Conference highlights state’s role as hedge fund hub
GREENWICH — The first Greenwich Economic Forum packed the waterfront Delamar hotel for its inaugural gathering last year. The sequel is set to fill the house, too.
After its first run proved that Greenwich could host a major financialservices conference, its second edition, to be held Tuesday and Wednesday, confirms that the
GEF is on its way to becoming an industry tradition. The gathering also reflects southwestern Connecticut’s enduring prominence as a hub for investmentmanagement firms, including hedge funds — a sector whose performance has recently fluctuated, but whose largest firms appear committed to the area.
“This conference is a way to reinforce that Connecticut, and especially Greenwich, are a center of the industry,” said Bruce McGuire, a GEF cofounder and president of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association. “The Forum has put us on the radar of a lot more people, and I think this year’s conference will only help us build even more awareness.”
The GEF organizers wanted to create an event that would rival the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland.
GEF does not yet match WEF’s renown, but it has drawn a number of the leading figures in the alternativeinvestments sector. The approximately 400 people set to attend this year’s conference represent firms managing a total of more than $15 trillion in assets, according to GEF organizers.
Ray Dalio, founder of Westportbased Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund by assets under management, and Paul Tudor Jones II, founder of Stamfordbased hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp., will lead off the conference Tuesday morning with a “fireside chat.” Both also appeared last year.
“I live in and am in love in with Greenwich, CT, and I love economics, so I naturally love the Greenwich Economic Forum, which brings smart people together to discuss what’s going on in the economy markets,” Dalio wrote on Twitter and in a LinkedIn post this week.
Other speakers at this week’s conference will include Gov. Ned Lamont; David Rubenstein, cofounder of private equity giant The
For more information on the Greenwich Economic Forum, visit www.greenwicheconomicforum.com
Carlyle Group; Robert Koenigsberger, chief investment officer of Greenwichbased Gramercy Funds Management; Gramercy senior adviser Mohamed ElErian; Marc Lasry, cofounder of Manhattanbased investment firm Avenue Capital Group; and Annie Lamont, cofounder of Greenwichbased investment firm Oak HC/FT and the governor’s wife.
The 2019 agenda will focus on issues that include the opening of China’s financial markets, the growth of private equity and private credit, and the rise of investing centered on environmental, social and governance goals.
“Greenwich is one of the major financial hubs and the Greenwich Economic Forum highlights that fact, which helps to attract new businesses and helps existing firms already here,” said Sabine Schoenberg, copresident of the Town Hallsupported Think Greenwich group, which martkes the town. “It’s also an opportunity to show the worklife balance that we offer to the residents in this town, which I think is really important to the professionals in this industry.”
Among the states, Connecticut hosted the thirdlargest number of active hedge fund managers, with 211, according to a report last year by financialservices datatracking Preqin. Only New York and California had more.
After New York, the state ranked No. 2 in assets under management, with a total of about $384 billion.
Bridgewater and Greenwichbased AQR Capital — another of the world’s largest hedge funds — are unlikely to soon decamp. They, respectively, managed about $163 billion and approximately $119 billion, Preqin reported.
Through the state Department of Economic and Community Development’s First Five Plus program, Bridgewater is eligible for a total of up to $52 million in loans, grants and tax credits.
At the end of June, the firm employed about 1,600 in the state, according to DECD data.
AQR could receive up to $35 million in loans and grants through First Five Plus. At the end of June, the firm employed about 740 in Connecticut, according to DECD.
“The bigger, more institutional firms are in a better place than the smaller emerging firms; it’s much harder to launch a new firm,” McGuire said. “The big pension funds demanding institutional infrastructure in the managers that they put money with it just increases the barriers of entry for smaller firms. … But on a relative basis, Connecticut probably does better than most states because a lot of the big institutional firms are already here.”
Hedge funds in Connecticut and across the industry have posted mixed results in the past couple of years.
Bridgewater’s cornerstone Pure Alpha fund recorded a robust return of nearly 15 percent last year.
But AQR produced last year positive returns in only two of its 41 mutual funds, while Stamfordbased Point72 Asset Management returned less than 1 percent for its investors.
In an apparently related move, AQR confirmed in January that it had made layoffs.