The 20 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds 2008

Prior to Research Affiliates, Hsu was an asset-liability consultant at Farmer’s Insurance, where he helped design a risk value system for the pension investment group. From 2000 to 2001, he was an investment consultant to companies and firms that included Farmer’s Insurance. From 1998 to 1999, he was a v.p. of derivatives research and trading at Far Eastern Securities in Taiwan, where he built and managed the firm’s index arbitrage desk and managed the derivatives research and trading group. He noted that, from there, a career in finance and hedge funds seemed the natural place to go. The company Hsu most admires is The Capital Group of Companies because of its philosophy that the only competitive advantage is culture. While Hsu said he believes hedge funds will become more commonplace and performance fees will come down, he still thinks the fees are the way to go. “Incentive fees make a lot of sense,” he added. “You don’t get paid until you outperform your benchmark.” In 10 years, Hsu said he still sees himself at Research Affiliates, developing new strategies within the hedge fund and private equity space. Furthermore, Hsu – who is an adjunct professor in finance at the UCLA Anderson School of Business and served as visiting professor at the UC - Irvine Paul Merage School of Management and the School of Commerce at Taiwan National Chengchi University – plans to keep teaching. ers approximately 300 companies in the Japanese information technology, software, Internet, telecommunications and technology sectors. Before joining Japan Advisory in 2005, Kirk was head of technology research at KBC Securities, which he joined in 2000. Prior to that, he was with U.K.-based telecommunications company Cable & Wireless in Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and Far Eastern Russia, working on a variety of business development projects. A Japanese speaker, Kirk decided to become part of the hedge fund industry because of what he learned for the CFA exam. “After an 11-year career in the Asian technology industry and five years working as a sell-side technology analyst, I decided that it was time to take the portfolio management knowledge I had learned as part of the CFA curriculum and actually apply it in the real world,” he said.“I began working as a senior analyst for J.H. Whitney’s Japan-focused hedge funds in mid-2005 and moved up to became a senior portfolio advisor from mid-2006 onwards.” Kirk described last year as a humbling time that eventually moderated enough to allow the firm to finish the year with positive returns, despite a tough Japanese stock market. “The greatest challenge for any investor is to live with through a period of poor performance and deal with the daily pain and discomfort associated with turning that performance around,” he said.“You learn so much more about your strengths and weaknesses as an investor when you are losing money, as compared to when you are making it.That process was perhaps one of the most rewarding I have had in my career so far.” In the wake of a proliferation of new hedge funds and advisory firms in recent years, Kirk suspects that the current trend towards industry consolidation is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. “Ten years from now, I envision a similar degree of concentration in the hedge fund world to what we currently see in either investment banking or long-only fund management,” he said, predicting that there is likely to be room for only a handful of large global brands running MAY 2008 10. BRUCE KIRK Senior Portfolio Advisor Japan Advisory, Tokyo Age: 40 Education: University of Glasgow, Scotland (M.A. in Modern History and Politics) Mentors: Peter Rawle, Former Representative Director, EN Asset Management; Robert Zielinski, Senior Portfolio Advisor, Japan Advisory Kirk, a chartered financial analyst, is senior portfolio advisor for an offshore hedge fund and a specialist technology portfolio at Japan Advisory. In that role, he cov- 10 . BRUCE KIRK 26 HEDGE FUND RISING STARS

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The 20 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds 2008 Contents Looking Great for 2008 A Matter of Supply and Demand Return Performance Highlights Challenging Period 20 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds Mentors' Page

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