We had troubles getting brokers to organise us meetings with management and/or past staff or customers. This is a core to the research process at Bronte (and should be core to your process too). MiFID made this harder as the brokers in Europe wanted to get paid for their (inferior) introduction services.
We found a solution. Kate Pike.
Kate used to work at Morgan Stanley in London and whilst there she was the best corporate access person we ever used. Then - for perfectly understandable reasons - she moved back to Australia. So we decided to give her a day and a half a week doing our corporate relations (and other stuff).
Fabulous does not begin to describe it.
To give an example: we were interested in a company that sold trace ingredients in fish feed for salmon farms. Without any fuss (though probably with huge hidden effort) Kate got us a phone meeting with the purchasing manager of Biomar. Biomar is the largest fish-feed maker in the world. The Biomar guy knew the prices and competitive landscape in every trace ingredient. This is the sort of meeting you pay an expert network tens of thousands dollars for.
And Kate does it for us on a relatively modest salary a day a half a week. And she is so cheerful about it too.
Not only is Kate fabulous - but she accepts pay in Australian dollars. These Pacific Peso expenses should be just fine for a New York based fund.
I am putting this advert out with vested self-interest in mind. If Kate finds enough work to fill the rest of her week (and pay for private school fees) then we reduce the risk that she goes elsewhere.
So please somebody - hire her. This is a global offer. Time zones work very well for an American based hedge fund for instance.
And did I mention Kate is wonderful.
John
PS - contact her at kate@brontecapital.com
Having worked with Kate at MS in London, and now working at a HF in Sydney, I would second John's sentiments. She is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI never really paid much attention to the whole alpha/beta thing, but reading the OP, I realize there is a guy I work with who fits the "beta" description to a T.
ReplyDeleteHe actually used to whine all the time about how he couldn't get a date (he's a Chinese-american guy) and he would complain that he couldn't even get Asian women to give him a second look because they were all into white guys. He is arrogant and sexist, he's homely, and he wears old T-shirts and dirty jeans all the time. He's also cheap, still lives with his parents, and when he started trying to hit on high school/college age coworkers (he's 40) I had to tell him how creepy it was! At one point, he was trying to approach every young girl who got a part-time summer job there.
When that story came out about the man who shot a bunch of people in a gym because he claimed he hadn't been on a date since 1984 and hadn't had sex since 1991 (or whatever it was), my coworker joked and said to the rest of us, "you guys had better work on finding me a date, or I might end up doing the same thing!"
Now he's telling everyone that he's "engaged" to some girl he met online who lives in another country, and he's trying to get her to move here so they can get married... but he still lives with his parents.
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ReplyDeleteI realize there is a guy I work with who fits the "beta" description to a T. คาสิโนออนไลน์
ReplyDelete