Washington reaches out to Greenwich as the US President sends an economic emissary to initiate a dialogue with hedge funds about the industry...

Alternative Investment News New York:

Over the past year the hedge fund industry has continued to grow and more importantly, preserve capital. Notice of these facts has reached Washington DC. Recently, Korok Ray, an academic from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, who is currently serving as Senior Economist on the Council of Economic Advisers for the Executive Office of the President, made a special trip to Greenwich, Connecticut. The purpose of this trip to one of the largest hedge fund centers in the United States was to discuss various issues relating to the hedge fund industry directly, as well as to the financial markets at large.

One of the industry representatives, and the only fund of funds, which Ray met with was Sands Brothers Asset Management, the US-based asset manager that has a global, multi-strategy family of fund of funds (Select Access Funds), an asset based lending fund (Genesis Merchant Partners), and several other alternative vehicles, running approximately $140 million in assets overall. Opalesque recently spoke with Jonathan Feniak, Director and Investment Committee Member, and Daniel Libby, Senior Portfolio Manager and Investment Committee Member at Sands Brothers about their meeting with the US President's economic representative.

"Up until this point the majority of Washington's information has come from the big Wall Street banks. The President and his advisors are realizing that hedge funds are playing a critical role in the development of the economy," Feniak said. Over the past year, as the large financial institutions have been caught up in the credit crunch hedge funds have achieved growing recognition of their ability to maneuver through the markets and avoid the larger losses that established institutions have suffered. "There have been a few episodes...but by and large the fund of fund indices and the hedge fund indices last year were still very strong," Libby pointed out.

Source:
Washington reaches out to Greenwich | Sands Brothers Asset Management