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People with a problem...

I'd like to cite a good acquaintance of mine. This is what he told us over a beer or two at a hedge funds networking event: We are drinking people with hedge fund problems, not hedge fund people with a drinking problem. Can't help but agree!.. to an extent.

At GSAM seminar...

Goldman Sachs just admitted they put Russia at the bottom of investment attractiveness within "Big 8" country group, at least within the private equity space. Why am I not surprised?

Post in Alphaville

I took the liberty of commenting on an Alphaville post Death bonds’ unique risks . My comment is as follows: Life Settlements are clearly one of the asset classes you need to be extra-cautious investing into, but I have to disagree with the overall tone of this post, which appears to label ALL life settlement investments as money-losing and/or fraudulent products. Among the many life settlement investment managers I had a chance to speak with, there is a handful of people who seem to know what they are doing, having both the right industry experience and a (audited!) track record to back it up. The bottom line is, never invest into something you don't understand. Do your due diligence (especially if that is you fiduciary responsibility!). Pay attention to the valuation policy (no straight-line appreciation to life expectancy), type of policies (avoid those in their contestable period, be wary of the jumbo policies as they tend not to adhere to VBT), and check if the appropri...

[Seminar] Investing in Cat Bonds (in Japanese)

CFA Japan is conducting a seminar on insurance-linked products. The speaker, Mr. Masaaki Katusyama is an industry veteran, with deep knowledge of re-insurance business. He also has the ability to bridge the worlds of capital markets and insurance in a plain and easy-to-follow language. Highly recommended event. Details can be found here: CATボンドへの投資 - 金融危機で実証された、分散効果の高い保険リンク証券投資戦略 ■

Madoff really is mad. And off

One passage in this article ( Madoff claims Ponzi scheme’s roots legal ) in FT sent me laughing out loud: "Mr Madoff also blamed institutional clients for failing to ask the right questions and regulators for failing to spot the fraud" So, it's not really HIS fault that investors were defrauded. They have themselves to blame... The man is total nuts. ■

Care for a "Cat"?

Are you a dog person or a cat person? Well, I don't know about the dogs, but the "cats" have been gaining popularity with investors for some time now. Not that purring furry things, of course, but the Cat Bonds.