I think this might be where I part company with most Gawker commenters, but I kind of like the cut of this guy's jib.
I appreciate someone who can tell company managers to their faces (well, almost) that they're frauds, and make major coin while doing it.
Overcompensation issue to one side (I'd say that's a function of there not being enough of them, rather than too many) I do think hedge funds play a useful role in the economy -- and the more they try to stir things up with fossilized management teams, the better. I guess seeing analytical thinking win out is just that important to me, so I'll tolerate all sorts of personal eccentricities along the way. I can even respect the yoga enthusiasm.
@skahammer: I have no problem with hedge fund managers like John Paulson making out like bandits - his investors did too. Where we part ways is that there are way too many hedge fund managers, not too few. I thought the definition of a hedge fund was to manage risk. Your hero didn't do that, losing 32%. I don't care if he is into yoga or not - he lost 32% for his investors and took an extra 2% (if he has a standard hedge fund deal) of their assets as well. I outperformed him. He's no genius.
@registered: I don't know this for certain -- which is what makes this fun -- but if you'll give me some odds appropriate to your level of certainty here, I'd be willing to wager that over a suitably long period (five years? ten?), this guy's investors did make out. I've got twenty-five dollars in my wallet -- how does four-to-one sound?
Your larger point -- about their being too many hedgies -- deserves a more analytical response. I admit I'm just citing a basic macroeconomic/strategy analysis, where the persistence of abnormal profits denotes a market that is insufficiently exploited. I suppose your counterargument is that hedgies work to concentrate rather than spread risk, or that their unregistered status creates an irresistible temptation to tiptoe around the law to others' detriment? Not bad arguments, but I'm curious where you would take them.
Losing 32% is manna in this market. Congratulations on losing slightly less or whatever - unless you're running a fund, I'm not impressed. It's one thing to get lucky shorting oil and Google (like I did this year), but it's quite another to sling a couple billion around.
The problem with hedges in my eyes isn't that they're too numerous, it's that they've been getting too large to be nimble.
It's probably just me, but those pics of the terrace (really his?) and the private jet make me mad. How in the world does a man who loses 32% for his investors - cut the crap about how he out-performed the market -
How in the world does an investment manager who cannot manage investments make that much money? I guess it's the lethal 2% of assets, regardless of performance.
@registered: First, we don't know for sure if he actually takes 2% or if his fee is lower. Second, most hedge funds need the management fee to pay overhead (just like your mutual funds do). For a fund his size, it wouldn't be unheard of for him to have 100 or so employees ranging the gambit from secretaries to portfolio managers. Each of these people get a salary, the lease on the office space needs to be paid, the lights need to be kept on.
I guarantee the vast majority of Loeb's wealth comes from the performace fee that only gets paid when his investors make money.
@Trixie from Toronto: The arabesque photo and the leg stretch photo are HILARIOUS. It's like a "Whole New Julia"---centered, alone, introspective. She believes in whatever she projects in the mirror. She's a devote follower of The Secret crap. If she writes it, says it, wants it--it's hers. There was a fierce determination in this yoga photos. Still, I laughed myself silly.
@Trixie from Toronto: She's an infant. And I really wouldn't call that working out. She is doing that thing you do before you work out--stretching. Seriously, she's 28 or whatever, grow the eff-up. BTW I would love to be present at the inevitable catfight. Mee-ow.
isn't it shortsighted for a hedge fund manager to invest in so many excesses including even the most expensive apartment in NYC?
does that send a message to his clients that (1) he is a master of the universe and they are along for the ride or (2) he is grossly overpaid at their expense
judging from the return on his fund i pick option (2)
When I was a kid we used to love going to the Loeb's house. They were the only family we knew with a built-in pool - that's what we called them back in the early 70s. And, they had a chairlift because their dad was paralyzed from a diving accident. Oh how we loved riding the lift up and down and up and down, pushing the Loeb kids out of the way since they got to ride it every day anyway. I'll always remember Dan Loeb as the kid who ruined my Wizzer Top that I won as a consolation prize on the Bozo the Clown show. I brought it to their house the day after I'd been in the peanut gallery and Dan took it from me and pulled the cord that made it spin sooooo fast then promptly put it on top of his head where it became entangled in his fashionable jewfro. After his mom cut it out of his hair and handed it back, it occurred to me that my Wizzer top would never be the same and it was all that selfish Dan Loeb's fault.
Oh, wait a minute, that kid was named David Loeb. Nevermind.
What a dick and absolutely perfect for Julia Allison--the same outlandish ego, the many pseudonyms used to promote himself, etc., etc. Plus, the Loebsters is 20 years older and will demand sex less and less, and we know our lady of crashed conferences doesn't really like giving b.j.s. He must be the "secret crush" that 14 year old Julia has been twittering about. Can I throw up now?
@JeanBrodie: He is easy, rich and good-looking. Really, she could (and has) done worse. And they have a bond in their common opportunism and disregard for the humanity of others, maybe.
@cassandra: Good point re: shameless opportunism and contempt for the human race. Still, I am actually surprised that our lady of red hosiery would so blatantly twitter about secret crushes and post those ridiculous yoga shots. The man is married. But what does that mean to a woman with no scruples and whose only true love will ever be herself?
@JeanBrodie: A guy like him is never really married. Loeb, like most hedgies, acts single all the time, I'll bet. Even an intellectual amoeba like Julia Allison probably perceived that and made hay.
Owen, sneer at my "backhanded compliments or front-handed insults" as you will, but I still maintain you are better at writing this kind of stuff than that mess you made of Jett Travolta postings.
i read on the cover of the NYT that congress is planning to regulate the hedge fund industry.
any chance that legislation will include requiring hedge funds to reimburse fees if the return they earned investors one year is erased (or worse) the next year?
since hedge fund investments aren't liquid...and most hedge funds can freeze redemption rights...that seems appropriate to me.
@ADismalScience: but is that done year by year or when the fund closes? If the latter is the case then you are right that you would make almost nothing with good perforance but if the performance bonus comes in at the end of each year... different story, no?
Every fund details its accounting method in the PPM. Fees are determined on closes - typically monthly, quarterly, or annually - based on all-time performance marks. So, for example, inception is NAV X and only performance in excess of the largest all-time value of X results in you getting your 20.
@hypocriteoath: Private equity funds tend to take performance fees only after assets are liquidated. Hedge funds tend to do it on a periodic basis (usually December 31). But, like ADS says, each fund is different. Remember, investors in hedge funds have entered into a to a contract with managers and have agreed to the terms before investing. Don't feel too bad for people who paid fees to a manager in year one and then lost money in year two. If they wanted a clawback - they could negoiate one.
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Not like a private jet can't find it's way to Indo or comparable...
And if an art dealer turns away a big-money sale because you're ill-mannered, man, you know you're a new level of insufferable tool.
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I appreciate someone who can tell company managers to their faces (well, almost) that they're frauds, and make major coin while doing it.
Overcompensation issue to one side (I'd say that's a function of there not being enough of them, rather than too many) I do think hedge funds play a useful role in the economy -- and the more they try to stir things up with fossilized management teams, the better. I guess seeing analytical thinking win out is just that important to me, so I'll tolerate all sorts of personal eccentricities along the way. I can even respect the yoga enthusiasm.
Now, who's this Julia Alliblog person? (j/k)
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Your larger point -- about their being too many hedgies -- deserves a more analytical response. I admit I'm just citing a basic macroeconomic/strategy analysis, where the persistence of abnormal profits denotes a market that is insufficiently exploited. I suppose your counterargument is that hedgies work to concentrate rather than spread risk, or that their unregistered status creates an irresistible temptation to tiptoe around the law to others' detriment? Not bad arguments, but I'm curious where you would take them.
02/03/09
Losing 32% is manna in this market. Congratulations on losing slightly less or whatever - unless you're running a fund, I'm not impressed. It's one thing to get lucky shorting oil and Google (like I did this year), but it's quite another to sling a couple billion around.
The problem with hedges in my eyes isn't that they're too numerous, it's that they've been getting too large to be nimble.
02/03/09
Loeb opened his fisrt fund in 1995. If you invested in 1995 you are probably way ahead of the game (even with the 2008 losses).
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How in the world does an investment manager who cannot manage investments make that much money? I guess it's the lethal 2% of assets, regardless of performance.
02/03/09
I guarantee the vast majority of Loeb's wealth comes from the performace fee that only gets paid when his investors make money.
02/02/09
Is she fucking 12?
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The yoga poses -- so hilarious. And so subtle!
"Look at me!!! You like yoga?? I can do yoga!!! Look!!! Here I am!! Doing yoga!!!!!"
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does that send a message to his clients that (1) he is a master of the universe and they are along for the ride or (2) he is grossly overpaid at their expense
judging from the return on his fund i pick option (2)
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Oh, wait a minute, that kid was named David Loeb. Nevermind.
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any chance that legislation will include requiring hedge funds to reimburse fees if the return they earned investors one year is erased (or worse) the next year?
since hedge fund investments aren't liquid...and most hedge funds can freeze redemption rights...that seems appropriate to me.
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The "20" of 2/20 is based on positive performance above watermark. You make almost nothing if you don't perform.
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Every fund details its accounting method in the PPM. Fees are determined on closes - typically monthly, quarterly, or annually - based on all-time performance marks. So, for example, inception is NAV X and only performance in excess of the largest all-time value of X results in you getting your 20.
02/03/09