager will need to be registered with the state securities commission (please see our article on start up hedge fund timelines).  This article will detail the steps the manager will need to take to start the hedge fund. Continue reading →

Oregon Hedge Funds – Investment Advisor Issues

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Questions and Answers on Oregon Investment Advisor Registration For Hedge Funds

Some states will provide a good source of information to start up hedge fund managers which details whether the hedge fund manager will need to register as an investment adviser in the state of residence.  The following resource is from the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities and answers common questions that potential Oregon hedge fund managers would have regarding the Oregon investment advisor registration requirements.

Specifically this set of questions and answers shows us that there is no de minimis rule which would allow managers to escape investment advisor registration in Oregon; the Q&A also details the notice filing requirements in Oregon.  Even though SEC registered investment advisors will not need to register with the state securities division, the firm will need to “notice file” and pay a filing fee and investment advisor representatives of the firm will usually need to have the Series 65 and the investment advisory firm will need to pay a filing fee for the representative.  Continue reading →

Recommended Hedge Fund Articles for Start-up Hedge Fund Managers

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Last week we posted our most popular hedge fund articles to date.  This week we are providing start up hedge fund managers with a “hedge fund manager start up guide” which consists of the most important articles for start-up (and existing) hedge fund managers.  The following article provide you with the background information you need to be prepared to begin the hedge fund formation process.

Our group has worked with over 200 start up hedge funds and hedge fund managers and we know the issues which managers are concerned about.  Please contact us if you have any questions on these articles.

Hedge Fund Presentation

  • Start Up Presentation – this voice-over presentation goes over most of the topics covered in the posts below.  The presentation is about 40 minutes long and discusses the basic issues involved in starting a hedge fund.

The Basics

Investors and Fees

Structural Issues

The Laws

Raising Hedge Fund Assets

Other Recommended

Should a start-up hedge fund have an audit?

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Question: Should a start-up hedge fund have an audit?

Answer: This is a question which we will get very often for funds that aim to launch on July 1 or later.  While there is generally no legal requirement for a hedge fund to have their performance results audited, a vast majority of hedge funds have their returns audited because it will aid in the marketing efforts by lending credibility to performance results.

With regard to this question, and as with most business-issue oriented hedge fund questions, the answer is going to depend on the manager’s program and what the manager plans to accomplish during the first 6, 12 and 18 months of operations.

Generally, first year hedge fund manager’s are going to need to focus on costs. Not only from a cash flow perspective, but also from a return perspective. Any costs (which the fund bears) affect performance. Accordingly, many start-up hedge fund managers may forgo an audit of the fund’s track record during the first year. The manager then may have the fund audited after the end of the fund’s second year. A manager might consider doing this in a couple of situations. The first situation is when the fund starts trading during mid-year or later. In this instance it will probably not make a lot of sense to have an audit for fund operations of less than one year. An exception to this generality is if you have a decent amount of AUM and you are looking to begin courting institutional investors. If this is the case, then it will generally be a good idea to have an audit.

The second situation when a start-up hedge fund manager might not choose to have an audit after the first year is if the manager has a longer term hedge fund incubation program. This might be the case if the hedge fund manager has a longer term trading strategy (buy and hold) or when the manager does not plan to seek institutional money during the second year. Many managers will go with this slow and steady approach to asset raising in order to understand the back end operations of their fund. As noted in numerous places, one of the main reasons why hedge funds fail is inadequate back office operations.

If a start-up hedge fund manager plans to start with a larger asset base, say $10 million or more, and plans to aggressively court the institutional market during the first half of the coming year, then it might be wise to think about an audit. While the decision to forgo a first year audit is strictly a business decision, it is recommended that you discuss this decision with both your legal team and your potential auditor.  Additionally, if you will be using the services of a third party marketer, you will want to discuss this decision with the third party marketer.