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We are launching Friday Only Club!

Oscar de la Renta chose not to show at New York Fashion Week and instead streamed on Amazon. Is Amazon a suitable forum for a luxury brand? CEO Alex Bolen said, "I'm not sure. But we have to experiment with new ways to get our story out." https://lnkd.in/g4rZMxyb We launched our funds when Covid started and with the halt in travel and tough fund raising environment for emerging managers, we focused on performance and experimented with new ways to reach out to allocators, namely Linkedin posts and YouTube videos which can now be binge-watched on  www.quantflix.com . True, some people say that with the positive fund returns last year for both our long-only equity and multi-strategy funds, and the China fund outperforming its benchmark by its annualized double-digit aim, it was expected that we would pass the $100m mark. But when times are bad, most new investment monies went to well-known funds that are much bigger with a marketing budget that we cannot afford. So every lit...
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Lifehacks: the 1997 Bordeaux edition

I finally found an audience for my '97 white Bordeaux bottles with the influx of family offices coming to Singapore from Hong Kong/China. To be honest it wasn't a particularly great vintage but it feels a little special to be drinking an important part of history especially as we approach the 20th National Congress of the CCP.


It all sounds rather grand up to this point. Then the corkscrew unwinds with just a bit of the cork. Uh oh, you have a dry crumbling cork.

Lesson 1: Life doesn't happen the way you expect it to go. You don't look cool when you kinda want to be seen as being sophisticated or know what you are doing.

Lesson 2: Deal with emergencies with whatever tools you have.

I didn't have a sommelier on demand, or those two-prong things for old corks. I didn't even have coffee filter paper since my drip coffee now comes with in-built paper filter. So I used two pieces of paper towel. You don't want to use just a single layer because that might break. Three layers would be too thick for the wine to flow through. See video for live demonstration.

The wine turned out to be pretty drinkable. Things are seldom as bad as it seems at first. We launched our funds just as covid started - we are still around and doing well enough to have time to write wine hacks (and the occasional laundry and hair hacks).

Do let me know if you are in town and interested in my wine + local food pairing sessions!

#familyoffice #singapore #china #hedgefund



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We are launching Friday Only Club!

Oscar de la Renta chose not to show at New York Fashion Week and instead streamed on Amazon. Is Amazon a suitable forum for a luxury brand? CEO Alex Bolen said, "I'm not sure. But we have to experiment with new ways to get our story out." https://lnkd.in/g4rZMxyb We launched our funds when Covid started and with the halt in travel and tough fund raising environment for emerging managers, we focused on performance and experimented with new ways to reach out to allocators, namely Linkedin posts and YouTube videos which can now be binge-watched on  www.quantflix.com . True, some people say that with the positive fund returns last year for both our long-only equity and multi-strategy funds, and the China fund outperforming its benchmark by its annualized double-digit aim, it was expected that we would pass the $100m mark. But when times are bad, most new investment monies went to well-known funds that are much bigger with a marketing budget that we cannot afford. So every lit...
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Influx of family offices from China

I was talking with friends about the extremely impressive resumes - did these kids start as child-labor when they were 12?! - I get from students these days and remarked, "I'm glad I was First Gen". Many US colleges have priority admissions set aside for those whose parents did not have a college education. One friend who also went to an Ivy-League said, "I'm sure you were just good, because many applicants from Singapore were also First Gen twenty, thirty years ago." Even if I was in fact admitted because I was a First Gen, should I feel that I might not have been as good as my peers? Should any advantage in the system make achievements less worthy? I'd say to take every advantage there is as long as it has not been obtained unfairly (or illegally - like photoshopping your face on a crew athlete). After getting in the school, you still have to study hard to get that summa cum laude. Feeling bad about getting that promotion because you think the firm nee...
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The First Edition of Friday Only Club!

  I got a latte art portrait of me today. It's not a "big deal" but shows the barista cares (at 9am in the morning). (No comments on how I look, especially my Bombastic Hair*, unless you look better with no Photoshop in your mid-40s with no makeup). Maybe some would say this is just business, the cafe is trying to get you to buy more coffee. But this is what differentiates a human barista from the Nespresso machine. Recently with year-end celebrations, New Year and Chinese New Year parties, I have been going to fancy wine dinners. I do appreciate the effort, and savings, but after talking to fellow investor friends I realized that sometimes we just need a cool place to chillax and share ideas (aka complain about investments that didn't work out). We can even bring our own wine. This coming Friday Only Club at Gao Cap Bar we'll have an expert talk (while drinking) about how to start an art collection, because a client asked me about displaying art in humid Singapor...
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