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Head of Investor Relations at $3 Billion Hedge Fund Tells All | Capital Raising 101

31m 33s

Head of Investor Relations at $3 Billion Hedge Fund Tells All | Capital Raising 101

The transcription begins by addressing a common banking inefficiency: the stressful "last mile" problem of correcting presentation decks just before meetings. A tool called Deck Check by McCavicus is introduced to automate quality checks and fix issues instantly. The core content then shifts to a podcast episode focusing on investor relations (IR) and fundraising in hedge funds. The hosts emphasize that IR is a crucial, revenue-generating role, not merely administrative, as it directly impacts assets under management and fund profitability via the "2 and 20" fee structure. The guest, Kate Bauman, Head of IR at a hedge fund, explains that IR involves diverse responsibilities like capital raising, client service, and branding. Success requires thinking like an allocator, understanding metrics like alpha and beta, and clearly articulating a fund's differentiated strategy (e.g., event-driven investing). The process is relationship-intensive, often taking years, and involves targeted outreach to suitable investors, competitive analysis, and ongoing communication to secure and retain capital.

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The worst part of banking isn't the models. Heck, it's not even the PowerPoint. It's the Fire Drills right before the meeting, the last mile problem. When everything is technically done, but suddenly you're finding mistakes in the deck, updating numbers with 30 minutes to go, swapping out pages because when you made that one tiny correction, it had unintended knock-on effects. Because often, the final deck isn't really final. We all know the true final deck is the final, final, use this one version 127. Deck Check by McCavicus solves this last mile problem. Deck Check runs a fast, quality pass across pitch books, sims, and client decks, flagging formatting, alignment, branding, and consistency issues, and fixing them in a single click. So when you fix that mistake, it does a final check on everything. Instead of scrambling at the finish line, final can actually mean final. Visit McCavicus.com to learn more. Hi, friends. Welcome back to the Wall Street Skinny. I'm Jen. I'm Kristen. And this is one of our most asked about topics. You guys have been asking about since day one, we have been scouring for the perfect guest. And today, what we're going to get into is how to raise money for hedge funds. And before you're like, oh, okay, well, that's like a sales role. I'm not interested in that. Do not click away. Because this is one of, I think, the most important, yet least understood elements of all of kind of the sexy hedge funds, private equity, private credit, private capital markets, all turnitives, blah, blah, blah, venture capital growth, okay, do whatever you want to call it. All of the sexy buy side stuff that you are all so interested in. This is at the crux of it. Yet it's the thing that nobody talks about. And nobody explains to you how it actually works. And what it's like for the people who are in these seats. And I think that it's so important to understand just like how hedge funds make money. Like we've talked about this before, but you have your classic two and 20, right? So you make 2% on the assets and their management. And then 20% of any profits you make. But the most important thing is you have to get that money in the door. And the amount of money that you have is literally going to dictate whether you're making, call it $2 million a year or $20 million a year, right? If you have a billion dollars in a UM and you're able to grow it to $10 billion, that's going to, I mean, TEDx, the amount of money that you have coming in, which by the way, then means you can pay the traders more, which then leads to better returns, which means some more capital coming in. And it's basically the self-fulfilling prophecy. But I don't think people necessarily think about the sort of fundraising as a revenue generating seat, but it is because back to the whole point, the 2%, and then the 20%, by the way, that 20% has hurdles and all this other kind of stuff like high water marks. So the 20% as great as it sounds, you're going to 20% of any profits. Like the 2% is what keeps the lights on and allows you to get those traders who are then able to make that 20%. Hiring those traders is not come cheap. There's been so many articles recently in the financial press about how like Baliazni's coaching someone and giving them a $100 million payday or sit at else coaching someone from Millennium and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So being able to get that money in the door is basically step one. And at the end of the day, too, there's different ways that funds can reach capital. So you can have what's called placement agements, third party marketers, or you can have a team in-house specifically. Those teams tend to be called investor relations and marketing. And what's tricky about this is that it sounds super unsexy. Like people think investor relations. And I know personally, I think of it to your point, Jen, it's a fluff job, right? It is a job that if you were, you know, like want to sail off on your iceberg, you go into some investor relations role. Because most people have experience with that from the context of, you know, investor relations at a corporate, at an Amazon. This is not that, right? This is basically people going out and raising money. And by the way, if you are someone who thinks you do good at that, the potential compensation for these types of seats can be huge because you oftentimes will get, you know, if you're a third party marketer, you can get a percentage of the actual money raised. If you are at a hedge fund, you sometimes are going to get points so that is at some percentage of the profits of the fund. So this is not seen as a cross-center. This is actually something that is, it's so so critical. So in that vein, we have Sir Ty and Lo for the perfect guest to bring on to talk about this. This is Kate Bauman, who has had investor relations at Imperium, which is a $3 billion event-driven multi-strategy hedge fund. And Kate has become a dear friend of the Wall Street skinny. She's incredibly talented, has a very impressive background, is wonderfully skilled at her job and just an all-around amazing person. So let's bring her on. Awesome. We are live at Iconnections Global Alts Miami and we are joined here by Kate Bauman. We thought no better place to do our investor relations 101 episode than on site at one of the largest capital introduction conferences in the entire world. And so Kate, we're going to get right into it. Your title is Head of Investor Relations. But this goes by so many different names, whether it's business development or marketing or sales. What is your role? What all of these different titles mean? And what do you actually do day to day? In terms of the different titles and roles, it really depends on the size of the firm, the stage of the life cycle that it's in as well, and the strategy. So Investor Relations is very much that catch all for it. So if you're a smaller firm starting up, you're jack-of-all traits. And doing that, it tends to be called Investor Relations Business Development. As you're in that medium-sized stage of the firm, you may start as a growth larger. Break out different roles, break out IR, break out more sales. You could have strategy or client service as well. And then by strategy, so all of the platforms they tend to call business development is actually PM recruitment. That is their raw materials. As they grow AUM, they need people to manage that. And so marketing is much-- Investor Relations is much more than raising the capital for it, but there's so many different titles for it. Well, I think that actually that brings up a good point. That Investor Relations can be a catch-all that actually can encompass, depending on where you are, different things. It could be almost like going out and marketing and raising the new money. It could be managing the existing clients. It could be, to your point, actually being the spokesperson and going out and talking about the fund. It's not just one thing. And you could have one role at one firm, and it's totally different from what it is elsewhere. But with that being said, so then how do you think about just like how hedge funds fit into the portfolio within you are going out, you are having conversations with people, and you're trying to be like, hey, buy my product, invest in my fund. How are these people who are having these conversations? Like, how are they thinking about why would I invest in your hedge fund? What are they looking at? Absolutely. And I think the best IR people think like an allocator. The whole goal with hedge funds is to drive strong risk adjusted returns, like where it could protect to the downside or provide an uncorrelated return stream. So as the broader market is going up or down, it can really beat its own drum. And so there's different tools. So on long-only side, you're just buying securities outright. On the hedge fund side, there's so many different tools and levers you can use. So whether it's managing your overall exposures, losing leverage, you're using derivatives to protect the downside and hedging. When you have a fund, you have to really think about what differentiates you. How are you different? Why I'm period? Why now? And what investors are looking to-- and their overall portfolio allocation have that role play. OK, you just brought up a topic that I think is so important to dig into a little bit deeper. You were talking about all the different strategies. We've heard of equity long short, macro, relative value, convertible arbitrage. There's so many different types of-- Yeah, I do. I do want to get a straight one of the things that our listeners love. And we love to get into is like, all the sexy Greeks and how you measure yourself. You talked about risk-adjusted returns. When you're talking about your fund and talking about its strengths or what it offers-- and I'm not just talking about Imperian, but one more broadly speaking, speaking from an investor relations seat. What are the metrics that you are focused on that you think your allocators care about the most? Is it alpha? We had a great conversation the other day about how the fact that hedge funds are sexy again. But they're not even beating the S&P, right? So you talk about these risk-adjusted returns. Is your sharp ratio? Is it your beta? What are the sexy Greeks that you are talking to investors about? Or are you not? Is it something totally different? And we are all just living in a fairy tale. No, you're exactly right. I think those all play an important role. So I put myself in investor's shoes. I'm working at three, five-year annualized return. You have a lot of data points to just really get a good sense of the return profile of the fund. But then all the Greeks. So beta, I think, is extremely important. Like your market risk. Go in the market. Beta one, you're moving up and down with the market. Yep. If you're greater than one, it's a lot more volatile. More than the market. And if it's less than one, a lot less movement with it. And if you're negative, you're really moving the opposite direction. Alpha is where hedge funds come in. So beta, there's so many cheaper ways for investors to get beta for folio. Should not be paying hedge fund fees for that. You could go into an ETF or something like that. Alpha is that incremental return generated by skill, all of those tools that I talked about, whether it's security selection, leverage, managing your exposures, derivatives, using to hedge and isolate those individual catalysts that you're trying to do. Good investor relations people underwrite it, just like an investor would. And so what is the role that can play in my portfolio? Hedge funds going different sleeves. And so it depends on who you're talking to. It could be an opportunistic. It could be in the broader alternatives bucket. I think the first stage you really need to do is do your homework. Before you're doing a meeting, know who you're talking to. What does their portfolio look like? You want to put on a silver platter. Like their investment memo for them too. And so the role that we could play in the portfolio. - Imperian is an event-driven multi-strategy manager. We're very low question. - No question, what is the event-driven? - Do you ever cover that before? - Oh, you've been up in the event and so too. - Event-driven, it's like underlying, so like at the heart of what we do, is try to identify companies going through some sort of life cycle changing dynamic, the changes the way that their securities have behaved before. So think it could be transactional, merger-related, or second or third-order effects, some sort of transaction. - Could be structural activists, or is it a little bit more? - Some event-driven activists were not. I think in activists, it can play an important role, but you typically have to telegraph to the market and do certain filings when you get to a certain size. We've always just found it's better to work with management in a constructive way, but there's a lot of great managers out there that do activists. So you have transactional as one component. Structural is very interesting. So think spins, splits, could be, I know. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - No fun. - Read domiceline across regions. - Read the domiceline. - Yeah, there's so much to do. And then more of your bankruptcies, liquidations, restructurings, your stress to stress is also like important. And then we can also traffic in a fifth area, which is more legal regulatory. That beats its own drum. It's more correlated to an election cycle, or you have different heads at all the regulatory agencies studying policy. So typically there's like, prosyclical characteristics of transactional, structural situation. It's like CEO confidence is high. Naturally, you can have more event activity in those areas. - Yeah. - Then more counter-cyclical opportunities within whether it's bankruptcies, liquidations, stress to stress, liability management exercises. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - You know, is that the news? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So whether it's like trying to address liquidity issues or get additional working capital to get to your goals. And then the legal regulatory is a mentioned to be to its own drum. And we're actually at a very exciting time where all five of these areas are firing at all cylinders. So if you're CEO now is the time to do a transformative transaction. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And yeah, so that can do a little favor. - I feel like it's, I mean, this year, and maybe I'm naive, but it does feel like this is kind of very different from the last 10, because we're seeing just Armageddon with basically everything, like different sectors in the S&P, it's like it'll go to like, I mean, not zero, but things are getting hammered. So it's like if you used to be the case that you would just be told, active management doesn't do anything, buy into an index, pay low fees, and just call it a day. And now we're seeing that actually active management really does matter because you can't just buy everything because some sectors are overperforming, others are underperforming. But I do think so much of this. I mean, like you just said, so like you're clearly brilliant. And I think that sometimes people perceive IR to be a fluff roll. And maybe it's because of like the corporate IR, I don't know, like not to shit on corporate IR. (laughing) I'm not just like your old friend. I do think it's one of these things where again, people think that you don't need to like, no, that much, you're just like whatever, like doing admin stuff. And clearly so much of it is in the messaging, in this story. And then also there's like the boots on the ground, the hard work, the travel. Can you just talk a little bit about like, what is the difference between this perception of it being a fluffy, cushy job versus the reality of like you need to have super in-depth understanding of the product, you need to be able to communicate it, you need to be able to actually have their relationships, you need to be doing the groundwork. Can you talk about what that's like? And also just the day to day, how do you do that? - Absolutely. No day is the same. And I think that's why this rural world is just so rewarding, you get to deal with people from all different backgrounds and different cultures. But this is not a sales role dressed up. (laughing) It's so much more. I think that's one component of it is attracting and maintaining talent. But it just from the strategic, before you even do that, who we are is a firm. You're messaging all of that communication, you're building your brand, how is that perceived? Ensuring a line would have interest with investors. That is so important. This is not 2004. Maybe you could have that role as like a gatekeeper. - The 2004 was just like whining and dining and you don't have to do anything. You just like show up and like- - You watched a big head fund and everyone showed up. - Completely different funderies in the environment. I unfortunately was not around for that. It would have been fun. But no, it's definitely a challenging fund raising backdrop. Headphones for the past two years though, the market environment's really reminding investors the role that they can play. And their importance. To your point, the last decade, everything went up. You had a few lips along the way, but really understanding and the importance of risk-adjusted returns and the role headphones can play. Is that something uncorrelated, productive to the downside or idiosyncratic risk, meaning it's situational specific things driving it rather than the broader markets. So for I, I think the first and foremost that I would want to sit down and really understand is how are you different? - Yeah. - Because that's just so important. What are like the four or five really different anythings for appearing? I'll use this example. Beta Neutral. So we target beta of zero to like point one to the S and P. - It's so hard, but it is. - It is very strong risk management and hedging programs to isolate the catalyst. We want to hedge out the broader industry, broader macro exposure and do that. We run with moderate concentration, typically 20 to 35 core strategies make up the majority of our portfolio, about 70 to 80% of the risk. And then we also try to trap again things of fall between the cracks. Less followed, not your everyday hedge fund names, everyone's in all AI or the Google's apples of the world which have been fantastic, but there's so many great things that have a couple billion enterprise value or market calves that you might not have heard of before. And I think it plays an important role in the portfolio. So figuring out how are you different and then who are people stacking you up against? So doing that competitive analysis of knowing back to the risk statistics, in addition to knowing what's your beta. Look at the volatility, your sharp ratio, how are you being compensated for each unit of risk that you're actually taking. And those things really help you figure out how you stack up against the other event driven managers. And you go from all the way activists over to then more on the fundamental side, it really goes across the board. So I think figuring out the messaging and really honing that in is very important. But you're not going to profile well for. So looking at investors that have event driven exposure and that could fit well in the portfolio. - So basically seeing the universe of your calpers, your Ontario teachers, your Harvard endowment, being like who are the people that historically have put money into my fund or my sort of primary fund and then going after them? - Yes. And you can also look at your peers, who are they invested with that too? And you're going to be wasting your time. There's limited time and limited resources out there. Where do you profile well and where do you have the most likely shot of getting over the finish line? 'Cause that's the hardest part. Well, let's talk about that. So I mean, we're here at this giant conference. I think there's something like 19,000 meetings scheduled. We see this one piece of it. Where you're like, okay, I've got whatever it is. 30 meetings a day for two days. But I know that that's not the entire life cycle of this relationship. So can you walk me through a sample relationship of what it's like from inception? Figuring out who that allocator is for whom you might be a great fit all the way to, they invest with you, that's not the end, right? So what is the life cycle of that relationship look like? Yes, and that life cycle, it takes months, years in building. There's an investor that just invests with us and I've known for stepping years. And so much of this is timing with everything. So it's building the relationship, identifying those, you're building the relationship and building trust. I think that's, you're the investor and all the LPs advocate. And I think it's so important to ensure that transparency, that alignment of interest, and be able to articulate your process, is this a repeatable process? That's the most important thing. And how are you different? I was going to say, no, your point about the process is like going back to this industry thing of like, they happen to get a tip about some company that was a potential fraud. That's one thing, but can you do that again? Is it repeatable? Is that something that do have a process that's going to allow that to keep happening year after year? Yes, so I think you're building the relationship. This conference is amazing. We have 30 meetings and two days. And it's a great time, it's 30 minute one on ones, you'll get a good sense. Are you a good fit for them? But so much work goes in before you even come here. How could I fit in each of these investors' Boripolio, their background, and just being able to articulate it clearly, that's really important. So I think the due diligence side, due diligence process, then it's introducing them to all the members of the team. I also think risk management's a very important thing as well. And then there's the whole operational due diligence side, which is extremely important. There's also the consultants can be in gatekeepers we've talked about before. But that's an important avenue that, once you're approved on those, you can really source a lot of new potential clients through that too. Well, and I think one of the things that's so apparent is how important relationships are. And I guess what I would love to understand is like, can you talk about how you got to this place where you were able to build these relationships? How do you cultivate these relationships? How do you find meeting people? What are you doing and what got you to this path where you are now able to be able to call up an ex-moise person? I don't think I can state enough how important knowing the right people is because if you just send a blind email, it's like, people think, oh, I can send an email to someone on LinkedIn. No, they're probably not going to answer you. You have to actually have an insight. So can you talk about how do you get those ins? - Yeah, it's so true, and especially with AI. I feel like investors can smell that in my own way. I think you're gonna be true to yourself, be authentic, and build genuine relationships, and that comes over decades of doing it. So I started off my career at GP Morgan, more at the private bank on the investment side, and that was very different. You're dealing with people I was during the global financial crisis, and it had thought of a better learning seat out of college, and it's personal. You're when you're dealing with high-net worth investors, it's very personal. In the alternatives industry, you're dealing with a lot of institutions. So think in diamonds, foundations, pension, sovereign wealth funds, there's so many different, it's a different skill set. So I think you're slowly building those over time. For me, I think going to conferences is a great way. I thought travel would go down, post-COVID, boy, it was I wrong. - How many days in year are you on the road? - A lot. I'm probably every other week, if not sometime. - Oh my God. - Every week. I do a lot of travel. I think there's no, I think for hedge funds, it's really hard because it's an evergreen structure. You can get subscriptions every month. For a private equity or venture or private credit, you have a deadline. There is no deadline. So to be able to create a sense of urgency, and be like, I'm coming through DC tomorrow, like would you have time to meet? It really helps spur conversations. - I mean, and this is gonna sound maybe a little, not sexist, but it's like, I feel like historically, people assumed that if someone wanted to go into a role, especially if they wanted to have a family, IR was a great place. It was a great seat. And I mean, honestly, I know you have two young kids, but the idea of traveling and being on the road all that time, I mean, I'm not sure it seems like this actually just like cushy job where you kind of float away on your iceberg. It seems like it's actually like really hard pound the pavement. And so I'm wondering if you can talk about the perception versus the reality of the actual ride. I mean, what is that like also having young kids and like doing that? Because that's, I mean, that's very, very hard to do. - Yeah, it's hard. And just know that you're not alone. I think to any working mom, stay at home mom, it's tough. I was fortunate to start my career at GP Morgan where I had women as mentors. They're going through all different stages, like having their first kid or their kids going off to college. And so it's tough. I try to focus on quality on both sides. The quality of the time, not the quantity of time with both my travel and meetings on the work side, but also with my kids. And if I can have that, I'll go to the Middle East last time we spoke. And the Middle East going from back to back meetings, country to country for eight days, land, go to my kid's school, I'm class mom, and try to do it. - Of course you will. - You just, yeah, my God. - Yeah, I know Kate. She's like super woman, I mean. - No, hardly. But I think it's just put one front and front the other and really focus on the quality of time. It is a demanding role. There's an element of building your network, and just hustle. And I'm not a transactional person. That's not me. There's a plenty of very successful IR, business development people that are much more transactional. I like building authentic relationships, and hopefully investors can see that. We might not be a right fit for now, but 10 years from now, or if they go to a different firm, it could be. And so I think it's not being too pushy. And salesy has served me really well and being authentic and fair how it weighs to add value. I tell my team, my goal is for you guys to be one to two calls away from any introduction you need. That's how you're like, I'm a very process oriented person. Not a lot of people think investor relations, who's your role ad ex? - Great, but that can be important. It's so much more of like, you wanna call XYZ Investor, I called my friend yesterday, just to be like a thought partner, it's so much more powerful than just being able to call on someone. - Well, again, you have someone's phone number. If you call, are they gonna pick up on the first ring? Is a very different thing. - Yeah. - You mentioned talking about young people starting their careers. One question that I have for you, I was always told since I was in a sales seat. Okay, investor relations is like the likeliest path for you should you want to continue in your career and move to the by side. But it's very clear that there are a number of different paths that could bring you into a role like yours. For someone who's like, I wanna be cake. What skills would you recommend honing them and how? - I think strong, you need to know the product in and out. And that's really where you can walk in a room and be able to articulate that narrative, explain questions and almost translate it. - It's more retelling. - It is, it's more retelling. - Absolutely, and I are sits like your translator. So you sit between the portfolio managers that are managing the portfolio and the underlying capital that's being invested. And so what is the narrative, you're pulling that out, that narrative and helping craft it so it can be understand. I think you need to be very proactive. I don't like it for any issues to come up. I want to be the one calling investors before it happens. So if you're early in your career, I think getting a strong background of whether it's technical skills. You could go, I think going to a big bank is amazing. The training programs, I'm forever grateful of my time at J.P. Morgan. They're with the class of people all graduating at the same time, going through all the same adjustments post-poll. - Well, that is, you're now obviously. - Oh, absolutely. And that's an early one. But then staying in touch, that's where people lose it. Like for me, I grew up moving every year or two and the way, this is pre-social media, the way I would say in touch is through holiday cards. And that's something I've carried through and it's so special to me. And it's like my way of just checking in with people once a year and that has helped me personally figure out what that is or you could see an article and send it to your mentor. Like this made me think of you and figure out ways to add value. Don't always be like take it as you're building your network ads. - Yeah. I mean, it's so clear when we first got introduced, I mean, you are just so good at trying to connect people and we talked to Jen Procek about this a while back and she was like, so much with networking is like adding value to people's lives and then like, you wanna, I mean, maybe it'll come back someday, maybe it won't, but also like at the end of the day. Why not just do it because also having relationships is good, especially in this world where everyone is isolated. You don't have to be building out your network just because you wanna have that transactional element. It's like, because five years, 10 years, who knows? It could help you in so many ways that may not be apparent. But you are the queen of that. I mean, that's why we were trying to think about like we need to do this I R101 episode. We were like, we need to get Kate because she's just the master. But so again, specifically we're talking about the, I guess big bank training programs. Do you think that a seat in like a capital markets role, sales and trading and investment banking? Is there any that you think might be better? I mean, again, because hedge funds are something that you're not really taught. Like I think it's something you kind of have to be self-starter and learn. But is there any seat that you think you have seen be more helpful? It is a depend on the actual products. Like I'm curious what your perspective is there. - I mean, I think it comes down to hustle. So I've even seen people start over as an assistant and work their way to I R. So it comes down to the people. But you need to have that strong skill set of product knowledge, no matter what it is. The bank training programs are wonderful. Capital introduction teams, also a great way. We learn the landscape of investors, you're building relationships and connecting people and adding value in different ways. So I think that can be a very powerful one on the private wealth or private banking side. You're learning all of these people skills that it's a relationship business and it's so important. So I think it's harder and harder to get in those bank programs. I probably wouldn't get in one today. But yeah. So I think whatever you do, just do that well, become that subject matter expertise, raise your hand on the special projects, wherever you get that opportunity for more, it'll help just launch your career. And do invest in time to grab those coffees, get to know people because those are the early stages that you're planting the seeds and building your network. I feel like network even sells bad. It sounds like transaction. - It's like all your relationships and that'll serve you well. But I couldn't agree more with the way you articulated it. - Awesome. Kate, is there anything that we missed? - Investor relations is such a rewarding role. There's no two days or a like. It's, you have the element of fundraising. You're, we also didn't even talk about more from a strategy perspective. Listening to being that strategic feedback loop. Listening to investors. - Meaning you go to an allocator and allocator. - What's on your mind? - I'm not buying what you're selling. You go back to the portfolio manager and that's valuable information. - Oh, it's so important. And where is their demand? It could be other products. It could be perhaps something customized. The industry is really shifting towards more, like whether it's managed accounts or a fund of one. It could be a, what is that? - What is that? - What is that? - Where you literally have in a fun structure, one LP. So for different reasons, you could do that or SMA separately managed account. It's another one where you've seen a lot more interest in those two. But listening to investors and getting feedback. I think even if you go through a guinea pig, I think if you just have that LP, we have a very good relationship. I remember when I first joined in Perian, I used one of my good relationships as that to figure out where are the pain points. And a lot of those, you can turn into a positive or figure out how to even front run and address those and ease any potential concerns before that even happens. So I think you can learn a lot for investors. The good investor relations people think like an investor, they can talk like a portfolio manager and really understand, but importantly, translate that for the investor. But also think from a risk management side, one of the most important things that people don't think about is you need to diverse as a portfolio manager or CIO. I need to diversify my investor base just like I would do my portfolio. So you need to diversify that by size of investor. It's great to have some big chunky ones, but also some of the smaller ones are very important too by type of investor. So whether it's in downwards foundations, pensions, could be sovereign wealth funds, bank insurance, high net worth, and also by region. If you have one investor turn, it tends to be very small, close to an investor community, you could get a few redemption. So I think being very strategic, forward looking, have a finger of the pulse of all in relationships that you have, whose potential redemption risk, holding investors hand throughout the process, because let's be real, there's going to be bumps along the way. If they're not, you should be asking why. But I think those are okay. And being able to clearly articulate what's going on, this is where being proactive is so important. What happens, what do we do about it, and what is the lesson learned? And that is so powerful, 'cause back to what we were talking about with repeatable process, that is how you're going to build a business. - Oh my God, I love that so much. And again, I love how you brought it back to almost like the flip side of it's like you are actually trying to diversify your investor base. And so anyway, this was amazing, Kate, thank you so much. And so if people want to get in touch with you, find you, can they find you on LinkedIn? - Hi, I'm Emily. - And I'm always happy to help. - Awesome. - Amazing. Thank you so much, Kate. - Thank you so much. - You guys appreciate it, thank you.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The "last mile" problem in banking involves frantic last-minute corrections to presentation decks before meetings, which Deck Check by McCavicus aims to solve by automating formatting and consistency checks.
  2. A podcast discussion highlights investor relations (IR) and fundraising as critical, high-compensation roles in hedge funds, debunking the perception of IR as a "fluff" job.
  3. Effective IR requires deep product knowledge, strategic messaging, and understanding allocator needs, focusing on a fund's unique value proposition (e.g., risk-adjusted returns, alpha generation) and fitting into an investor's portfolio.
  4. The fundraising process is relationship-driven and lengthy, involving identifying suitable allocators, competitive analysis, and persistent communication to secure and maintain investments.

Summary:

The transcription begins by addressing a common banking inefficiency: the stressful "last mile" problem of correcting presentation decks just before meetings. A tool called Deck Check by McCavicus is introduced to automate quality checks and fix issues instantly. The core content then shifts to a podcast episode focusing on investor relations (IR) and fundraising in hedge funds.

The hosts emphasize that IR is a crucial, revenue-generating role, not merely administrative, as it directly impacts assets under management and fund profitability via the "2 and 20" fee structure. The guest, Kate Bauman, Head of IR at a hedge fund, explains that IR involves diverse responsibilities like capital raising, client service, and branding. , event-driven investing).

The process is relationship-intensive, often taking years, and involves targeted outreach to suitable investors, competitive analysis, and ongoing communication to secure and retain capital.

FAQs

The 'last mile problem' refers to last-minute errors and updates in presentation decks before meetings. Deck Check by McCavicus solves this by running a fast quality pass to flag and fix formatting, alignment, branding, and consistency issues with a single click.

Fundraising is essential because the amount of assets under management (AUM) directly impacts revenue through management fees (e.g., 2%) and performance fees (e.g., 20% of profits). More AUM enables hiring better traders, potentially leading to higher returns and attracting more capital.

Investor Relations involves raising capital, managing existing client relationships, and acting as a spokesperson for the fund. It requires deep product knowledge, strong communication skills, and relationship-building, varying by firm size and strategy.

Allocators prioritize risk-adjusted returns, including metrics like beta (market risk), alpha (skill-based returns), Sharpe ratio (risk-adjusted performance), and volatility. They seek funds that provide uncorrelated returns or downside protection in a portfolio.

Event-driven investing focuses on companies undergoing life-cycle changes, such as mergers, spin-offs, bankruptcies, or regulatory shifts. It aims to profit from securities behavior changes due to these events, often with low correlation to broader markets.

Hedge funds differentiate by highlighting unique strategies, such as being beta-neutral, using strong risk management, focusing on less-followed securities, and demonstrating competitive advantages in risk-adjusted returns. Effective messaging and competitive analysis are key.

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