Deepak Gurnani, Founder and Managing Partner, Versor Investments and Thiago de Freitas, Senior Portfolio Manager, Liquid Alternatives, UPS Group Trust “The Search for Uncorrelated Alpha: Systematic Global Macro”
Release Date: 07/28/2021
Jonathan Xiong, Former Asia Pacific Co-CEO of Millennium, “Creating an Asia Focused Multi-Strategy Asset Manager”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Jonathan Xiong, former Asia-Pacific Co-CEO of Millennium. After a 20+ year career in portfolio management working for some of the top investment houses in the business including Millennium, GSAM, Mellon Capital and Franklin Templeton, Jonathan has taken the bold step to start his own asset management business. I was intrigued with Jonathan’s background after reading a Bloomberg article about him launching his own Asia multi-strategy fund. The platform model is dominated by the largest and most well established firms like Millennium,...
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Amanda Moore, CEO and Co-Founder, Aurora Peak Capital, “Building a Mission-Driven Investment Firm in Affordable Housing”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Amanda Moore, CEO and Co-Founder of Aurora Peak Capital, a mission-driven investment firm, dedicated to alleviating the U.S. housing affordability crisis through investments in below market-rate multifamily housing communities. Amanda's first home in the United States was an affordable housing complex in Los Angeles County. Her family were Vietnam war refugees who were rescued by the U.S. Airforce from refugee camps and flown to California and placed in a Section 8 community. Amanda is grateful for the Section 8 housing complex because it filled her...
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Soo Kim, Managing Partner and CIO, Standard General, “What it takes to be an Independent Thinker…”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Soo Kim, Managing Partner and CIO of Standard General, an investment firm he started in 2007. Soo also serves as Chairman of Bally's Corporation. Soo has been investing in special situations strategies since 1997, including as co-founder of Cyrus Capital Partners from 2005 to 2007 and at Och-Ziff Capital Management from 1999 to 2005, where he was a Principal and co-founder of its fixed income business. Before joining Och-Ziff, he was an analyst for the Capital Management Group at Bankers Trust Company from 1997 to 1999. Soo holds an A.B. from the...
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Eva Ho, General Partner, Fika Ventures, “My Path to becoming an early stage tech focused Venture Capitalist”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Eva Ho, General Partner of Fika Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that invests in founders solving meaningful, systemic problems through the use of data, related AI-enabled technologies, and automation. While this horizontal thesis allows Fika Ventures to be fairly sector agnostic, the firm is especially drawn to innovations in enterprise software, fintech, marketplaces, and digital health. Fika is investing out of their Fund III and has committed capital of over $300 million life to date. Prior to Fika, Eva was a founding GP at Susa...
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Marcie Frost, CEO, CalPERS, “A Role Model for the Investment Community”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Marcie Frost, Chief Executive Officer of CalPERS. Marcie joined CalPERS as CEO in October 2016. She is the ninth CEO and second woman to head America's largest pension fund. As CEO, Marcie oversees an annual budget of $1.8 billion, an experienced team of 2,800 professionals, and three lines of business for the fund: pensions, health benefits, and investments. CalPERS administers a defined benefit retirement system for more than 1.9 million California public sector workers and their families. It is the nation's second-largest purchaser of health care...
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Arun Assumall, Global Head, Cross Asset QIS & Commodity Investor Products, Macquarie Group, "My Path to Building a Global QIS Business at Macquarie”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Arun Assumall, Global Head of Cross Asset QIS and Commodity Investor Products at Macquarie Group. Since joining Macquarie in 2011, Arun has built an impressive global business within the bank by offering sophisticated investors access to beta and risk premia strategies commonly referred to as Quantitative Investment Strategies, QIS. In a recent article published by Bloomberg, they estimate that over $370 billion in investor assets are currently tied to QIS offered by investment banks. So what does it take to build a global business from...
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Andy Lee, Managing Partner, Parallaxes Capital, “Delivering the Holy Grail for Institutional Investors - Uncorrelated Returns”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Andy Lee, Managing Partner of Parallaxes Capital, an investment firm he founded in 2017 at the age of 26. Previously, Andy was with Lone Star Funds and, with Lone Star’s support, he spun off to form Parallaxes Capital to take advantage of an esoteric and growing asset class – Tax Receivable Agreements (TRAs). Andy is as smart and talented as they come, having entered college at 15 and earning his Bachelors in Finance and Accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He went on to earn his Masters in Accountancy before...
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David Ng, Vice President, Avante Capital Partners, "Meet 2023 Norman Mineta Fellow and Rising Star: David Ng"
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is David Ng, who is a Vice President at Avante Capital Partners, a boutique private credit firm with approximately $1 bn in AUM that harnesses the power of diversity and challenges the status quo. David joined Avante in 2022 and is responsible for identifying, underwriting, executing and managing investment opportunities. David has over 10 years of middle-market debt and equity experience. Prior to Avante, David worked as a Vice President in Partners Group’s NYC office, where he was responsible for originating, underwriting, structuring, and...
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Sarah Hammer, Managing Director of the Center for Innovation in Finance and Senior Fellow of the Alternative Investments Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, “A Learning Mindset and the Importance of Learning Agility in Leade
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Sarah Hammer, Managing Director of the Center for Innovation in Finance and Senior Fellow of the Alternative Investments Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and who most recently served as Acting Secretary of the Dept of Banking for Commonwealth of PA and has now returned to her love for private capital investing and financial technology. She is also Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, teaching a course on financial regulation and alternative investments. No stranger to public service,...
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Pedro Ramos, CEO, Somar Capital Management, “Starting a Long/Short Hedge Fund is Hard…. But my timeline is infinite…”
AAAIM High ELI
Our guest for today’s podcast is Pedro Ramos, CEO of Somar Capital Management, a consumer focused equity long/short hedge fund he started in 2015 after perfecting his craft as a portfolio manager at Tremblant Capital. Pedro combines strategy consulting, investment banking, entrepreneurial and buy-side public and private investing experience in multiple industries and countries. His investing activities have spanned multiple macro-economic and political scenarios (including the 1980s inflation, the 1990s dot.com bubble, the 2008 GFC, sovereign crisis, Brexit, and the 2020-2021 Covid-19...
info_outlineOur guests for today’s podcast are Deepak Gurnani, Founder and Managing Partner, Versor Investments (formerly known as ARP Investments) and Thiago de Freitas, Portfolio Manager for Liquid Alternatives, UPS Group Trust.
Alpha is hard to come by, but uncorrelated alpha is even more rare. I wanted to dive deep into a hedge fund strategy that was truly uncorrelated to equity beta as well as long duration rate/credit beta. When discussing the topic with Thiago, one of the best in the business with a keen eye for uncorrelated alpha, he suggested a conversation with Deepak Gurnani who runs a systematic, relative value global macro strategy leveraging AI and ML. I found Deepak to be humble, transparent, and grounded despite the success he has achieved in his career formerly as the CIO for Investcorp’s fund of hedge funds and now as the founder and managing partner of his own hedge fund, Versor Investments. It is great to see a good guy, an Asian guy albeit, achieve success and truly build something unique and high impact for sophisticated institutional investors.
Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Deepak and Thiago.