Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - September 2008 - (Page 56)

Women Hedge Fund Managers consumer sector of the fund that she had managed had realized a 16.7 percent annualized return (before fees) over its four-year life and one happy investor encouraged her to start anew. In November 2006 she launched Kacela Partners, hoping to continue to capitalize on her expertise in the consumer and retail sectors. Kacela had a total return before fees of 14.9 percent — in difﬁcult markets — through August 31 of this year, easily outperforming the S&P consumer discretionary index, which was down 23.7 percent for the same period. Still Egrovich, 37 and a self-described optimist, realizes that it’s going to take time lio manager on the high-yield and corporate loan desk at $13 billion Dexia Asset Management, which runs about $5 billion in hedge fund assets. Lagey, who manages the $1 billion Dexia European High Yield and Corporate Loan Fund as well as the $90 million Global High Yield Fund, says she has witnessed the beneﬁts of gender diversity ﬁ rsthand, particularly during the credit crunch of the past year. When the credit crisis ﬁ rst struck in July 2007, Lagey was at the helm. “We didn’t know how much money we were going to lose or how many clients were going to call and ask to take their money back,” she recalls. Juggling anxious clients and market mayhem as she worked 12-hour days, Lagey credits her ability to stay levelheaded in a crisis with pulling her through. Women don’t manage stress the way men do, notes Lagey, 29, who earned a postgraduate degree in ﬁnance from the Sorbonne in 2001. “We don’t necessarily have the same reaction as men. We can have a different sensitivity when we analyze a situation, such as micro or macro views of the world. We bring a kind of diversity.” Women managers are making their mark on Asian hedge funds too. Wing Mui Chris Tang, the 33-year-old CIO of Hong Kong–based Marco Polo Pure Asset Management, has managed that ﬁrm’s Marco Polo Pure China Fund since its September 2004 inception. The $150 million fund has had annualized returns of 34 percent but suffered this year along with most China funds. The Shanghai A-share index is down 54 percent; Tang’s fund is down 34 percent. She was able to salvage some losses by shorting index derivatives and going to cash. After picking among the wreckage, Tang says her current core holding is Guangdong Kangmei Pharmaceutical Co., a leader in traditional Chinese medicines. Reform of the Chinese medical system is expected to provide opportunities for this company, and Tang, a CPA who does her own research, is predicting growth in sales and proﬁts of 40 to 50 percent over the next three years. Cara Goldenberg, 28, one of the youngest women ever to launch a hedge fund, in June opened Permian Investment Partners in New York with $65 million in assets. She starts out with an impressive pedigree. Goldenberg, who has an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Yale University, has been a buy-side analyst at Morgan Stanley, a ﬁnancial analyst at Highbridge and a portfolio manager at New York–based Brahman Capital, where she helped construct and oversee a European equity portfolio whose assets exceeded $2 billion. Like other women who have succeeded in hedge funds, she believes performance is all that should matter — and someday may be all that does — in an industry that seems not to be so irrationally awash in testosterone as it once was. “It is a great field for women to succeed in,” says Feingold. Adds Kacela’s Egrovich: “It isn’t about the X or Y chromosome. It’s about the performance chromosome.” “We don’t necessarily have the same reaction as men when we analyze a situation.” — AUDE LAGEY, DEXIA ASSET MANAGEMENT to stage a full comeback. (Her experience as a seven-yearold immigrant from Ukraine made her a ﬁrm believer in U.S.-based investing.) “The funding environment is more focused on international markets and larger multibillion-dollar funds,” notes Egrovich, who began her career as a junior general analyst at mutual fund company AIM Capital Management in 1992. “Given that we are a little under $100 million and are U.S.-equity- and consumer-sector-focused, it’s probably going to take a little longer.” S mall though it is, the latest generation of women hedge fund managers is well represented by people like Jennifer Pomerantz. One of three women among 20 portfolio managers at Highbridge Capital Management, Pomerantz, a classically trained pianist, co-manages the ﬁrm’s roughly $1 billion global natural resources fund with Nick O’Grady. She joined Highbridge in 2006, two years after JPMorgan Chase & Co. acquired a majority stake in the now $28 billion New York–based ﬁrm. Pomerantz, 29, wrote her thesis at the University of Chicago on the geopolitics and economics of oil and follows such arcane details as oil tanker capacity and trafﬁc. She was early to predict the huge spike in energy prices during the past 18 months. “We ascertained that there was a mismatch between supply and demand for reﬁning capacity before the market knew that,” explains Pomerantz. Her research on energy markets takes her to Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe, where she quizzes CEOs and government ofﬁcials. The increasingly global nature of the hedge fund industry offers many opportunities for women around the world. Aude Lagey is a Paris-based senior portfo- 56 • INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR’S ALPHA • SEPTEMBER 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - September 2008

Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - September 2008 Contents Letter from the Editor Longs & Shorts Pension Corner: Culling the Herd The Good Guys: Ending the Cycle Interview: Press Credentials Cover Story: Rethinking Chris Hohn Strategies: At the Edge of the Earth Profile: Alpha Femals Strategies: Tails, You Lose Research Center: The Top Equity Trading Firms Alpha Bytes: The Light Is On Unhedged: Commentary: Not-So-Dire Diagnosis

Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine - September 2008

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