Financial Times on Hedgestock

[Brian Cady]

http://tinyurl.com/j6jv3

Hedge funds jump on hippie bandwagon
By Stephen Schurr in London 
Published: June 3 2006 03:00

This is the dawning of the age of hedge funds, and, at
last, they are about to have their Woodstock. Even The
Who are showing up.
 
It may not quite be three days of peace and music, as
Woodstock was billed, but next Wednesday and Thursday,
thousands of hedge fund managers, investors and
employees will make the pilgrimage to Knebworth House,
half an hour north of London, to attend Hedgestock,
the "new-age networking event for the hedge fund
community".

The festival features not only Roger Daltrey and Pete
Townshend headlining what the organisers have dubbed a
"kick-asset" concert, but also polo and poker
tournaments, and ranks of retro-hippie VW Camper Vans,
customised and sold starting at £10,000 a time. It is
hosted by Albourne Partners, the hedge fund advisory
firm and proprietor of the popular Albourne Village
website.

In a quintessential hedge fund industry touch, Ashton
Wayne of Albourne Partners has a group, called
Alphaspin, that will play as support to The Who: a
perk of backing the event.

Tom Wolfe recently described hedge fund managers as
the most likely modern-day candidates to re-place his
1980s Masters of the Universe from Bonfire of the
Vanities. The idea of them joining a love-in with
deliberate echoes of the seminal event of the 1960s
counter-culture might seem curious, if not downright
comical.

Indeed, the Albourne Partners founders acknowledge the
irony. The Hedgestock website features pins doves and
peace signs juxtaposed with slogans such as "Make
Money Not War" and "Alpha Male": a reference to
thejargon for a manager'sability to beat the market.

Nonetheless, the planners of Hedgestock, which is
supported financially and otherwise by 10 of the
largest investment banks, are quite serious about the
bash and its goals. One goal is simple networking as
the hedge fund industry goes global: the event
features more than 100 speakers and more than 3,000
"one-on-one" meetings. The bigger goal, the founders
say, is charity: all of the profits from the event
will benefit Teenage Cancer Trust, the charity that
raises money to help children with cancer.

The idea for Hedgestock, said Simon Ruddick,
Albourne's chief executive, came after "quite a dull
hedge fund event in Sweden after which an industry
friend said, 'at least if it had been for charity
someone somewhere would have benefited from it'."

That germ of an idea led to the notion of a putting
the conference in a field instead of a hotel, with a
rock festival feel. Len Gayler, a longtime UK hedge
fund manager who runs Cayenne Asset Management and
helped Albourne launch Hedgestock, said Knebworth
House was the perfect location because of its history
as a venue for fabled concerts by the likes of Led
Zeppelin, Queen and Oasis, and also because of its
proximity to London's thriving hedge fund community.
"London is now the hedge fund centre, at the very
least of Europe," he said.

The conference agenda reflects the bravura of the
hedge fund industry, and its highly developed
self-image: rich enough to have polo and a very high
stakes poker tournament, yet hip and counter-cultural
enough to attract rock bands and DJs from around the
globe.

The big coup, of course, was landing The Who. One
would imagine that a group of well-heeled hedge fund
types would have to pay a princely sum to land the
group, who performed at Woodstock back in 1969. But
Roger Daltrey, who has been active in many charities
and is affiliated with the Teenage Cancer Trust,
signed on for free, and got the band to join him ahead
of their tour.

"One of our tag lines about The Who for Hedgestock is
'you missed them at Woodstock, don't miss them at
Hedgestock'," Mr Gayler said. Mr Gayler is a
two-decade veteran of the hedge fund business who,
unlike many in the industry, was alive at the time of
Woodstock.

Duncan Brown, who raises assets for UK hedge fund
Winton Capital, was five in 1969, but he still is
eager to get into the spirit. "The whole point is to
make it fun. Let's face it, this is the antithesis of
what most of us do every day," said Mr Brown.

His firm is sending more than a dozen staffers to the
event in two VW vans complete with costumes that hark
back to the psychedelic 1960s. But he imagines there
will be some differences from the original event.
"Woodstock was more drug-baked, this one will be
primarily alcohol-fuelled."

The gathering is expected to be lucrative for TCT.
Registration costs £500 a person, and the planners say
they expect between 4,000 and 4,500 to attend. Many
industry participants are making the trek from the US
to attend.

Meanwhile, there are other endeavours to raise money,
such as fees for poker tournaments and other
competitive events aimed at appealing to the basic
nature of the hedge fund manager. "These are the most
competitive people on earth, so there's no bigger
stake than bragging rights," said Mr Ruddick.

>From Woodstock to Hedgestock, it has been a long,
strange trip.


-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com

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