Thinking About Starting Your Own Hedge Fund? Think Again.


I don’t know if any of the recently unemployed out there were tossing around the idea of starting hedge funds out of their parents’ basements but Jane Buchan, CEO of Pacific Alternative Asset Management, says you can forget about that. Because You. Will. Fail. Speaking at the Reuters Hedge Fund and PE Summit yesterday, Buchan stated the obvious, which is that no qualified investors are going to give you any money. To illustrate the point**, she asked for a volunteer from the audience to come up to the front of the room and role play with her. Buchnan played the role of the guy looking for bills, and some kid named Dave played the qualified investor on the other line, whose job was to pretend to slam down an imaginary phone.
Buchan: “Hi, I'm trying to raise some money for a hedge fund because I just got shitcanned from Citi. I have no track record ‘cept the record I set for number of times broken into Vikram’s executive bathroom to relieve myself. Ten times. He caught me on that last one, which is how I got fired, and would explain why I’m calling you. Nine figure minimum. Hello?”
Hedge Funds' Lure Still Hot But Success Uncertain [Reuters via NYT]
**NB: This scenario happened in our heads only, and did not actually occur at the conference.