The Times loves rich people so much it cries for them when they lose 20% of their investments in a hedge fund, and the poor, wealthy hedge fund manager feels he must retire from the business:
Two weeks from now, a seven-year-old hedge fund called Alson Capital Partners will return around $800 million to its investors, and shut its doors for good. […]
The fund was founded and managed by Neil Barsky, 51, a former Wall Street Journal reporter-turned-Morgan Stanley analyst, who started his first hedge fund in 1998, just as the “hedge fund decade” was gaining steam. … At its peak, Alson Capital had $3.5 billion under management, charged a 1.5 percent management fee, took 20 percent of the profits, and, when you include Mr. Barsky’s predecessor fund, produced compounded annualized returns of 12.11 percent a year. It’s fair to say he’s made a pretty penny. […]
Although his fund lost money in 2008, it did not blow up; as he put it, the 20 percent loss was “not a disaster but not good.” Although he was forced to make redemptions to investors who bailed out, enough remained that he could have stayed in business. What really caused him to exit the hedge fund business is that he felt ground down by the relentlessness of the job.
Yes, I feel terrible for Mr. Barsky and all his wealthy investors who lost 20% of the wealth they had accumulated over the last decade before the market crashed last year. So sad, another unemployed millionaire burned out from making more millions for his clients. It’s a dirty rotten shame I tell you. Luckily, for him, he seems to have made the right decision:
“I don’t feel a sense of defeat,” Mr. Barsky said, as I was preparing to leave. “We have done well by investors and by our employees. We comported ourselves ethically. Three months ago,” he added, “I started to read books on Buddhism. What I learned is how much of what we do is ego-driven. Why do I feel I have to be the best hedge fund manager? I started to have perspective. You probably want your hedge fund manager to eat raw meat. But as we unwind, I’m pretty comfortable with my mind-set.”
I bet Mr. Barky is comfortable with his financial condition, too. Or at least more so than the millions of unemployed people who don’t have time to contemplate the words of the Buddha because they’re too damn busy having to find a new job to keep paying for their kids’ food, pay their mortgage or rent, or find some way to deal with a family health crisis now that they’ve lost their health care coverage. But, hey, none of those people were a “source” for a New York Times Financial writer, so their little problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in this world, do they. At least, not to Joe Nocera, the author of this paean to his wealthy ex-hedge fund manager and “friend.”
Thanks Joe, you sure put my problems in perspective.