Who'd Be A Hedge Fund?

by Carla Johnson, Investors Offshore, London

23 April 2002

Who'd be a hedge fund? Not only do the press treat you like a leper in a Roman bath, but your employees can't wait to junk you in favour of starting their own competing firms.

The latest victim is Tremont Advisers: after being deserted in February by Bruce Ruehl, who left to join investment banking boutique Gleacher & Co, his replacement William Brown has now left to start his own firm, Eudaimonia LLC, departing just two weeks after he had been promoted to chief investment strategist.

"I resigned from the position of chief investment strategist at Tremont Advisers in order to launch a private alternative investment advisory firm," he said in a telephone interview Friday, adding that he had been thinking about starting out on his own since Tremont was acquired by OppenheimerFunds last year.

Mr Brown means to target wealthy individuals: he feels that Tremont and other hedge fund advisers increasingly focus on bigger investors such as pension funds and endowments, leaving individual investors poorly served. Eudaimonia will initially advise clients on customized hedge-fund portfolios, but in time will offer direct entry into investment products.

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