Registration & Continental Breakfast

Formal opening and welcome remarks

Keynote Presentation - Counterparty and Prime Broker Risk: The Underestimated Menace to Hedge Fund Investing

Counterparty and prime broker risk is a significant - but underestimated and often misunderstood - problem for investors and managers in hedge funds. Had Bear Stearns not been rescued, vast amounts of hedge fund assets would have been frozen, and probably lost.

In the aftermath of this near miss, Rick Sopher will outline the arcane risks that hedge fund managers are exposed to, and suggest some possible manager level and industry-wide solutions to eliminate or at least reduce these significant risks.

Family Office Panel

Family offices have been amongst the most innovative early investors. This panel will examine how they are currently looking to allocate, what strategies they consider to be the "new new" thing and how they are adjusting their portfolios in light of current market conditions and challenges. They will also weigh in on the risks they are encountering in the current environment.

Coffee Break

Industrialization of Hedge Funds: The Rise of Operational Due Diligence TM

Institutional investors continue to intensify their resolve that alternative investment managers have strong systems of internal controls and comprehensive business infrastructure. A significant part of an investor’s responsibility lies in developing and refining operational risk and legal due diligence processes so as to monitor the investment management firms managing their assets. This session will explore the components of a comprehensive operational and legal due diligence review process, strategic methods to refine due diligence reviews, tactical techniques to enhance due diligence processes, and the strategic and tactical value of hedge fund ratings. The panel will analyze the errors in due diligence processes which caused allocators to miss key warning signs in recent hedge fund implosions, and look at innovative due diligence approaches to identify potential implosion candidates.

Institutional Investor in partnership with the Regulatory Compliance Association is delighted to offer this panel, produced by various faculty members of the RCA's CCO University.

Content copyrighted by the Regulatory Compliance Association, all rights reserved.

Socially Responsible Investing in Europe: Impact on Individual Managers and the Hedge Fund Industry

Europe has led the world in socially responsible investing and has provided a model which the United States is now following. But as socially responsible investing has evolved and as more investors ascribe to it, numerous issues have emerged. For instance, SRI now encompasses green capitalism, corporate governance concerns, and varying social beliefs and political agendas. What are managers doing to cope with this new world of increasingly diverse yet vocal clients, each espousing an agenda? What will the impact be on the hedge fund industry as a whole?

The Continuing Evolution of the Institutionalization of Hedge Funds

How is the continuing shift from high-net-worth investors to pension funds changing the face of the alternative investment industry? How are the demands of institutional investors different from earlier generations of investors? And how are these demands impacting hedge fund managers' risk tolerance, infrastructure and business models?

Luncheon

Featured Speaker: Correlation of Uncorrelated Investments

Coffee Break

Activist Investing

Hedge fund activists have often gotten a universal beating in the broad financial press in recent years. But as the alternative activist community has grown and matured, many now recognize the value that managers can bring to underlying companies and to their stakeholders. How are activist hedge fund managers sourcing and developing value in underlying companies today? How are they executing plans to extract the most value from companies, either via adversarial or by “constructionist” means? Finally, in what instances do the interests of the activist hedge funds intersect with the interests of the majority, the more traditional shareholders?

How Are Funds of Funds Adapting to the Maturation of the Industry?

How are investors currently evaluating funds of funds? How are investors choosing amongst funds of funds? How do they differentiate themselves against multi-strategy players? As some funds have evolved into tactical maneuvering, others are continuing the “buy and hold” tradition – which is best for investors?

Cocktail Party Sponsored By BNP Paribas Securities Services

Breakfast

Keynote Presentation - Beyond Past Performance: Evaluating Managers on Overall Portfolio Construction

Past performance can be extremely compelling when evaluating hedge funds. In fact, it is commonly cited as the single most important factor in an investor’s decision of which manager to hire. Yet when do allocators rely too much on past performance to the exclusion of other critical factors? This panel will examine the process needed to assess and evaluate those other factors, including business models and management, risk evaluation and controls, quantitative analysis, idea generation resources, portfolio construction, liquidity, depth and consistency of staff, investment style and philosophy, and the trading capacities necessary to implement strategy.

A Shift in Focus: The Growing Influence of the Middle East and Asia

For the first time in modern history, more investment capital is moving into and between the emerging regions of Asia and the Middle East than between the developed markets of North America and Europe. These two geographies represent not only some of the most promising investment opportunities globally but also have come to be seen as home to two of the fastest growing pools of assets—assets that need to be managed. Hedge funds, and to a lesser extent private equity managers and venture capitalists, are positioned to benefit, as long as managers understand the unique characteristics that can facilitate success in both regions. This session will address some of the most fundamental issues to funds’ ability to continue to attract and service clients from these two areas and will underscore the fundamental reasons Asia and the Middle East promise to be the investment hubs and investor hotspots of the future.

Coffee Break

European Pensions: What is Next in the Relentless Pursuit of Alpha?

European pensions face continuing challenges in their investment allocation: How can they get the risk-adjusted returns they need, even as some historically well-performing strategies suffer from poor performance. How can they balance the need to protect capital with the pursuit of alpha? In an era of increasing uncertainty, how are Europe’s pension leaders approaching their alternative strategies? How are allocations being adjusted? Out of which strategies and into which promising ones? What risk management is being deployed to compensate for the increasingly esoteric nature of some of the best performing strategies (eg, freight derivatives)? What investment, performance, reporting and operational demands will be placed on managers, and how can investors’ expectations be met? This panel of investment officers from leading European pension plans will examine the pursuit of alpha within the context of an environment wherein some traditionally out-performing hedge fund strategies are having to make way for new, more promising strategies.

Regulatory Outlook Panel

The escalating regulatory environment has created a new dimension of risk within the alternative investment community. Fund managers face an entirely new set of enterprise risks, including prolonged or extended inspections or investigations with regulatory staff, adverse publicity of regulatory deficiencies and sanctions, and potential revocation of the firm’s registration status or licensure to continue operations. Consequently, many allocators continue to place a high degree of importance upon regulatory compliance as part of their due diligence efforts. Many institutional investors have become significantly interested in analyzing and evaluating the fund manager’s governance and compliance infrastructure as well as conducting extensive interviews with firm personnel. The panel will provide a preview addressing the issues of interest to regulatory authorities in the prospective year.

Institutional Investor in partnership with the Regulatory Compliance Association is delighted to offer this panel, produced by various faculty members of the RCA's CCO University.

Content copyrighted by the Regulatory Compliance Association, all rights reserved.

FX Investing

How are hedge funds being impacted by the increasingly complex world of FX? How are seemingly uncorrelated markets becoming increasingly correlated by common factors such as currency fluctuations? And how are foreign currency reserve policies impacting world currency values, especially in places like China and the Middle East?

Luncheon

Conference Concludes