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
Oldies are Goodies! It's cool to be over 40 in investing land again. No more 'you don't get it because you are not a digital native', or 'you can't use normal metrics for valuations'. I've lived through eyeball-multiples and I'm even a Chartered Valuer (ok certifications don't make me a better valuer but my point is there are defined processes that make sense).
As the FTX saga unfolds, we discover that the 32bn startup was being run by a "gang of kids" living together in a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas.I definitely made some stupid mistakes when I was in my 20s, including deciding to start my own firm before I hit 30. Because you know, 30 is so old. I remember using the word "ancient" to describe people over that threshold. Only in my 20s did I think it was cool to have roommates (albeit the FTX guys and gals were sharing a much nicer pad than I ever had, in the Bahamas where I went for Spring Break).
Then in my 30s I also made terrible decisions because I was new to managing my own firm. My ex-boss Jack Leventhal told me in the early years I had such a difficult time growing the company because I was such a good employee but didn't get old enough in the organizations to manage people. And so for a while I kept having this talented-junior-analyst mindset of doing things myself because I can do it, because I am better than everybody else.
Luckily I didn't have currency that I invented out of thin air (Yak Tokens? Slogan: it's worth it because you say it) or have VCs pour hundreds of millions in me. So I had to create value the good old-fashioned way - by actually making money. Cash flow positive means the lights stay on and there's freshly-ground coffee in the pantry. Given that we don't get coffee bean endorsements.
The FTX crew is super smart. I couldn't even make it to a full math degree once math moved from numbers to alphabets. But hopefully I've become wiser through experiencing failures, losing money in funds run by MIT wunderkids, having paper-profits stuck in startups alongside well-known PE shops. Hey I was even a victim of wine fraud - before 'Sour Grapes' Rudy became popular.
When my teenager nephew asks me "How do you know?", my answer is "Because I'm older!"
#ftx #oldisgold #hedgefund #valuation
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